Modern artist selling 10-tonne pile of OLD ROPE artwork for eye-watering sum

A MODERN artist is selling a ten-ton pile of old rope — for £1million.

David Shrigley, 57, spent months salvaging discarded lengths from around the country to put in an exhibition.

The finished “piece”, piled high on an art gallery floor, weighs the same as a double-decker bus and would stretch 20 miles if laid end to end,

Shrigley said: “This exhibition started with an idiom. Old rope has no use.

“It’s also hard to recycle, so there’s a lot of it lying around.

“I thought, ‘What if I turn that into a literal exhibition of old rope’?

“And then say, ‘Yes, this is art, and yes, you can buy it for £1million’.”

Rope of varying age, colour and thickness was collected from sites nationwide, including in Dartford, Kent.

Uses ranged from cruise liner mooring to slimmer cords for crab and lobster pots.

Shrigley cleaned and treated it all at his studio before exhibiting it.

He said of the £1million price tag: “You have got ten tons of contemporary art.

“By weight I think it represents excellent value.”

But Sun art critic Toulouse Le Plot said: “It’s the ropiest thing I’ve ever seen.

“David should stick to making proper art and stop stringing people along.”

Shrigley was up for the 2013 Turner Prize for a sculpture of a man weeing in a bucket.

Exhibition Of Old Rope will run at London’s Stephen Friedman Gallery until December 20.