As part of the Fierce! festival Italian artist Cesare Pietroiusti presented four projects during one week in May. Pietroiusti is principally concerned with ideas of art, economy and consumption.

Enriching food
20 – 21 May 2007
In a mammoth 24 hour stint, the artist took over Café Ikon as head chef, offering guests a range of Italian food from a specially devised menu. When they had finished their meals, they received the equivalent value of the various dishes they ordered in cash.

Eating Money – an auction
22 May 2007
Visitors were invited to take part in a humorous money auction which culminated in Cesare Pietroiusti and fellow artist Paul Griffiths eating the banknotes of the highest bid. Upon swallowing the money, the pair then waited for the notes to be naturally evacuated. Remaining amazingly intact having undergone the digestive process, they were then displayed in Ikon’s Tower Room during 30 May – 15 July, alongside a video of the auction, before being returned to the successful bidder.

Money-watching
50a New Street,  24 May 2007
Occupying a disused shop in Birmingham’s city centre, visitors participated in a money watching exercise in which members of the public were asked to concentrate on a crisp £20 note. Only when Pietroiusti was convinced that enough attention had been focused on the note, then the participant could claim it.

Three Thousand Artworks Distributed for Free at Ikon Gallery
Ikon foyer, 26-28 May
Pietroiusti created 3,000 unique artworks using a special pigment obtained from gold and silver filings provided by the School of Jewellery in Birmingham. These unique artworks were signed and numbered, and given away free to visitors throughout the bank holiday weekend.

Cesare Pietroiusti’s projects were kindly supported by Fierce! Festival, The Italian Cultural Institute and the School of Jewellery, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.