MoMA Exhibit Dies Five Weeks Into Show

Catts and Zurr run a laboratory at the University of Western Australia in Perth; this combines artistic practice with scientific research. The jacket is one of several works created as part of their Tissue Culture & Art Project. Speaking to The Art Newspaper for a televised interview (available on our website), Paola Antonelli, head of MoMA’s architecture and design department and curator of the show, says she had to make the decision to turn off the life-support system for the work, basically “killing” it.

Ms Antonelli says the jacket “started growing, growing, growing until it became too big. And [the artists] were back in Australia, so I had to make the decision to kill it. And you know what? I felt I could not make that decision. I’ve always been pro-choice and all of a sudden I’m here not sleeping at night about killing a coat...That thing was never alive before it was grown.”