The Real Smiling Rock \ Lindsay Lawson (2017)

The Real Smiling Rock is a continually updating living document between the Artist, an eBay seller named guitarpickman.com, and the digital presence of a rock he is selling on eBay for $1,000,000. The high price of the rock is due to its singularity: it is a geode boasting a clownish smiley face.  Lindsay Lawson responded to the site-specificity of  AND Festival 2017, by questioning the partial decentring of the human, and the appeal of object-orientated love and desire. She opts instead for a kind of ‘equality’ of things and beings in the world, in real life or virtual.

The smiling rock has been listed on eBay for more than five years. It has been viewed more than 28,000 times and 97 people currently have the listing saved in their Watch Lists. Nearly 200 offers have been made to purchase the smiling rock for amounts less than $1,000,000 and none of them have been accepted.

Artist Lindsay Lawson’s work often combines a variety of media. In recent years, Lawson has developed a situational, performative-research process involving contracts, correspondence and interpersonal exchange that the she calls ‘Arrangements’.

The Real Smiling Rock was presented in partnership with English Heritage.