The Living Story

Jeroen van der Most learned through media reports that he had supposedly created an artwork titled The Diriyah Starry Night, which was sold in Saudi Arabia for $3.2 million. The problem was that the artist had never created the artwork. Van der Most traveled to Saudi Arabia, where he managed to locate the painting and add his signature to the artwork he had not created. The incident raised important questions about authorship, authenticity, and value. The artist has shared this story on more than one hundred stages around the world and maintains that the story itself is more compelling than any artwork he has created. As a result, he produced a certificate of ownership valued at $3.3 million - more than the sale price of the artwork. In doing so, the artist points to the idea that a lived experience and its story may be more valuable than the artwork itself.