Photo of a 4chan post goes for $90,000 on eBay. Is this art, a joke or an indictment?

[Electric Monk]

[font size=-2]By Tim Stanley. Last updated: August 5th, 2014[/font]


Recently, someone wrote the following on a 4chan internet forum: “Art used to be something to cherish. Now literally anything could be art. This post is art.” Someone else printed the words out, put them in a frame and floated them on eBay at a starting price of $500. Within 36 hours, the picture was sold for $90,900. Of course, it’s probably gone to a fake bidder with absolutely no intention of paying the money. In which case, perhaps the whole affair was itself a piece of performance art. That’s the trouble with conceptualism: you’re never quite sure when it ends. Someday, this blog post may well be regarded as a classic example of the art of Tim Stanley – from his early afternoon period, just before his eighth cup of tea of the day.

A couple of observations. First, the internet is perfect for conceptualism. Conceptualism is about putting something in front of the viewer and saying, “It’s up to you to decide what it means”. There is a mind behind it, but usually no organising principle (unlike, say, surrealism which is often about inversions, abstractions or coded political messages). The anonymous or group-think nature of the internet is ideal for an approach to art that rejects approach and lets people with no training, qualifications of supposed “legitimacy” as an artist do something, put it out there, and see what happens. The result is often delightful. There’s something rather cheeky and fun about both the 4chan post and the person who appropriated it. The meta joke is that someone’s taken the mick out of conceptual art and found someone else prepared to pay to own the gag. Warhol would love it. But, then, Warhol was easily pleased.

Second, the joke is on consumerism as much as conceptual art. Capitalism works by the principle that A produces something that B wants and that B is prepared to pay more for it than it cost to produce. Hence B gets what he/she wants and A makes a profit. That’s all very well and fine, but with art collecting, a third party is introduced: the huckster who convinces B that A’s art is worth a hell of a lot more than it really is.

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[msongs]

1. "there's a sucker born every minute" -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute

[Warren DeMontague]

2. It's a jokdartment

[tridim]

3. It's no more silly than people paying thousands of dollars for an autograph.,,

Or a mass-produced antique.