Category:
Overpriced Merchandise
Overpriced Merchandise
On Kawara’s Date Paintings
Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara began creating his "date paintings" on January 4, 1966. These were paintings of that day's date, done in plain lettering against a solid background. If he couldn't finish the painting on the day he started it, he would destroy it.Kawara continued creating date paintings until he died in 2014, creating over 3000 of them. Several of these date paintings have now sold for over $1 million.
I like the concept, and I admire his commitment to his routine. But $1 million sure seems like a lot to pay for a painting of a date, especially when there's 3000 similar paintings out there.
More info: OnKawara.co.uk
An example of a date painting
Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 22, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Art, Overpriced Merchandise
Microscopic Handbag
A creation of the New York fashion collective MSCHF:MSCHF’s Microscopic Handbag is made via a stereolithographic process commonly used for making tiny mechanical biotech structures. It is the final word in bag miniaturization. As a once-functional object like a handbag becomes smaller and smaller its object status becomes steadily more abstracted until it is purely a brand signifier... Microscopic Handbag takes this to its full logical conclusion.
It sold at auction in 2023 for over $63,000.
More info: joopiter.com, cnn.com
via bookofjoe.com
Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 17, 2025 -
Comments (2)
Category: Fashion, Overpriced Merchandise
Shirt by Dries Depoorter
About a year ago, Belgian artist Dries Depoorter began selling black t-shirts. They have the word 'shirt' embroidered on the front, followed by a number. The number indicates the order number. So the first shirt he sold had number 0001. The second was 0002, etc.The gimmick is that he sold the first shirt for 1 euro, but the price increased by one euro with each successive order. Within a week he was at shirt 0172, so it looked like he was doing pretty well.
Now, a year later, a new shirt will cost you 185 euros. This suggests he hasn't had many sales in the past year.
More info: driesdepoorter.be
Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 09, 2025 -
Comments (0)
Category: Art, Fashion, Overpriced Merchandise
Hurting the Word Radio #2
The 1964 painting "Hurting the Word Radio #2" by Ed Ruscha is valued at $53 million. It's reportedly one of the most expensive works of art owned by Jeff Bezos.
image source: google arts and culture
The value surprised me when I read about it, though it probably shouldn't have because sky-high valuations for works of modern art are by now, as Chuck Shepherd would have said, "no longer weird."
Even so, as the Center for Art Law notes, Ruscha created hundreds of words on canvas over the decades. How did this one get singled out to be worth so much? Ruscha himself never promoted it as special. (Nor does he directly benefit from its current valuation.)
The Center for Art Law suggests that the work's "impeccable and unimpeachable" provenance may have a lot to do with the high price tag. In an art market awash in fraud, undeniably authentic works command a high premium.
Posted By: Alex - Sat May 18, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Art, Overpriced Merchandise
Balenciaga Towel Skirt
Balenciaga recently debuted a "towel skirt" that retails for $925. It's been receiving quite a lot of attention.
Ikea spoofed if by coming out with a "VINARN towel skirt".
A writer for Vogue tried wearing it on her morning commute. She wrote, "It looked like I’d locked myself out of the house while doing the bins... Only the bins were across town."
Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 23, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Fashion, Overpriced Merchandise
Ocean-Aged Wine
Ocean Fathoms promised its customers truly superior wine (for the price of $500/bottle) based on its unique method of aging the wine: in the ocean. It dropped the wine bottles to the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel and brought them up a year later. From its website:The Santa Barbara Channel offers not only the perfect environment for the aging process of wine, but is sits in a rich sea-life transition zone, where cold arctic waters meet warmer waters from the equator providing more than 100 species of flora and fauna unique to this location. The combination of flora and fauna attracts an abundance of sea-creatures and sea-life which ultimately adorn our bottles.
It is also the interaction between the submerged wine cages and the set of special characteristics of the Channel Islands’ environment that gives Ocean Fathoms a superior product. We sourced the absolute best location on planet earth to age our superior wine.
It is also the interaction between the submerged wine cages and the set of special characteristics of the Channel Islands’ environment that gives Ocean Fathoms a superior product. We sourced the absolute best location on planet earth to age our superior wine.
One problem. It never got permits to do any of this. The Bureau of Alcoholic Beverage Control seized and destroyed 2,000 bottles of the wine.
I wonder if the ocean-aging actually made any difference. My guess is that it's just the latest wine-industry gimmick.
More info: Food & Wine
Posted By: Alex - Tue Aug 22, 2023 -
Comments (5)
Category: Inebriation and Intoxicants, Overpriced Merchandise
Destroyed Baggy Jeans
We've posted about ripped jeans before. But these take the concept to a whole new level of grottiness.You can purchase them via Bergdorf Goodman for only $2,450.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 24, 2023 -
Comments (7)
Category: Overpriced Merchandise, Denim
Sato Nishiki cherries
Recently a box of 40 Sato Nishiki cherries, grown in Yamagata, sold for close to $10,000. More info from SoraNews24.com:On January 5, at Ota Market’s first wholesale auction of the year in Tokyo, produce wholesaler Funasho Group claimed the winning bid for Yamagata-produced premium Sato Nishiki cherries. 500 grams (1.1 pounds) of the fruit sold for its highest price ever–1.3 million yen (US$9,842), which is 100,000 yen higher than the winning bid last year.
That's $250 per cherry.
SoraNews24 also notes that, when they sampled some Sato Nishiki cherries, "our team of writers had trouble telling them apart from regular supermarket ones."
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 10, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Overpriced Merchandise, Fruit
Eco-washed organic denim with grass stains
Gucci is selling an "Eco washed organic denim overall" that comes with a "stained-like, distressed effect." AKA fake grass stains. Yours for only $1400.
Or you could get this Orange Tartan Cotton Long Smock Shirt. Only $2600!
Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 24, 2020 -
Comments (6)
Category: Fashion, Denim, Overpriced Merchandise
Banana duct-taped to wall
Artist Maurizio Cattelan’s latest piece, consisting of a banana duct-taped to a wall, sold recently for $120,000.Gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin defended the work by saying, “It looks like a joke, but step back and look at it again, and it becomes so much more.”
The new owner will receive a certificate of authenticity. However, they’ll also be expected to periodically replace the banana (and presumably the duct tape also). Which begs the question: what did they actually buy? The idea of a banana duct-taped to a wall, apparently.
I'm curious to know how long the owner will actually bother to replace the banana. Twenty years from now, will they still be replacing it every few days?
More info: artsy.net
Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 07, 2019 -
Comments (8)
Category: Art, Overpriced Merchandise, Bananas
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |