Chinese artist offers to buy 30-ton button mountain

DISSIDENT Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has offered to buy 30 tons of buttons from a 104-year-old factory before it closes.

Brown & Co Buttons in Croydon, south London, is shutting after a slump in sales.

It was left with £1.5million of buttons and managers feared they would be dumped. But after the factory pleaded for help on social media, the contemporary artist, known for pouring 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds into the Tate Modern in 2010, tweeted: ‘Can I have them all?’

It led to speculation the buttons could be used for a sequel to that installation.

Yesterday Sarah Janalli, from the Brown family, said she had not yet responded to his message because she had been inundated with requests. ‘We know for sure that no buttons will go into landfill, which is amazing,’ she told The Independent.

Ai was detained for 81 days during a crackdown on activists in China in 2011.