Dec 22, 2005

Russian oligarchs ready to pay millions for huge penises

The exposition of the rising star of German arts, Jonathan Meese, has recently opened in Moscow. The artist's work has already shocked residents of Berlin and Hamburg, who did not miss their chances to become familiar with Mr. Meese's very unusual artistic view of the world. However, three wealthiest Russian citizens have expressed their wish to purchase several paintings and sculptures of the German artist for their home collections, Express Gazeta wrote.

When the “Dr.Dracula” show opened its doors for Moscow visitors, it attracted women's attention first. Jonathan Meese's paintings and sculptures depict weird creatures with one-meter-long and salami-thick erect penises. A 500-kilo bronze statue is one of the most impressive exhibits at the show. The statue, entitled Propagandist, bears some resemblance to a devilish being carrying a bag of gold in its hand. The statue personifies a modern oligarch, the artist said. However, instead of making a winged or a horned devil, the German artist decided to equip his creation with outrageously large phalluses. Furthermore, there are six testicles hanging down underneath the huge reproductive organs: the artist apparently intended to emphasize the virility and vitality of a contemporary oligarch. Jonathan Meese is probably right: male billionaires in Russia have rather large families. Boris Berezovsky is a father of six children, Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich has five and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of Yukos oil giant has four kids in his family.

”A very wealthy Russia man saw my Propagandist at one of my European shows. He personally asked me to bring the statue over to Moscow some day. He said he would like to purchase the statue to decorate the interior of his country house. When I said that I wanted 500,000 euros for this work, the price did not confuse him at all. Russians have learnt to appreciate arts now,” Jonathan Meese said.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, pretty wild, eh? I've been reading about his works all day. The Saatchi Gallery has a nice informational page about Meese, with some of the less... phallic pieces he's done. I'm finding his manic performance art pieces most fascinating!