Delano    Two Oranges

An orange is taken from the pyramid ‘Soul City’ by Roelof Louw at The Tate Britain Conceptual Art exhibition on 13 May 2016. It provokes the question, is it still art when removed from that installation and gallery? 

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If not, is the only thing that made it art its context? Its history? Was it ever even touched by the artist? Does that even matter? Could any orange do the same job? If I added an orange to the pyramid, would my orange then become ‘art’?

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Outside of the gallery context, this particular orange still carries some art history with it. It was an actual orange in the actual piece of work in Tate Britain. But what is it now? If I put it in a fruit bowl, it's just an orange with a past life. Or just an orange if you don't know about its past. If I put it on a plinth in a gallery, it's an ‘artwork’ made of an orange with but an ‘art’ background.

Placed on a plinth next to an orange which has not been part of the artwork exhibited at Tate Modern, is one of the oranges more art than the other?

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If so, it is nothing to do with what you see, only with what you know. 

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In this piece, I am questioning what is intrinsic in a piece of art and what is co-created with the viewer.  It also attempts to unravel what exactly constitutes a piece of art, using the simplest of visual prompts.