-
The online home of strategist, creative director and writer Scott Burnham
Stefan Sagmeister installation removed by Amsterdam Police
Posted on September 21, 2008
Filed Under amsterdam, urban play | 27 Comments
After waking up a bit groggy from the festivities of the Urban Play opening party last night, I went for a walk around the installation sites to see how they had progressed after their first night in the public realm, and, well, I got a little more than I had expected when looking for Stefan Sagmeister’s piece: it was gone.
I had asked Stefan to create a new work for Urban Play, and his piece – a sentence designed using 250,000 Euro cent coins – blew me and everyone away each day as it progressed. I had expected a certain ebb and flow to take place within the piece, which is of course the point of the entire Urban Play project, but to have the entire thing completely disappear overnight was more than anyone had expected. After recovering from the shock, I did some research and discovered that the story behind its removal was stranger than anything I could have imagined.
It seems that the Amsterdam police were called by a resident of one of the overlooking buildings early Sunday morning to report that someone was “stealing an artwork”. As the story goes, people were pocketing a few of the coins, which was also expected, but things got a bit out of hand when a resident saw this happening. So the police responded, and, in a rather bizarre instance of police efficiency, they proceeded to “secure” the artwork, by sweeping up the entire installation.
The event is superbly captured on the flickr page of anjens, who lives in a flat overlooking the site.
I will update with more info if and when I get any, but for now, I’d like to give my huge thanks to Sagmeister’s team of Joe Shouldice and Richard The, who along with an amazing team of volunteers worked for many days, literally from dawn to dusk, to install the piece. It was a beautiful addition to the Urban Play project, and will be sorely missed.
For now, let’s remember the way it was on Sagmeister’s page on the project.
UPDATE: So, the police say we can have the coins back. Anyone want to suggest what we do with them now?
Comments
27 Responses to “Stefan Sagmeister installation removed by Amsterdam Police”
Leave a Reply
-
Recommended Reading
Ghetto at the Center of the World by Gordon Mathews - An exceptional look inside Hong Kong's notorious "city within a city" housing complex, Chungking Mansions.
Build-On: Converted Architecture and Transformed Buildings - I'm obviously partial to reuse and re-purposing in the built environment; this book is visual candy with some great re-born buildings.
-
Recent Posts
- Reprogramming The City
- The Potential of Platforms
- New Collaboration with MIT CoLab: #oneidea to improve functional city space
- Reuse and Repurposing of Existing City Materials for New Use: Jesolo, Italy
- Private vs Public: Space, Sharing, Trust and Design – A Talk at Social Cities Amsterdam
-
Categories
-
Flickr Gallery
Search the Archives
-
Links
definitely sad to see it all ended this way
after a week full of work and lots of fun this is the very least i expected to happen
-you could put the bags into a permanent exhibition
))
- you could add a handful of the coins to the original pattern paper and sell it on eBay.
(Joe mentioned the folder is still in Amsterdam)
- you could distribute to coins to homeless people in Amsterdam and see, how they spread from there (even though noone is using 1 cent coins anymore).
- use the coins to draw a line between the townhall and the police station to visualize their great lines of communication
Hey, couldn’t you place them back? Or has that been forbidden by the police?
[...] 2008 in Amsterdam. Unfortunately though, the piece was short-lived. Apparently the police swept up the entire artwork a few hours after its installation in an effort to prevent people from pocketing the coins. You can [...]
[...] better.” It took days to complete it, but it was only a mere 20 hours before it vanished, swept up by authorities who were afraid someone might steal some coins. The funny thing is, the creators expected some of [...]
[...] Stefan Sagmeister installation removed by Amsterdam Police (via WMMNAs Delicious) Tags: Art, Installation, Sagmeister [...]
[...] Fettecke in Amsterdam: Stefan Sagmeister und Helfer hatten für die Amsterdamer Ausstellung “Urban Play” aus 250.000 Ein-Eurocent-Münzen den Satz “Obsessions make my life worse and my work [...]
best thing ever is how it ended! i can imagine one of the police officers having to deal with this bizarre situation and coming up with “Let’s move this art!”
It was supposed to be stolen but the police made it safe by destroying it. This made the piece waaaaay better!!! Congratulations Dutch police!
[...] [Via ScottBurnham] [...]
[...] [Via ScottBurnham] [...]
Unexpected interaction was what the project was about, right?
[...] It seems that the Amsterdam police were called by a resident of one of the overlooking buildings early Sunday morning to report that someone was “stealing an artwork”. As the story goes, people were pocketing a few of the coins, which was also expected, but things got a bit out of hand when a resident saw this happening. So the police responded, and, in a rather bizarre instance of police efficiency, they proceeded to “secure” the artwork, by sweeping up the entire installation.” Scott Burnham [...]
[...] Weitere Infos und Bilder gibt es bei rebelart oder scottburnham.com. [...]
[...] Logo depois do ocorrido a polícia concordou em devolver as moedas. Burnham aceita sugestões do que fazer com elas em seu blog. [...]
a strange way of protection. a fence could have done the job too.
but nice one from dtefan sagmeister!
[...] worse and my work better”. more photos you can see here. and a funny story behind the event here. Verfasst von morgenkaffee Eingeordnet unter kunst ·Schlagworte: art, installation, [...]
[...] (via scott burnham) [...]
[...] Police in Amsterdam removed Sagmeister’s contribution to the ExperimentaDesign installation — a sentence made from 250,000 Euro cent coins — within 24 hours of it launching. Scott Burnham, creator and curator of the Urban Play project for Droog Design describes the events on his blog. [...]
[...] by Stefan Sagmeister to form a birds-eye graffiti on the ground. Only hours after it was finished, the police came and scooped up all of the [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeff Erickson, Mugizi Rwebangira. Mugizi Rwebangira said: RT @jefferickson: 8 days, €2500, and the truth: http://bit.ly/cWId4B (Sad ending: http://bit.ly/dl4A0d) [...]
[...] Read the first hand anecdotal twist to this story on Scotts own website. [...]
[...] the construction of a Stefan Sagmeister piece made up of 250,000 one cent pieces and its subsequent thoughtless destruction by dumb cops who were trying to protect the raw cash. His conclusion was that we’ll always have [...]
[...] best story I heard all day was from Scott Burnham about this wonderful piece of street art made from pennies. (thanks to anjens for [...]
[...] by Scott Burnham, an ‘urban strategist’ and creative director who told the story of a Stefan Sagmeister installation in Amsterdam, and Karen Lubbock, publisher of the wonderful Karen magazine. I wrote barely any notes during [...]
[...] work — a collaboration with Stefan Sagmeister involving 250,000 pennies — was actually removed by Amsterdam police, in under 24 hours, to stop it from being stolen! But as Burnham summed up, it’s the story [...]
[...] square. It was part of the story of the city for all of one night, when someone alerted the police and they took it all away. Each city tells its story with its buildings, its roads, its people, its food, its public spaces. [...]
[...] ler mais em http://scottburnham.com/?p=105 [...]