A video showing visitors to the Arnhem Museum in the Netherlands being punked with a 10-Euro IKEA print has gone viral.
With over 1 million views on YouTube, the three-minute clip, produced by Dutch production company Life Hunters, depicts host Boris Lange (looking like a dapper art historian with round spectacles) asking visitors what they think of a work created by a famous Swedish artist “IKE Andrews.”
“The name does sound familiar,” bluffs one silver-haired museumgoer while looking at the print, which Lange has propped up on an easel in the gallery.
The print, about three feet high, seems to show a cross-section of the classic ship-in-a-bottle motif, with the bottle split in two, revealing within it a giant, spider-like ship standing on the back of a sperm whale. By any reasonable standard, it’s a clunker worthy of a dorm room wall.
There’s apparently something about IKEA that gives rise to art-related comedy; see Van Gogh, Renoir, and Hopper Recreated With Ikea Furniture and Are Renaissance Paintings Full of Ikea Furniture?
Museum visitors’ serious (and therefore hilarious) responses range from “you can see clearly that it concerns form of symbolism” and “it includes nostalgic attributes” to “it’s a depiction of the chaos of his mind.”
“It’s modern,” says another. “It’s shocking.”
After art historical analysis of the work’s symbolism, Lange asks commentators to estimate the work’s value. The lowest estimate was 1,000 euros. The high estimate for this lot? Two-and-a-half million.
“You don’t buy this in a cheap store,” one visitor asserts with confidence.
Most visitors laugh heartily at themselves after Lange reveals the work’s provenance. One pair of young men don’t say a word but just saunter away.
This year, IKEA will be inviting 12 street artists from around the world including MCity, John Crash Matos, and Nuria Mora to create limited edition posters for the brand. Maybe those will turn out better than IKE Andrews’ effort.
View the video below.