Lameness Alert #2: One Thousand Paintings

Soon after I posted about BuyMyDesktop.com, another lame site hits my radar. This one is admittedly SLIGHTLY less lame, but at the same time more infuriating.

The site: One Thousand Paintings. The product: One thousand blank canvases, painted with a blue number (1-1000, ascending). The price: Variable, starting at $40, with current prices in the several hundreds.

So, why is this lame? Sure, numbers are cool. But this artist is putting stenciled numbers on canvas and selling them for several hundreds of dollars.

• The art is not original (numbers, letters, words, and shapes have appeared alone on canvas before).
• It's impersonal (what part of the artist is in these paintings?).
• It's extremely reproducible (give me a stencil, some blue paint, and some canvas and I'll make you one in 3 minutes).
• It's very overpriced.
• And, to my eyes at least, it's a shallow contrived way of getting lots of cash for not lots of work. Great for the capitalist in you, but where's the art in that?

I'm not one to decide what is and isn't art. But I'm also one to share my opinions of said art with anyone who cares to listen. And by golly I tell you this is just crap. But hey, hats off to the capitalist nature of this artist. I'm sure a pretty penny will be had for this unoriginal drivel.

That said, given copying is a form of flattery, I now announce: One Thousand Sticky Notes. I have 1000 of these babies with a number written on them. By me, personally! Stickiness not guaranteed. Each one's $10 plus shipping (none of this escalating price "because it's an experiment of art and mathematics" crap). Contact me if you want one. Here are some awesome pics of them.