214 and 234 of 1000 Paintings

After The Million Dollar Homepage there’s the One Thousand Paintings event going on right now. And it’s a mainly weblog driven issue after Seth Godin and Boing Boing entered the arena yesterday. 1,ooo paintings are going to be sold. But it’s about art, not money. It’s about virality, not advertising. It’s about uniqueness, not mass production. It’s about personal engagement and it’s new, not me too.

214, 234

I bought my girlfriends and my birthday paintings yesterday and I’m going to love the moment when the pictures and we geographically reunite after being separated during the last time. And of course I was so exited that I couldn’t hold back with it, so she already knows about it and loves the idea - paintings and numbers - as much as I do.

Surprise

Sala, the artist, wrote the following lines to the events blog only some minutes after I bought the paintings:

Ok, so this seems to be the night! Here in Zurich, it’s close to midnight, and I’m sitting here in my office to watch the counter tick. I am all alone here, so please stay a while with me, while we’re watching a little internet history happening ;-) And drop me a line at sala AT onethousandpaintings.com, if there’s something you want to say!

He answered on mine - evidently one of some hundreds - with his surprise about what’s happening: After selling only o.7 paintings a day since the events start in February, he’s sold more than 2oo paintings during the last 24 hours. And that’s twice as much as before “the night”.

What’s next

I’m sure that the last paintings offered will be sold out in June because this is not only “a little internet history” but a little art history as well. And I’m sure that mass media will jump on the train after the blogosphere laid the track. Next step will be thousands of One Thousand Paintings or other art followers because people simply don’t understand uniqueness and the meaning of the word “idea”.

BTW: I hope that Sala will publish the stories behind each painting afterwards.