More Tidying Up Art

Who says great masterpieces can't be improved upon? In his hilarious reconfigurations of important art works, comedian Ursus Wehrli deconstructs the works of famous artists and reconstructs them to fit his own slightly more orderly view of the world. Art is messy, and it's about time someone did something about it. Whether by pouring Pollock's splatters back into their respective paint cans, or returning the fur coat from Oppenheim's famous tea cup to its rightful owner, Wehrli's tongue-in-cheek editing of classic artworks is the next best thing to painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Neatniks and art lovers alike will delight in the whimsical playfulness of this book. Ursus Wehrli, born in 1969, is left-handed, a lateral thinker, and trained typographer. For the last 16 years, he and Nadja Sieger have been touring Switzerland, Germany, Britain, and New York as the comedy duo Ursus & Nadeschkin and have won several awards in this capacity, including the New York Fringe Comedy Award. Ursus Wehrli lives in Zurich and works as a comedian, cabaret artiste, and freelance artist. Clever and playful, he takes well-known works of art and, well, tidies them up. (www.ted.com) Deflating Establishment pretentiousness is always fun ... This coarse re-ordering is a welcome breath of fresh air in a world that often takes itself too seriously.(The Art Newspaper) A brilliant art book [that] will change the way you look at a picture, whether you wield a crayon in your fist or you're shooting for the country's top art school. (Newsday) ...it's funny and a perfect gift for the neat-freak art lover on your list. (Chicago Tribune)