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High-flying artist causes a buzz online

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Now I’ve seen it all.

For centuries people have mounted hunting and fishing trophies on their walls (which always give me the creeps), then in the 1990s we had Damien Hirst’s macabre series of animals preserved in formaldehyde (it makes me shudder just to think of them), and now we have…dead fly cartoons.

OK, admittedly these aren’t in the same league as Damien Hirst but the simple pencil sketches are quite hilarious and something everyone the world over can relate to (maybe there’s even the potential to collect them together into a wacky comic book)… but dead flies?! That’s just a bit too gross for me. I can’t help cringing even as I laugh at them.

The Swedish artist, Magnus Muhr, has assured fans he has never harmed a single fly in the course of his art – he just collects them from windowsills and under lamps around his house (dusting is obviously not high up on his agenda). Word of Magnus’s sketches is spreading fast online and he has put some of his cartoons up for sale, so if you’d like to have some dead flies hanging on your wall, check out Magnus Muhr’s gallery.

I dread to think what the art world will come up with next…

Louise Watson, Editor

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