Difficult Sculpture II

The Rivington, London
2006

Silicone rubber, polyurethane resin
55 x 22 x 35 cm



Press release:
'Braun uses the cigarette machine, around which Galeria Carmen Perez's commissions are based, as a light-box documenting the creation of the sculpture which is displayed in the middle of the restaurant.
Braun's sculpture is a rubber bottle with detail etched into the inside. The process of making the sculpture involved meticulous craftsmanship. Braun is not a skilled model maker therefore the production of the piece was vastly time consuming. The number on the sculpture represents the bottle's value calculated after an hourly rate.
The sum etched into the bottle is not a monument to what the artists thinks she should be fetching for her sculpture but rather a device to raise questions about the economics and value systems of art. The piece is encountered amongst works by such celebrated artists as Sam Taylor Wood and Gary Hume whose work is priced at a market value, where prices are too high to be governed by any measurable system. Where is the economic divide between Braun's work and the work of economically successful artists?
Braun is both the subject and the creator of her piece and in this sense she remains impartial, simply presenting figures and cost analysis without bias. These figures however, irretrievably lead us to certain uneasy conclusions about the art market, its value structures, and the strange prestige connected with any type of labour in the art world and its many justifications.'
A. Harrison 2006