1.8 bar of gold dripped, 2017

Molten gold lies pooled on the ground. With this work, for which the standard gold bar forms the departure point, Sarah van Sonsbeeck (1976, the Netherlands) dispels negative associations commonly associated with spillage in a distinctly Duchampian manner. The investigation into the formal and conceptual qualities of gold forms a leitmotif in Van Sonsbeeck’s oeuvre. By ‘liberating’ one and a half standard gold bars from their man-made state, Van Sonsbeeck returns gold to its natural form, that of an ore, whilst dichotomously presenting it as a work of art, a commodity whose market worth is solely justified by its symbolic value.