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A Rather Unusual Story Told On The Side Of A Building In Ropewalks
In Ropewalks you may come across a mural on the side of a building with a tale of a company called 'Van Gogh Ltd.' This extraordinary and utterly bizarre story will have you reading with absolutely no guess as to what the next line could be about.
The mural that can be found on the side of EPIC Apart Hotel, Duke Street in Ropewalks says:
'Van Gogh's other ear was discovered by scientists. A technology company acquired the ear, and opened a factory called Van Gogh Ltd., which extracted the DNA from Van Gogh's ear to make countless Van Gogh clones.
The Van Gogh clones became the factories main workers. From the time they were small, each clone was forced to learn how to paint Van Gogh-style copies of Starry Night, Sunflowers, The Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles, and other famous works.
The gifted 'Van Goghs' were held in captivity by the factory and raised to mass-produce these masterpieces; the ones without talent were gathered together and pushed into a big furnace, to be burned into a special kind of yellow pigment that was used as raw material for the ongoing process.'
The piece was created by artist Lu Pingyuan in 2016 as part of the Liverpool Biennial, the UK's largest festival of contemporary visual art that takes place across the Liverpool City Region every two years.
Liverpool Biennial provided information about the piece on their website:
Van Gogh Ltd, 2016
Text painted on the side of a building wall
Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), Manchester
Exhibited on EPIC Hotel
Lu Pingyuan produced four pieces in total for Liverpool Biennial in 2016, Van Gogh Ltd. being one of the four pieces of contemporary art.
The piece can be found on the side of EPIC Apart Hotel on Duke Street in Ropewalks, not far from the Liverpool ONE Shopping District.
Photographs by Peter Eric Lang:
EPIC Apart Hotel, Duke Street,
Ropewalks,
Liverpool City Centre,
City of Liverpool,
Liverpool City Region, UK.