Artist Mark Kostabi during the opening of Involuntary Painting Top Ten Show

Imagine you were an alien that had been programmed with all the knowledge of art but had never seen any. What might you mistake for a painting, for art as you wander through Earth’s streets, shopping malls, country roads, subway systems…?

This is the premise that artists Millree Hughes and Paul Conneally used to set up their social media work of art ‘Involuntary Painting Facebook Group’ the first ever artwork that is actually a Facebook Group and lives inside Facebook itself without any formal connection to the Facebook company other than it’s within it .. like mistletoe on an apple tree.

‘INVOLUNTARY PAINTING TOP TEN’ took place at the fabulous Kustera Projects Red Hook gallery in Brooklyn, New York that brought together the ‘top ten’ involuntary paintings as decided over a given period by Facebook’s own algorithms based on the number of likes photographs submitted to the group had had. Effectively the show was curated by Facebook itself, the members of the group and visitors to the group that liked particular photographs of what had been submitted as ‘Involuntary Paintings’.

The show was then brought together lovingly by Millree and artist Jayme Lee Aumann.

Take a peek at the opening at Kustera Projects Red Hook:

Actions and interactions, interventions and shows both in the street and more traditional art establishments out of and related to the Involuntary Painting concept continue to be undertaken by Conneally & Hughes as they further examine the nature of painting, sculpture and music, what they have been are and might be. Watch out for an event near you or contact them and become the event yourself.

Participants in the Involuntary Top Ten Show were: Jo Anne Lobotsky, Mark Kostabi, Millree Hughes, Alvaro Alvarez, Michel Audouard, Tom La Padula, Wieslawa Zurawska, Mike Hammers and Lynette Scholes.