David Shrigley has unveiled a new exhibition titled 'Exhibition of Old Rope' at London's Stephen Friedman Gallery, featuring ten tonnes of discarded rope sourced from seaports, climbing schools, tree surgeons, offshore wind farms, and shorelines across the UK. The rope, roughly 20 miles in length, has been intensively cleaned and piled high in the Mayfair gallery, with a deliberately provocative price tag of £1 million. The show runs until 20 December 2025.
The exhibition is a satirical commentary on the contemporary art market and the nature of artistic value, literally embodying the idiom 'money for old rope'. Beyond its absurdist humor, the work also addresses environmental concerns, as much of the rope is made from synthetic materials that are difficult to recycle, highlighting the 640,000 tonnes of discarded fishing gear and marine rope entering oceans annually. Shrigley, a Turner Prize-nominated artist known for deadpan, self-deprecating work, uses this installation to question the arbitrariness of artistic value while giving discarded materials a second life through art.