No hard feelings over dung

Environment Minister Nick Smith says he's willing to go head-to-head with Canterbury artist and campaigner Sam Mahon.

Mahon is the sculptor who has immortalised Dr Smith in cow dung – a tribute the minister has jokingly called "crap art".

Mahon has a serious message in his artwork, which is a protest against the pollution of rivers.

He put the sculpture up for online auction on Trade Me and it closed last night with a $3080 bid from a Palmerston North woman known as "Boxerlady".

Mahon said the woman, who was a collector of oddities, was ambivalent about the sale, so he planned to keep it another week in a contemporary art exhibition at Coca Gallery in Christchurch and would then decide what to do.

"I could present it to Nick in return for a coffee and a straight, honest talk about water pollution," said Mahon. "Ninety per cent of our lowland rivers are polluted now."

Dr Smith said he had read Mahon's book The Water Thieves and respected the passion he had about the huge water issues in Canterbury.

He said the sculpture was a clever piece of political art and he would be happy to meet Mahon and talk.