I’m not a fan of cigarettes, but I am a fan of cigarette art. Instead of lighting one up and slowly smoking your way to lung cancer, why not pile a couple hundred thousand of those nicotine sticks to form something that looks like, say, a tiger skin rug?
Well, that’s exactly what Chinese contemporary artist Xu Bing did. He’s been working on tobacco-related art projects for the past decade, and this cigarette tiger skin rug is the third in his series of three works of art called the Tobacco Project.
It looks like a fluffy rug you might find in some rich person’s mansion, but I doubt that this will be able to provide you with much comfort. Cigarettes aren’t exactly the most comfortable material there is to rest on.
This 440-pound rug is currently on display at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts until December 4, 2011. It will then be moved to the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut in January next year.
[via MyModernMet via Neatorama]