Discount store puts art on the shelves

2 December 2003

MUELHEIM – Branches of the German discount supermarket chain Aldi were sold out within hours of cut-price works of arts in a special offer this week.

Framed prints by several prominent German artists were offered for EUR12.99 in many of the 1,500 branches of Aldi-Sued.

Some buyers were immediately offering their Aldi art purchases on the internet auction site eBay for EUR19.99.

Dusseldorf artist Felix Droese, whose works have featured at the Kassel Documenta and Venice Biennale, was one of seven artists whose works were piled up on the supermarket shelves.

Droese, a pupil of the German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, said he wanted “to reach the masses in times of crisis like these” with some 20,000 signed offset prints.

However experts have said the high print run meant there was little prospect of the works proving to be a long-term investment.

DPA
Subject: German news