www.enrico111.com
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Gold on the streets, if you know where to look
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article6513633.ece
times gold on street
City Diary: Martin Waller
A couple of frankly wacky modern artists will be on the streets of the City handing out free gold today. Yes, that got your attention. Swiss Enrico Centonze and his German counterpart Anke Trojan have spent £150 on gold leaf, which they are putting in about 60 bowls of soup that will be handed out to passers-by.
Centonze, who was in the City yesterday pacing out the route when I spoke to him, says that the event is somewhere between an “intervention” and an “action” and is designed to make bankers think about the true value of gold. “The idea behind it is to make people estimate gold and realise gold is of limited value,” he said.
The pair will start at Royal Bank of Scotland on Bishopsgate and arrive at the Bank of England by noon before moving on to the London Stock Exchange and St Paul’s.
It is part of a five-day series of such events in the City by “radical artists” linked to the financial crisis. Centonze, who seems to have a light grasp of matters financial, says that everything has changed. “There is no more limousine-driving in Iceland, brokers have no more jobs and banks have been saved.”
If timing is everything, what kind of time is this?
Well-connected corporate financier Vincent Thompson is choosing a strange time to set up Easton Partners, a boutique specialising in M&A.
“There are a lot of people with a lot of things to sell at the moment and there are also many people looking to take advantage of the downturn, so I think our timing is perfect,” he tells me. Thompson has worked for SocGen, Hambros and Morgan Grenfell. His father, Gerald Thompson, chaired Kleinwort Benson, the first person from outside the family to do so. The family were merchant bankers as far back as the late 18th century, when Smith & Thompson was a big player in Hull, then one of our biggest ports.
Fundraising beau geste
Will Giles Thorley, the chief executive of Punch Taverns, be putting his own money into that £375 million cash-raising exercise by the pubs group, which has £4.5 billion of debt? Thorley is generally reckoned to be about one more setback away from last orders at Punch, so a gesture of support would be appreciated by shareholders.
“You can expect that he will do so,” a source says. Indeed, various other directors have bought shares in the issue.
However, the complex nature of the fundraising, featuring a firm placing and open offer, means the most that Thorley can put up is about £200,000. This compares with £11 million-plus he took out of Punch in the form of pay and other benefits in just one year not so long ago, during happier times.
Still, it’s the thought that counts.
• Michael Spencer’s bonds broker Icap is buying the transactions side of Ocean Tomo, a Chicago business that makes a market in products linked to intellectual property.
As far as I can deduce, this means the rights to patents, trademarks, copyrights, songs and other items. I think. How typical of Spencer to buy a business that trades in assets most of us can barely comprehend. It’ll probably do well, too.
• I am told by a politically minded contact that a Gloucestershire man has changed his name to Mr Noneoftheabove. There is no legal reason why you should not and he intends to stand as an independent candidate in the general election. He is hoping to gain a good proportion of the protest vote, and probably will.
Exhibitions preview: Two Degrees Festival, London
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Two Degrees Festival is a series of performances, installations and events in and around Toynbee Studios and the City of London. Each of the artists featured is responding in some way to the urgent threats of climate change. What visitors will be presented with at Richard DeDomenici's Plane Food Cafe is possibly the most unpalatable, as he will be serving up airline grub straight from London City Airport which may leave a bad enough taste to put you off flying. The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination will be selling gold soup to city workers and running a cafe of equivalence that highlights food costs in the developing world. There will also be pedal-powered DJ sets by Magnificent Revolution and a cabaret called My Dad's Strip Club celebrating dissent through artistic endeavour. For those with an axe to grind, there's nowhere better.
• Toynbee Studios, E1, Tue to 21 Jun
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
PRESSRELEASE LONDON, the 15th of June 2009
EAT GOLD
A public intervention and installation by Swiss and German artists Enrico Centonze and Anke Trojan. On the 17th of June 2009 from 12 o’clock, the artists will give away a free soup made with real gold in London’s financial district.
The action begins at the Royal Bank of Scotland and continues its way along the the Union Bank of Switzerland, the Bank of England, the Northern Rock, London Stock Exchange, Merrill Lynch and ends at St Paul's cathedral.
The action is happening in response to the financial crisis.
All the action is going to be documented and distributed on eatgold.eu
Since the announcement of the financial collapse in September 2008 things have changed. There is no more Limousine driving in Iceland, brokers have no more jobs and banks have been saved.
Now City workers are invited to discover what it feels like to be of real value.
During the C:R:A:S:H festival (17th - 21st June), Enrico Centonze and Anke Trojan have decided to do an action in the in the heart of the financial crisis: the square mile of London’s financial district.
Following along a predestined route, stopping at significant buildings and institutions associated with the financial crash, the artists will give away free soup with 23 carat gold inside, honouring and interviewing the hungry - bankers, homeless and tourists. The artists want to engage the participants with their senses and open a discussion on our value system. As the most noble and valuable material, gold signifies nowadays security. What feelings towards our economical system are being expressed by eating gold? How does eating gold make you feel? do you feel you are of more value? What do you value?
At this point, it is good to know, that gold doesn’t taste anything, is odourless, calorie-free and undetectable on the palate: the metal is totally inert.
Anke Trojan artist and documentary maker encourages a direct interaction. Along the actual performance, the camera works as a tool to get people talking, to tackle the arising situation in ways where each participant, artist and public feel the opportunity for discussion and comment, a creation of an open space, for reflection and response.
Coming from Switzerland, a land where the supposed neutrality and security of the banks system is a ground principle, Enrico Centonze does public and mostly spontaneous actions, which respond on actual state of crisis.
In october 2008 he reacted directly with the action „Everybody wants Gold – rescue insight!” to the announcement of the bail out package by the German government, installing on the lawn in front of the Berliner Reichstag 500 flags made out of golden/silver rescue blankets. http://www.enrico111.com/page29/
With his following action “Kunst ist super” ArtBasel 09, he responded to the debate on the art market crisis. Kunst is super is an action which questions the ambiguity between the art and the art market. The action can be seen under www.kunstistsuper.com
In London now, the artists are instigating in the symbolic centre of the financial collapse, further questioning this human disillusion.
Contact and informations:
Enrico Centonze
T +447903588229
ennicentonze@hotmail.com
http://www.enrico111.com
The action starts at Royal Bank of Scotland,on the 17th of June 2009, 12.00 am
280 BishopsgateLondon, Greater London, EC2M 4RB, United Kingdom