Tidying Up!

Swiss comedian and artist Ursus Wehrli became famous thanks to his Tyding Up Art books. He meticulously deconstruct famous artworks such as Paul Klee, Van Gogh or Keith Haring and reorganized them by arranging elements by color and size, "optimizing" the composition. He introduced it as a manifesto that yearns toward a more rational, more organized and cleaner form of modern art. I can't help but seeing a nice dose of provocation here. Beyond the funny aspect of this work (and subtle criticism about his swiss origin), he shows how the process of rationalizing itself can be questioned.

Below is an enlightning talk he gave at TED in 2006.

With The Art of Clean Up, he extends this principle into the physical world, with extremely (though oddly) satisfying results.