STOCK ART. Artwork per $1 C-Print
Manifesto
In 2011, I discovered an entirely new world that had previously been completely unfamiliar to me, the world of Internet stocks. I became so interested in this new world that I managed to acquire a new profession – managing internet stocks – in addition to my regular work as an artist. As of this moment, I've managed to make quite a bit of money from this activity.
Today, I'm putting the images that have been created by me for the Internet stocks into the artistic space – contemporary art exhibitions and galleries.
As a result, these images cease to be mere elements of graphic design, turning instead into works of art. Thus, for instance, Marcel Duchamp's urinal, by being placed in a museum setting, has become a classic artistic object.
Currently, I am the world's only practicing stock-artist (StockArt – a term which I have invented and introduced into the international lexicon).
In the words of Boris Groys: «…Nowadays, the artist has lost his status as a creator, (but) he has simultaneously acquired heretofore-unimaginable opportunities in terms of controlling perception and using and contextualizing the image. … Today, it is the anonymous mass which manufactures the products of our civilization, while the artist is merely an individual observer of these products and the author of their use».
The artist is usually confronted with the problem of determining the commercial value of his own work. He inevitably becomes enslaved to the pricing scheme that is being forced upon him by the art market.
I sell my prints for $1 each (the price of an image on the Internet stock), and this declared price is my individual art strategy.
Philippe Starck set out to change the pricing mechanism of objects of mass consumption. He began by designing a chair whose end price for the consumer would be $9.
As for me, I regard the producer's willingness to make his products available to each and every member of society as an indicator of the "degree of democratization of society".
In this way, my works are quintessentially "democratic", since they are intended for all people, regardless of their financial means, bringing these people closer to art.
My concept may undermine the market of modern art – a market of profiteering and secrecy – and demolish the artificial wall between modern art and society that has been set up by the art market.