Pure BS

“Their art authentication team have pulled the pin on this one, and we can't argue with Sotheby's. It never occurred to me that we might get caught out with this, despite the fact that we've always bought and sold genuine works.”

“But this is conceptual art here, not your timorous paintings of landscapes, vases of tulips, or portraits of well known acolytes, junkies and vagabonds.”

“And? And? So what Priya?”

“Laslo, Laslo, Laslo. Come on, think about it. You're good at this.....Correction, we're good at this, especially when we work together. We – you and I - are good at discovering lost works of conceptual art. And the closest conceptual art gets to a landscape is when we call it the field of conceptual art, otherwise, never the twain shall meet. We can sniff out leads and runs, we've been doing it for what, sixteen-seventeen years?”

“More like eighteen Priya, unless we're including our own chronology in the realms of the conceptual.”

“Great idea, that way we live forever. Or....wait... maybe that's probably not preferable. I suppose we could have it the other way – the skins of our lives peeling off faster, so that we're over and done with in less time than it takes a blob of peanut butter to dry out.”

“How long do you think that would take? Perhaps that's also expanding time rather than contracting it? Peanut butter can do some weird shit. Especially when you're not watching it, Priya-”

“You think it somehow behaves differently when it's not being watched? Some kind of shape-shifter that has a rudimentary sensory system which can detect when it's being observed and change its behaviour accordingly?

“Dunno. Have any conceptual artists taken it to task?”

“The shape-shiftingness?”

“No, Priya, the substance itself – peanut butter.”

“Um, not that I can think ….. Oh wait, yeah, Vik Muniz! But the work was only a portrait.”

“Only a peanut butter portrait?”

“Yeah. Well, no. What I mean is, it wasn't a portrait of peanut butter; it was a portrait of a woman, but the medium used was peanut butter. So - as I was saying, Laslo - we have a nose -”

“And eyes.”

“Yes, and eyes, for the good stuff. Remember that George and Gilbert piece we found?”

“'Thirst'?”

“Yeah.”

“Haha. The look on that woman's face in the kindergarten where we found it - stashed at the back of a collection of kids' hand-paintings – when she realised what the picture depicted, turning it the right way up, she was appalled.”

“She couldn't get rid of it quick enough!”

“Or us.”

“I thought she'd push us straight through playground in her haste to be done with the whole episode.”

“I wonder how it got there? A painting like that?”

“Another of life's mysteries, Laslo. When we found that picture though, we did some good footwork to prove its authenticity – you tearing off to England, me making the phone calls to set up the necessary arrangements for a meeting with the Foundation.”

“I hear you, Priya”

“We got the accolades for discovering another piece in the puzzle of the Gilbert and George legacy.”

“Plus the gay community bestowed that award-”

“Oh yeah, the award, I'd forgotten about that. And another piece we found through a lot of hard graft, Laslo, was that original Dean Koons.”

“The gold inflatable poodle! That embarrassed thrift shop owner-”

“Yeah, poor bastard.”

“Thinking that the name – Koons, tagged on the bottom of the poodle – had racist overtones. Even in the shadows at the back of the shop I could see him flush to his hairline when he spied it.”

“And we calmly walk out of the shop, Saturday morning, pissing down rain, with a 5 foot gold inflatable poodle-shaped monstrosity ...”

“Feeling kind of like an art installation myself too, when we stopped to buy hotdogs and we huddled under the sodden umbrella at the stand, Dean Koons inflatable doggy hogging the show.”

“The guy gave us the hotdogs for free – remember that? - because we attracted attention and some of them bought a chili dog.”

“Nope. Did he?”

“I got mine for free. You..... paid?”

“But this last piece – Sotheby's turned on us with a viciousness that I've not seen before. I dunno, maybe something happened, has happened, in the art world that has made them-”

“Nah, we did nothing wrong, Laslo. Damien Hirst works tend to be contentious at the best of times.”

“Ok, so we only had one half of 'Mother and Child'. One of the two tanks.”

“The calf. I wish we'd found the mother cow but just tracking down the calf was hard enough.”

“The nightclub owners certainly were cagey when we went there to look at the thing. I think they didn't trust us as much as we didn't trust them.”

“And that freakin' bouncer dude..... or minder..... or whatever he was.”

“Slobodan?”

“Was that his name? For real?”

“Not really.... he seemed Slobodan-ny though.”

“I wonder if that pulled many people to the nightclub then? Does a nightclub that has as its centrepiece a calf cut in two floating in a huge glass tank filled with formaldehyde make you want to go there, and party on, Priya?”

“If I'd been under the influence of mind-altering substances....maybe.”

“And then when we get the piece tested by Sotheby's they look down their noses, and that – 'A number of technical irregularities which run counter to the age and materials understood to be used in the original piece.' - line they hit us with.”

“They may as well have said 'Pure BS'.”

“I suppose we could dispute it.”

“I think the damage is done, Laslo. Even if we were to hire a team of technical investigators Sotheby's would probably just throw the results back in our faces.”

“And say: 'We'll rely on our own trusted technical resources to determine the veracity of any pieces lodged with our auction house in order to protect our own reputation.'”

“Something like that. Maybe less strident.”

“Or more.”

“And. So. Now, now we've got a huge glass tank filled with formaldehyde and a bisected calf; all-up weight: 2700 pounds.”

“'Not conclusively identified as a work of Damien Hirst.'”

“Yes, that too, Laslo. For which – the tank, I mean – we have to find a home.”

“Tank and calf...... Half calf...... Two half calves.... A calf carved in half.”

“It was hard enough getting the damn thing out of the nightclub. Thank God we found that sweet logistics guy to help us.”

“And the nightclub had a service elevator.”

“.... And, yes, that they had a service elevator.”

“I suppose we could put it at our place, temporarily.”

“Huh! Where?”

“In the front. Right up the front near the door.”

“And what, Laslo? Inch our way around the bloody thing each time we come in, and go out? Or when we have visitors: 'Watch out you don't knock an elbow or knee on our glass tank of bisected calf of questionable provenance, possibly by Damien Hirst.'”

“I....... up until now I've never even thought about the practicalities of living with something like that.”

“And.......... therein lies the beauty of conceptual art, Laslo.”