The Kiss (Rodin Sculpture) - Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker

In Spring 2003, artist Cornelia Parker intervened in The Kiss (1886) with the permission of the Tate Britain gallery, where it was exhibited at the time, by wrapping the sculpture in a mile of string. This was a historical reference to Marcel Duchamp's use of the same length of string to create a web inside a gallery in 1942. Although the intervention had been endorsed by the gallery, many viewers of the sculpture felt it offensive to the original artwork, prompting a further, unauthorised, intervention, in which Parker's string was cut by Stuckist Piers Butler, while couples stood around engaging in live kissing.