Buy a Hirst butterfly as you fly by? And a new bed for Emin

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

Friday 09 November 2012 12:23 GMT

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Tired of duty free perfume and giant Toblerones? Now Farnborough Airport is selling art.

Travellers with £55,000 to £500,000 in their moneybelts can buy works by Barber Osgerby (the designers of the Olympic torch) and - surprise! – Damien Hirst, whose spin and butterfly paintings hang throughout the tiny business terminal.

A new initiative by Artliner, in association with Haunch of Venison, for now it will concentrate on private airports and other superjet hubs: Ryanair customers need not apply.

“It’s designed for high net worth individuals”, I’m told.

Tracey's Making Her Bed Again

Meanwhile, Tracey Emin will unveil a new bed in her next show, the inaugural exhibition at White Cube Sao Paulo which opens next month.

“Dead Sea” consists of a lonely sculpture of a bronze branch laid on top of a “ready-made” stained mattress. The work echoes Emin’s famous 1998 work, “My Bed”, which featured the artist’s bed complete with dirty sheets, used condoms and overflowing ashtrays.

By contrast, the new chastely minimalist work “hints at sexual desire set adrift”. But where did the “ready-made” stained mattress come from? “It is Tracey’s own mattress”, I’m told. “It’s very haunting”.

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