Book Shredding Action

Stewat Home live action at FormContent Gallery in east London 25 March 2010. This is how you take a book with a retail price of £7.99 (less than fifteen US bucks or 10 Euros) and transform it into something with a value of £1000. And the increase in value doesn't stop there - as this work becomes an art world legend the monetary value will just keep increasing! Personally authenticated by the 'artist', the shredded edition of Stewart Home's novel Down & Out In Shoreditch & Hoxton is strictly limited to an edition of 10! Each copy sells for a grand! Forget those liberal hacks who believe that destroying books is a crime against either good taste or the so-called 'soul' (and probably both), this type of transformation is indeed high art! And now I've destroyed one of my own books, I'll move onto shredding some by various idiots with less writing talent than me. John Latham never had days like these! Art is post-modern alchemy; it allows me to increase the value of an object by more than 100 times the original price simply by destroying it....

This was filmed by Francesco Pedraglio. The guy taking photographs at the front of the audience is Michael Kearney. The woman turning to look at the camera during the performance is Fiona Symmes.... Home's live action related to and created a further work for the group show "Misty Boundaries Fades and Dissolves. Group" featuring Stewart Home, Linder, Clunie Reid, James Richards, Eva Weinmeyr, George Barber, curated by Daniella Saul. This was on at FormContent from 25 February to 28 March 2010.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Stewart Home
• FormContent
•   shredding
•   shredder
•   book shredding
•   John Latham
•   avant-garde
•   iconoclasm
•   Dalston
• Hackney
• Shoredtich
•   Hoxton
•   shredding machine
•   London
•   art world
• Michael K
• Michael Kearney
• Francesco Pedraglio

[opsonicindex]

A shredded gyro is in the mail ...

[stewarthome]

@opsonicindex I'll treat it as a jigsaw puzzle, tape it back together then nip down the post office to cash the sucker.....

[ChristopherNosnibor]

...and another interesting thing... by shredding 'Memphis Underground,' 'Naked Lunch' and some spam emails I'd printed, I 'wrote' 'THE PLAGIARIST' in just a matter of days. Originality is dead....

[stewarthome]

@ChristopherNosnibor right on....and better yet THE PLAGIARIST was even better than the high class source materials used in the mxi!

[demafenetre]

You're a groove sensation and so is this action and video!

[stewarthome]

@demafenetre toot toot!

[stewarthome]

@WorldHeadpress You are Michael K and I claim my £1000 prize!

[WorldHeadpress]

It's a swiz. The guy who offers £1000 is none other than Stewart Home's alter-ego Michael K! You heard it hear first (sic)