Marc Quinn, the artist who created the questionable bronze statue featuring British model Kate Moss in a yoga pose was somehow commissioned enough money to produce the world’s largest gold statue since Ancient Egyptian times. The supposedly solid gold statue also features Kate Moss in a yoga pose and is called Siren. It is valued at $2.75 million USD or £1.5 million. It is said to only weigh 50kg, though, which is just 110 pounds. It must not be that big considering how heavy gold is. A golf ball size worth of solid gold weighs 2.2 pounds.

I would like to think that the Telegraph got either the weight or the fact that the statue is solid gold wrong. It just doesn’t sound like it’s possible for the statue to be only 110 pounds and solid gold.

The statue debuts at the British Museum today. All that’s online is a close up view of part of the face of the statue.

A solid gold statue of supermodel Kate Moss worth £1.5 million is being unveiled in the British Museum today.

Siren is the work of artist Marc Quinn whose most famous sculpture was Alison Lapper Pregnant which appeared on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.

His sculpture of Moss said to be the largest gold statue to be made in the world since the time of Ancient Egypt.

Speaking about choosing the supermodel as a subject, Quinn said: “I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who’s the ideal beauty of the moment.”

The 50kg statue will be displayed in the Nereid Gallery of the British Museum, alongside other statues such as Crouching Venus, a Hellenistic model of Venus surprised while bathing.

Quinn’s latest work, which shows Moss in a yoga pose, is part of a collection, entitled Statuephilia, by contemporary artists going on display at the British Museum.

It is the second time the London-born artist has used the model as his muse. He previously created Sphinx, a white-painted bronze sculpture of the fashion icon.

Quinn is also known for Self, a bust of his head made from eight pints of his own frozen blood.

[From Telegraph.co.uk]

This is not the same artist who created the sculptures of Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug, Suri Cruise’s poop, or Paris Hilton’s autopsy. That’s an American artist named Daniel Edwards. I remember reading about the Kate Moss yoga statue and just assuming at the time that it was by the same guy.

Who would front this artist the money required to create a Kate Moss yoga statue out of pure gold and how big is it really if it’s only 110 pounds? At current rates, the gold to create the statue would cost $1.45 million USD, which is certainly expensive enough.

I guess it’s fitting that a celebrity be used for the statue if it’s the largest gold statue since Ancient Egypt. Kings, princes and princesses used to be the subject of art back then, and celebrities are about as close as you get to that type of stature in modern times. You just assume there’s someone better to pick than Moss though.

Update: The sculpture is hollow.