Can’t tell the difference between abstract art and splattered ketchup? Neither can I. Next time you’re looking for a piece to hang in the wall, don’t bother dropping in at the gallery. Just use the Frame Napkin while you eat something messy and display it in the living room when you’re done.
There’s nothing especially artful about it. It’s just a regular table napkin with a silkscreened print of a fancy painting frame along the border. You use it like any napkin at the dinner table too – you put it over your shirt, you set it on your lap and you wipe your dirty mouth with it while you eat. Before you know it, all that spaghetti, mustard and BBQ sauce will be splattered on the area inside the frame, just like one of those fancy abstract pieces at the museum.
Fashioned by Kouichi Okamoto for Kyouei Design, the Frame Napkin is a 490 × 525 mm piece of table linen that can function exactly like every piece of serviette known to man. Except that elaborate frame design lets you trick people into thinking you’ve got something special hanging on the wall when you stick it up there with double-sided tape and a random smattering of stains. You know, like real art.
Even better, the thing is completely washable, so you can clean it up and reuse to create a different masterpiece every single time. They’re available in Japan for the equivalent of a steep $40 apiece. Hey, nobody said art was cheap.