Is It Art? Or Is It Just Stupid?

What are we to make of an artist who crafts a bar of soap from fat liposuctioned out of the Italian prime minister, sells it to a collector for $18,000, then claims that his work has no political overtones? “There is something vexing about Gianni Motti and his bar of soap. It could be a neat contemporary commentary on politics, the media, image-consciousness and postmodern portraiture – and therefore worthy of its plexiglass pedestal. Or it could just be a tasteless, overpriced idea that dissolves in seconds, like soap in a hot bath.”