What you see is what you get (0,40)

Whenever someone buys a piece of art at a gallery, a red sticker is placed next to the artwork. That way everyone knows it has been sold. That small sticker inspired Peim. He has been making sticker ‘paintings’ ever since.

Not only the sticker itself inspired Peim. Also what the sticker stands for. In his opinion the sticker represents the artmarket. Why are some paintings worth millions of euros, while you can buy others for 50 euro? Who decides what a painting costs?

A lot of Peim’s work is about the price of art. He sells his own artworks in extraordinary ways. The price for one of his artworks was once decided by spinning a wheel of fortune for example. Another price was decided by the amount of followers Peim has on Instagram. Or buyers could pay whatever they wanted. With the sale of that artwork Peim earned a years’ worth of catfood, a weekend at a B&B and a sushidinner for 4.

This work is also about the price. The price of the paintings is actually very clear.

The price of both paintings is the sum of all the stickers on them. The patterns are the same, but because the stickers on one are marked with 0,40, it is much more expensive as the one with 0,30 stickers.

Peim made a series of these works. Every next painting is made with 0,10 cents more ‘expensive’ stickers. The whole series look the same but are very different in price.

You probably recognize the stickers themselves. The are often placed on products in the supermarket. The price of food changes a lot too. At one store, the same product can be much more expensive as the other.

There was a research into the price of Belgian chocolates once. Three boxes of the same chocolates where placed in a supermarket, only the price was different. It turned out most people bought the most expensive box. Because they are a luxury product, most people wanted what they thought was the best quality.