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There's just one catch. Before that can happen, artist Nedko
Solakov says the Frankfurt-based institution must fulfill all
its goals and all of its staff must be "completely satisfied" -
a condition he has inscribed on a plaque on the side of the dark
oval hulk.
"This will of course never happen because a serious institution
is never satisfied," he told Reuters. "I just let the people
imagine what the sculpture would look like."
The work, entitled "A Site-Specific Piece on Stand-by", will
stand in a cavernous hall, 54 meters (177 feet) high, and will
be formally unveiled by ECB President Mario Draghi this week.
Solakov said he wanted to express irony and humor, directed in
part at the severe restrictions imposed on him.
"I couldn’t use anything flammable, it couldn’t be too heavy, it
couldn’t be too high because it would cross the laser security
beams," he said.
Handwritten doodles and jokes adorn the work itself and --
confusingly for cleaning staff -- the rest of the hall,
including the elevator sign. Some of them are grammatical
corrections of the lengthy inscription.
But Solakov said he is not making fun of the institution, which
he said he considered one of Europe's most important.
The ECB liked the joke: it chose Solakov's work as one of three
art installations for which it paid a combined 1.25 million
euros ($1.41 million).
(Editing by Michael Roddy and Mark Trevelyan)
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