[slidepress gallery=’high-def-kinkade-cottage’]

Here’s an art exhibition I’d like to see: a series of Thomas Kinkade-ish scenes shot with a top-of-the-line high definition video camera, presented in a gallery installation on the best possible HD equipment. It seems to me that re-presenting the traditional, cozy Kinkade image in the eye-busting crispness of top-quality high definition technology would produce superb tension. And, if you only displayed images on equipment that cost exorbitant amounts–but which truly provided a “realer than real” image–then the work would have that certain precious quality which would increase it’s “value” in the world. The idea would be that because the images need costly equipment to be produced in the first place, the representations themselves must be worth more. It’s a simple fusion of the conceptual and the physical, and it also nicely packages the technology right into the artwork. It’s an upgrade to the Kinkade on all levels. Thomas Kinkade for the 21st century.

As a sort of sketch for what I’m talking about, here’s a bit of HD footage shot by my friend Bruce T., who recently got a very bad ass Panasonic P2 HD camera. I’d take something like this and put it on a $10,000 top-of-the-line wall-inset television (there would be lots of ways to add impact through its treatment on the wall), and just let it play there, the leaves gently swaying in the evening breeze.

By the way, did you know that Kinkade authenticates his “original” paintings by actually infusing his own DNA into the ink with which he signs them. That’s pretty cool actually, and perhaps more like art than the paintings themselves.
[slidepress gallery=’high-def-kinkade-trout-feed’]