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Monday, July 01, 2013

Bernhard Deutsch Coin Operated Automata art auction

Amongst this morning's portion of Spam was an invitation from Fred Yao, of Hong Leong Bank, to help him invest funds of a deceased customer (to whom I'm apparently related), plus the following email from Kathleen Uttrodt of Schwäbisch Hall:
We would like to recommend to you an exhibition in Germany: Bernhard Deutsch is a German artist. He is making art-machines since 35 years. In Schwäbisch Hall you can see about 70 objects (insert a coin or press a button) from 12th of July to 15th of September 2013 (Hällisch-Fränkisches Museum). Finally all the objects are to sell - there is an auktion - happening. Have a look:

Here's the site with Google-garbled translation: http://www.nurzu.de/expo2013/
See also: http://www.nurzu.de/rundgang
and: http://www.nurzu.de/villa-wunderwelt




Unfortunately, the postage-stamp-sized images really don't do justice to the objects. Mr Deutsch (or Mr German, as Google Translate would have it) is a German Tim Hunkin, but with his own unique style.



All items in the auction start at 99 Cents with the hammer coming down particularly hard on any that don't get a bid. These will be promptly smashed to pieces after the auction. I'm hoping slot machine auctioneers will be following this initiative. I can't think of a better way to ensure sellers set sensible reserves and bidders remain alert.