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.

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

News You Can't Use: Billionaires Shrug Off Volatile Markets for Art Shopping Spree

It's very important that we keep track of and cater to the whims of our billionaires, the wise and noble success stories that work tirelessly for our common good. Whether it's destabilizing some sand box or trying to get more people on narcotics you can rest assured that Uncle Ten Figure has your best interests at heart. But what of their own activities, the life we are told should be the focus of all of our combined envy and admiration? As it turns out various problems hitting the prole sector don't seem to be stopping the art shopping sprees and by art, of course, I mean total and complete garbage.

Art dealer David Kordansky checked his wristwatch nervously. It was 45 minutes into the opening of the Frieze Art Fair and his booth, with large abstract paintings intersected with neon light tubes by Mary Weatherford, was mostly empty.

Nice to see the Solyndra remains are still a money sink for limousine liberals. Or would be, if they'd just show up. Where are you, guy that bet against our currency, got rich, and now indulges his bad taste? Come on marks patrons, get up in this sucker. Maybe I should check that watch again, possibly while displaying the signs of anxiety. Should help.

“I am waiting for the individuals these paintings are on reserve for to show up,” Kordansky said on Tuesday, tapping his timepiece. “Is there a line outside?”

Please tell the unindicted White collar criminals are out there. I'm dying here, man. 

Kordansky didn’t need to worry. Neither the 15-minute line snaking through the fair’s Regent’s Park location nor the roiling financial markets could deter the international jet set from its annual art shopping spree in London.

Wow, what a relief that news is. Now that this real issue has been settled we can focus on minor distractions like how the power just got cut off.

The displayed five paintings by Weatherford sold at the VIP preview, with prices ranging from $120,000 to $220,000.

"You think people will pay that ridiculous price?"

"I only need one."

Billionaire Eli Broad, jeweller Laurence Graff, heiress Nicky Hilton Rothschild and actor Benedict Cumberbatch joined the throngs of established and wannabe collectors who descended on Frieze and its nearby sister fair, Frieze Masters, on this crisp October day.

I suggest you skip Frieze Masters which is full of industrialists, politicians, heiresses that received less than a billion dollars and other commoner scum.

Broad, who navigated the aisles in a wheelchair following back surgery, said he was cautious about the financial markets and bullish about the art market.

All that worthless money we keep printing has to end up somewhere, right?

“The art market is very strong. You’d think there are no troubles anywhere in the world.”

It's almost like the obscenely wealthy live in this fantasy world insulated from reality, but we all know that's not true. Soros wants you blowing dope and living in debt, he obviously has the common touch."

Once I explain the Marxist symbolism behind this ugly monstrosity you'll want to buy.

Established in 2003, Frieze has become one of the world’s leading art fairs, competing with Art Basel and expanding geographically with a Frieze New York edition in May. 

I'm sure we're not telling you anything you didn't already know.

“Sold,” Timothy Blum, co-owner of Blum and Poe, based in Los Angeles, Tokyo and New York, kept telling clients inquiring about a $600,000 painting by Yoshitomo Nara. The gallery also placed a new painting by Takashi Murakami for $1 million.

I don't even like it. I just wanted to acquire it to prove I could and to stave off the inner emptiness.

“It’s a very safe place to go,” said Marianne Boesky. “You are buying quality, not something untested.”

None of this art made of pudding that rapidly decays, not here, no sir.

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

News You Can't Use: Artist Tracey Emin Whoops as Her "My Bed" Fetches Over $4 million

Some guy once observed that one of the signs of civilization collapsing is "art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original." This is great news for us, of course, because our artistic outputs have never been better. From billionaire industrialist vampires that like it rough to the sustained excellence created by network television it's an embarrassment of riches on the cultural front. Now we can add the bed of some woman with a busted face to this already fully stocked pantry.

Tracey Emin's "My Bed," complete with cigarette butts, crumpled sheets and underwear, sold for 2.5 million pounds ($4.25 million) on Tuesday, a record for the artist, who was present at the auction and applauded and whooped delightedly.

"Yee-haw! I can't believe this shit actually worked!"

It calls to mind the story of the boy who decided to sell lemonade for 100k per glass. "Do you really expect a lot of people to pay such an outrageous price?" someone asks.

"I only need one."

Emin's 1998 work, which fetched over 1 million pounds above its top estimated price, and a Francis Bacon portrait of Lucian Freud, which sold for 11.5 million pounds, were the show stoppers in a 75 strong collection of portrait-themed works auctioned by Christie's.

I'm guessing the portrait of the first viscount of St. Alban was a real, legitimated painting, you know like back in the bad days before Smart Phones and Instagram, and not a picture of some guy named Francis made out of literal bacon. You have to ask, just to be sure.

The auction house said it was very rare for an artist to attend an auction, and it demonstrated the connection Emin felt to the highly personal work.

See, not a half-assed stunt to take money from wealthy fools at all! This is "highly personal," in the same way what I flushed down the toilet earlier today is.

The price reached for Emin's work, described by the auction house as an iconic piece of 1990s British art, quadrupled her previous sale price record, but Christie's said the market was not overheating.

"In a fair world my soiled bed would be sold for Manhattan Island."

This is art. (Dat face, doe.)

People are really making distinct choices. Its a very subjective response to works," Brett Gorvy, Christie's international head of post-war and contemporary art, said after the sale.

He was later seen literally swimming in money.

Around 190 bidders from 28 countries took part in the auction, Christie's said, with interest from Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.

Their interests and motives ranged from "get something for that wing of the museum where the art students sneak off to fornicate" to "prove I'm a man of culture despite my total and complete debasement."

But the price was a relatively poor showing for a Bacon piece compared with his recent record-breaking at auction.

The massive, white-hot popularity of the man who arguably created empiricism. They just go crazy for that Baconian method, man.

Some of the proceeds from the Bacon sale will be diverted to two charities championed by Dahl, and by his family since his death in 1990.

I honestly thought we'd talk about that whole "bed thing" more.

All the buyers from the auction chose to remain anonymous, meaning Emin will have to wait to find out whether her Turner short-listed work will end up in a museum, a wish she expressed the week before.

Totally Dissipated Wealthy Bastards With Horrible Taste, Anonymous.  Step One: admit you can't control your need to buy ordinary items from someone who looks like they were hit in the face with a sack of nickels.

Also, "This belongs in a museum!" shouts Dr. Jones as he battles Poison Claw assassins for the possession of empty cigarette packs and maybe a bottle or two.

Fifteen years ago, the startlingly human elements of the work, which includes discarded condoms and stained sheets, caused a sensation, raising questions about what was and was not art.

In unrelated news, that guy I mentioned earlier also thought "obsession with sex and perversions of sex" was not a sign of societal health. Like I said, unrelated. Don't know why I brought that up.

Speaking ahead of the auction, Emin told Reuters TV that the work felt like "a ghost."

This is one ghost that deserves to be busted.

"I feel quite sad, and I feel that it's like a fragment of time," she added.($1 = 0.5877 British Pounds)

I like how this article abruptly ends with an exchange rate, possibly the only information of any value in the entire thing. It's late, but we'll take it.

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Check Out My Books! Millions of Dollars not Required!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.