How Long Did It Take?

 

 

This is a question I'm frequently asked.

A 7-minute song can take at the shortest 7 hours to record, or 7 days! An album of 7 songs which is 49 minutes long can take 7 months. 

 

The idea that something takes 7 minutes to make from start to finish with an asking price of $700,000 has to be a stunt. But that's not to say it's not interesting, clever or cunning. But how many times can you do that? 

 

I know it's a silly notion but silly sells.

 

Recently as a riff on creating with a time constraint, I set a stopwatch to track how long it took to create a piece of digital art. It was 7:04, and I titled it 16 Beeple Square Made In 7 minutes and 4 Seconds.

 

It's silly and it won't sell--or that's not its intention. It is a send-up of the Beeple piece that sold for $65 a few years ago. It is also a send-up of Carl Andre's floor sculptures which were grids of metal squares. Not that they are equal in their artistic value: Surely, the Andres have more established artistic value, as they are in the permanent collections of museums around the world. (Beeple might be there eventually but it remains to be seen). That could take a long time.