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Towering Gravestone Engraved With Grocery List Headed to Central Park

By Shaye Weaver | May 27, 2016 12:20pm | Updated on May 30, 2016 10:55am
 A sketch of
A sketch of "Memorial" by David Shrigley.
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David Shrigley/Public Art Fund

CENTRAL PARK — This is a grocery list to remember.

An artist is committing a long grocery list to memory by inscribing it on a 17-foot-tall gravestone, which is set to rise at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue in September.

The list includes cheese, bananas, sausages, diapers, Ziploc bags and Nutella, all of which are carved into granite.

The bizarre sculpture, dubbed "Memorial," will replace German artist Isa Genzken's towering "Two Orchids" currently sit at the site, and remain there until next February.

"Memorial" is meant to mix the mundane with the solemnity of a gravestone, according to the Public Art Fund, which organized the exhibit.

English Artist David Shrigley plays on the lasting significance of an epitaph and a list by lifting the list from its original context, according to the Public Art Fund.

"Its ephemerality, including the fact that it is often written on a scrap of paper or a smartphone, is in sharp contrast with Shrigley’s selection of material — a solid slab of granite — on which to engrave these banal words,” said Public Art Fund associate curator Emma Enderby. “By memorializing a list in this way, the work pays homage both to no-one and to everyone — it’s a simple ode to humanity.”

Shrigley is an internationally-acclaimed artist who is known for his drawing style but also does photography, sculpture and film. He is debuting his first exhibition in the U.S., "David Shrigley: Life Model II," in Boston at Brandeis University in September.