Would You Spend $200,000 on This Seven-Year-Old's Paintings?
Meet Kieron Williamson, a seven-year-old kid from Norfolk, England. Like a lot of kids, Kieron likes to paint—landscapes, mostly, using watercolors. The only difference is, Kieron just sold 33 of his paintings—for a total of $200,000.
Those 33 paintings—the entirety of his latest show at Picturecraft Gallery—sold in 27 minutes. Some people camped outside the gallery for two days waiting for the sale to open, coming from as far as Arizona and New Jersey (of all the states, that would have people desperate to buy a second-grader's paintings, those two seem like the most likely). Some 700 people are on a Kieron Williamson waiting list.
So is this like an "art thing" where it turns out that Kieron is actually some 36-year-old Swiss guy and the whole gallery opening was "a happening" and we all are being taught a lesson about, I don't know, capitalism? Take a look at the pictures yourself!
So: Those are not very good paintings. Just kidding! Value judgments are meaningless and art is a lie. Let's hang them in the New Museum and call it a day.
