What is art, really? What is it? This is a video in which a bunch of so-called "art experts" in the Netherlands are tricked into thinking an Ikea painting is high art.
The LifeHunters, an Internet faction, performed the prank by placing a painting from Ikea's "Street Art" collection in the Modern Museum for Modern Art in Arnhem to see how people would react.
The host, Boris, even tells some museum-goers that the work is from a Swedish artist named Ike Andrews. Everyone is deeply moved:
"You can clearly see that it concerns a form of symbolism."
"Primordial shapes, a hut somewhere in Africa..."
"It's a depiction of the chaos in his mind."
"Dear me, it's unbelievable."
Isn't it? All this proves is that humans dislike not knowing things. Whoever made those Ikea prints: congrats, people think you're a genius.
I still have a couple of mesmerizing Ikea masterpieces myself, including a black-and-white canvas print that's just an image of two stones. It's brilliant.
Contact the author at clover@jezebel.com.
DISCUSSION
While I might think it's funny to trick people into thinking a $5 bottle of wine is actually $500, something about this experiment just feels douchey to me. I mean, someone did originally make that piece of art. Just because it's from IKEA and a print doesn't make it not real art. Maybe it just makes it a successful and widely appealing piece of art.
/endrant