David Shrigley, a Turner Prize-nominated artist, has transformed 6,000 copies of Dan Brown’s best-seller “The Da Vinci Code” into George Orwell’s novel “1984”, which is in the public domain. Shrigley decided to do this after hearing that an Oxfam shop in Swansea had stopped accepting copies of the conspiracy thriller. This weekend, Shrigley is selling 1,200 copies of his “1984” edition in the same shop for £495 each. The copies come with a signed and numbered print and are unique.
The manager of the Oxfam store in Swansea, Richard Broadhurst, stated that around 2017 they had an abundance of people donating copies of “The Da Vinci Code”. They made a pile of the books by the counter and added a sign which said: “Yeah you could give us another Da Vinci Code, but we would rather have your vinyl.” A picture of the sign went viral and attracted the attention of David Shrigley.
Shrigley made inquiries and found Wrap Distribution, a recycling place in Oxfordshire, that had more than 6,000 copies of the novel. He stated that he wanted to make “1984” as Orwell had died 70 years ago, making all his works available in the public domain. Shrigley spent a six-figure sum publishing his edition of “1984” and justified the £495 price tag by noting that a portion of the profits will be donated to Oxfam.
Shrigley acknowledged that £495 is a tad high for a single book, but he made a work of art in the form of a signed print that goes with the book, which reminded him of some of the themes of Orwell’s work. He plans to sell the remaining 1,000 copies on his website for “tier 2 price” of £795. This is half of what David Shrigley’s Memorial sold for, which was $165,100 (£135,557), earlier this year
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