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Beer brand installs ‘world’s most expensive artwork’ in Grand Central station
Beer brand Natural Light installed what it claimed was the “most expensive piece of art in the world” in New York’s Grand Central station to highlight the rising cost of a college diploma and the impact of college debt.
Entitled Da Vinci of Debt, the piece was created using 2,600 authentic diplomas donated by college graduates across the country.
Based on the cost of each diploma achieved through four years of university education, the beer brand estimates the piece is worth US$470m.
Its US$470m price tag makes it $20m more expensive than the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi. As reported by Forbes, the new campaign takes up a 6,000 foot space in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall.
The 2,600 diplomas are suspended in mid-air, “as if a gale of wind had just scattered them,” according to Natural Light.
“The design is meant to illustrate both the scale of the crippling debt crisis while also alluding to the chaotic impact college debt creates for those burdened by it,” the brand told Forbes.
The campaign is part of a continued effort from Natural Light to shine a light on America’s worsening student debt problem.
It’s an original idea and for a good cause, but privacy concerns are aplenty with the installation. It also makes the people who donated their diplomas prime targets in fraud and other social engineering campaigns.