First, there's onethousandpaintings.com, where Swiss artist Sala is selling "unique" paintings of every integer (not number, as she says. I have to nitpick) from 1 to 1000. She calls them unique because each is a different number and she doesn't make copies. I put it in quotes because each uses the same font/color scheme. In her words:
One number, one painting - the number is the art is the limit is the price. Each of the one thousand paintings is unique, showing a number between 1 and 1000. This is an experiment of art and mathematics, on the web, the first of its kind.She later mentions the minimum price is $40, plus $20-30 shipping.
The value of each painting is defined by its number (value = 1000 - number). The earlier you buy, the more you save.
Next up, via a link on her own site, is theblackcubes.com which is slightly more pretentious. Again, from the site:
I'm making 999 wooden black cubes. Every cube has the same shape, appearence and dimensions (every facet is 20 cm.). The strange thing is that there is something inside the cube!. But nobody can take possession of its real sense, because if the cube is opened this sense is lost irreparably. The cube is the material representation of human curiosity.
[...]
There is a reason for the number of the cubes, 999. If i sell a good number you will know it
- What is it inside the cubes? I can only say that there is something different for every cube, that make your cube unique;
- You can't get its sense if the cube is opened (that means breaking it).
- Every cube is a part of an unique project
- DON'T OPEN IT!!
- Something else will happen to my project some day (when i have sold all cubes)
The price of the cubes is determined by the number of sold cubes; every cube sold the price will increase of 0.50 USD. If you buy now you save your money!
The current price is $85.50 USD.
In both of these cases, no matter how lofty their rhetoric, their greed gets in the way of the message they're supposedly conveying. In the first case, it's obvious that the number is the art is the limit, but is not the price. The $40 minimum interferes with the idea. Not to mention she's trying to buy back popular numbers and sell them again at a profit.
I'm less clear about the black cubes. I feel that their increasing value over time conflicts with my idea of "human curiosity." I don't see how uncertainty adds value to itself over time.I suppose if I buy a pack of baseball cards in 1989 and don't open it, I will be able to sell it at a higher price today. But in that case, it's what the pack contains that gives it value, not the curiosity of the owner. Yes, those 20 cards would be worth less if not in a factory sealed pack. But consider this. If you burgled a house and found a sealed envelope with "20 mint-condition 1989 baseball cards" written on the outside. Would you be able to sell this for more or less money than the sealed pack? Decidedly not. Which would you be more likely to tear open? Probably the envelope. To me, this says that the extra information implied by factory sealed package (they are baseball cards, they are from 1989, they are more likely in mint condition) increases the price. In other words, more information, higher price, but less curiosity.
I guess I can go on as long as I want about hype, artificial demand and over-priced, pretentious art, but they're selling Why does seem that collective action never works the way I want it to?
