Frank Meo, a Millburn-based rep for professional photographers, doesn’t seem to know it, but he has invented writing. Five thousand years late, perhaps, but if he’s successful with his new show, “Mind Prints,” opening Thursday night in Brooklyn, he may just be the most successful writer in terms of getting paid by the word.

Consider his piece “When Bill told Hillary” (pictured), four words, in 4″ high American Typewriter font, printed on 30″ x 40″ fine art paper, which goes for $900 unframed (but signed) and $1,200 framed. Framed, that’s $300 a word.

Meo calls his series of 78 “flash card” images “Mind Prints” because, even though they are only words, they conjure up actual images in people’s minds. And lest you think he’s trying to put one over on us, Meo is really, really excited about this. He feels he’s truly onto something. “If I say to you Clemens Taking Steroids, OJ Fighting With Ron Goldman, Monica With a Cigar, something that you’ve never seen,” Meo marvels, I can picture all these things in my mind. “The guy who does your cleaning, the frankfurter guy, everybody gets it. You are actually in the cave with Bin Laden. And you’ve had a meal with Jeff Dahmer.”

Well I kind of hope not.

Meo’s show opens Thursday at the VII Photo Agency, 28 Jay St. in Brooklyn, with a panel discussion and party from 6 to 8:30 p.m., which will include Time magazine deputy photo editor Paul Moakley. If $900 a print is too hefty a price for you (Meo recommends buying four and grouping them together as a great dinner party conversation starter), there’s also a book for $35, which will be available. Now that’s a bargain.

Learn more about Meo’s Mind Prints at his website, “Captured in the Mind.”

22 replies on “But Is It Art?”

  1. Here’s a few locally inspired ones:

    Cro’s dentures soaking.

    Lasermike wiping the spit off his monitor.
    (remember him?)

    Frost building up on Conan’s martini glass.

    Cathar’s Thesaurus.

    Galant apologizing to realtors … again.

    Fried telling ATF about EBAY.

  4. ahem….ROC, I believe you are tampering with my intellectual property with your allusion to “dentures” — as you may recall Spiro’s haiku of a year or so ago, which finished in second place in the Baristanet haiku contest –

    ROC stumbles
    and falls on cathar’s dentures
    the Iceman cometh.

  6. Despite a youth spent in a land which until quite recently saw dental care as a waste of time, and despite a few scuffles in my early twenties with aggressive types who liked to solve arguments with fists, I still have all of my teeth with nary a denture — (one cap, however).

    One has to wonder why ROC continues to return to the “dentures” theme. Perhaps his ageism is showing? Maybe he suffers from odontophobia?

    Who knows?

    Like so much else about ROC, the answers are buried deep. Chilean miner deep.

  8. While it’s amusing to learn that you still have your teeth, croiagusanam (though why you imagine any of us should much care is rather baffling), I would also suggest that they don’t ever seem to do a very good job of straining your metaphors through their Guinness-stained surfaces.

    And Spiro T., of course you have to take opportunity to congratulate yourself here. Because, really, who else would, right? (Certainly no one who appreciates even doggerel, let alone haiku.)

    That someone would pay for Meo’s pricey nonsense is but the latest sad commentary on how truly low modern “art” has sunk. That it apparently merits a panel discussion by some equally delusional to Meo is, simply, appalling. And definitely a good reason never again to take ANY cultural criticism offered up in “Time” even half-seriously. Me, I’m sure there’s much more acute art appreciation in any random issue of “MAD” magazine. (What, me worry about the apparently rapidly approaching senescence of either croiagusanam or Spiro T.?)

  9. I’m disappointed not to read the usual from cathar.

    How he “once knew” Marc Chagall, for instance.

    Or “used to drink” with Jackson Pollack.

    Or served under Lieutenant Canvas in the US Army.

    I’m sure that cathar’s posts re:art can be at least as tedious and meandering as those he offers up about music.

    I DO like my Guinness, though. That’s true. That was one of the drawbacks in flying Air Libya. Couldn’t get any.

    Now all I have to do is hustle over to Clifton for a bottle or two, ignoring the fellow in the bathrobe pushing a shopping cart and mumbling, a la RAINMAN, “Slow news day. Slow news day.”

  11. You get more bitter by the post, croiagusanam. To the point where you need a sidekick, a Sancho Panza. Or, more accurately, a Smikey Burnette type to help prop you up.

    Lucky for you then that you’ve got poor Spiro T. (Though he’s a poor gallery to play to if it comes to that, and it clearly has; he’s more like a remora than a back-up.)

    Together, too, you’re still both pretty toothless in terms of actual debate.

  12. “Debate” is a concept totally foreign to you, cathar, enamored as you are by the sound of your own voice.

    I realize that in the absence of laser you are scrambling about looking for a foil. JG served for a time, but her complete indifference to your nonsense no doubt frustrated you no end. So, Spiro will do.

    Its not that you’re wrong, or pompous, or self-absorbed that becomes more apparent each day (though those certainly apply). It is that you’re boring, and that is at the end of the day the truly unforgiveable sin.

  13. (Boring? The only reason I clicked on this post is that I saw his name. Still not sure how I “missed” it though. Thank goodness for the “recent posts” on the home page.)

    Carry on gentlemen!

  14. Since you were absent prof, you will have 24 hours in which to catch up and complete the assignment.

    As you know however, you are still responsible for the work.

  15. Hey yall! Been thinking about “art” lately. Want to express myself. Have alot to say about my “feelings” and the world. Want to show ppl everything about me. Thinking that i should get some poster board (via Staples) and create a relevant conceptual art project that reflects my personal brand. Maybe a bloggable experience that I can share with chill bros. Seems like ppl in mtc have strong ideas about the arts and crafts. Just want a lifestyle where I can shatter “pre existing” norms.

    Should I go to art school (via community college)?
    Is art effing stupid or do u vibe out to “creativity”?
    Can ne1 “do” art?
    Will my life be a “success”?

  16. I’m going to step over the vitriol and suggest that Cathar is correct in his analysis of the “art”. The wonder is that people buy this stuff. A panel discussion is beyond the pale.

    Spiro I’d suggest a car pool back to Jay St. with a stop in one of the restaurants on Court St. but this so called art isn’t worth the trip.

  18. Should I go to art school (via community college)? No
    Is art effing stupid or do u vibe out to “creativity”? No
    Can ne1 “do” art? No
    Will my life be a “success”? Maybe

  20. Based on the comments left her, yes it is art. It has provoked and inspired-it’s art. I’m actually going to this showing because I think these pieces are great conversation starters for my friends who don’t drink. The non-drinkers who are either recovering (a life sentence) or the gay and athletic ones which think that alcohol would cause fat to accumulate on the abs!

  22. As the creator of Mind Prints I wanted to thank all of you for coming on board and emailing a comment. Debbie, is not sure if it’s art. However, I’m positive that it made all of you think for a moment. That is the point of the project. Thinking that you are a creator of a visual moment that nobody has ever seen. You may not know but you did. That is the job of this body of work. It’s to make people understand that all of us create visuals simply by reading black type on white. Rather simple for sure.
    The book that supports this show has an introduction written by the lead brain surgeon from Johns Hopkins, Dr. Barry Gordon – like you, he saw it too. The forward was written by an art historian, Sylvia Laudien from the MOMA and Guggienheim like some of you see’s it in a larger context.

    So don’t feel bad if you missed the point, it was right in front of you.

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