- How did the projects idea started?
I was hardly selling any works and was looking for a new idea to make money with art. “WILL PAINT FOR FOOD” is my experimental setup to test whether I can make a living selling jpgs.
- Why did you decide to match the price of the product exactly?
The painting matches the price of the product so I can purchase the product from the sales. The price also matches the time I invest in the work calculated with local minimum wage. This protects me from self exploitation by selling underpriced art labor, and it gives collectors additional security about the value of the art – you get what you pay for: if you buy a painting of a bunch of flowers, it “contains” at least the labor time I would need to earn those flowers in any other profession than art. This restriction to minimum wage also comes with interesting consequences. My output and my earnings are harshly restricted by my time. One collector asked me when I would paint a beautiful bottle of red wine. Well, I don’t know, a good bottle might cost one hour. I have to paint potatoes, butter and milk first.
- What does “payment” mean in this project?
First of all, the payment is the products. I consume what I buy. Collecting art becomes feeding the artist. Sometimes people feed me bananas, sometimes chocolate, I even painted a pack of cigarettes. A German phrase says, you become what you eat. A few hours or days after the purchase, most products literally became part of me as some substance in some cell. Secondly, most collectors additionally pay with their time as well. I create truly affordable works for the price of a yogurt. But I can only publish one a day on zeroone. So it takes some time and even luck to build a substantial collection. Finally, the collectors payment is my right to exist as an artist for a few minutes more, until I list the next jpg, the next test. I mean, eventually, every painting also asks the collector: do I prefer the painting over the real product? Why would I buy a painting of a banana instead of getting bananas for myself? When is a painting of bananas worth more than the actual bananas that could feed me instead? Somebody called this Existenz-Art, and I liked the term.
- What do you want to communicate with this projecT?
Nothing. I just want to earn money and find out if this is possible with jpgs.
- What happens once the product is bought and consumed?
I try to always share a photo of what I purchased. Sometimes I don’t get all the products. Then, I will explain what I bought instead.
- Why did you choose to publish this project on zeroone?
I loved zeroone from the beginning and was the first artist to mint a work after launch. This work was called “Paradox Light 1”, which was literally the start of my journey towards my artistic language. The paradox light series consists of ten ai generated fake photographs. They show my very first approaches to expressing just something. I continued with more series, adding patterns, shapes, substances to my language, before I made the first experiments with motifs like molecules or foggy figurines. Months later I left this hazy birth stage to start with abstract symbolism. The hand and the crow play important roles in my first attempts to use my language to talk, to articulate, to comment on topics outside of this so far self-referential loop of meaning. Then, I took a break because of more urgent projects. When I was ready to continue, I felt AI was not the proper means to go further. “WILL PAINT FOR FOOD” Goes beyond. What looks like a harsh cut, from black-white AI photography to almost naive microsoft paint scribbles, is actually most straight forward. My art took me from perception to expression, and now it is time for action. This action consists in direct exchange of value from one person to another. Artistic value for calories. Asset for asset. This idea of direct exchange has always been the beautiful core principle of zeroone.
- Is this project finished, or could it keep going indefinitely?
It can only get better over time. A friend asked, what happens when I painted everything I normally eat? Well, I would paint the same products again. Hopefully there will be some artistic development visible. Maybe the retail prices changed. This project is almost turning into an interactive blockchain performance. The records of this project could even serve as a document about the value of art in quite challenging times. Additionally, I will try my best to bring some new dynamics into the game. I mean, I really need to be more creative (or quit sleeping) if I plan to someday pay my rent from this project.
After too many years in front of the laptop, I had to get my hands drirty. Thanks to a voucher Muzsa gave me, I could take my first claywork lessons and I liked it a lot. The most notable works, among many funny and useful things (e.g. double-walled espresso cups), are the Embassy of the Republic to Užupis to Munich and my Boston Ceramics series.
