News You Can't Use: Prankster Puts Glasses on Gallery Floor - and Visitors Mistake them for Art

The most vital, interesting and aesthetically pleasing form of art in today's modern world is, without any doubt, internet trolling by sneering punks. A presidential candidate as a cartoon frog? Pictures with wacky words over them? It's pure brilliance and like any glimpse of the divine it can't be restrained and must burst forth gloriously into the so-called real world in the form of some punk kid leaving specs on the floor and fooling everyone.

A teenager decided to play a prank on art-lovers when visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this Week. 

If there's an easier group to prank than art lovers I haven't encountered it.

TJ Khayatan, 17, told BuzzFeed News he and his friends got the idea for the stunt after they had mixed opinions of the art on display: “Upon first arrival we were quite impressed with the artwork and paintings presented in the huge facility,” he said. “However, some of the ‘art’ wasn’t very surprising to some of us.”

As you know the quality of the visual arts is determined by their ability to surprise. That's why that screaming face that pops up when you're halfway through a maze puzzle is objectively better than anything produced by the Renaissance. Also, hurry up and die, BuzzFeed.

He was particularly critical of one exhibit, which he described as a “stuffed animal on a gray blanket”.

Is this some kind of allegory? Look at this b.s. Come on.

“[We] questioned if this was really impressive to some of the nearby people,” he said.

Hey dudemar, you diggin' this trick bag or what? You think this obvious shuck is impressive? Really?

TJ and his friends then decided to put a pair of glasses down on the floor to see how other visitors to the gallery would respond.  

Art museums, the world's roomiest and most visually pleasing Skinner Boxes.

He claims people were nearly immediately fooled by his fake exhibit, and started gathering around it “within seconds” to take photos.  

Well, his exact words were "Adults are the suck" but you get the idea.

The pictures struck a chord with the public, and were shared tens of thousands of times in a few hours – and were eventually listed as a “Twitter Moment”.

It can't be all Chewie masks, sorry.

Despite the wild success of his prank, TJ told Buzzfeed it shouldn’t be construed as a condemnation of modern art: “I can agree that modern art can be a joke sometimes, but art is a way to express our own creativity. Some may interpret it as a joke, some might find great spiritual meaning in it.  

Some shallow mark might get all spiritual on this figurative middle finger and that's real nice or whatever.

Paris as seen through the eyes of a blind man.

 “At the end of the day, I see it as a pleasure for open-minded people and imaginative minds.”

Also, anyone over the age of twenty sucks.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.