Title: THE SUNSET
A Conceptual Artwork Concerning Ownership, Atmosphere, and the Western Horizon
EDITION OF 3 + 2 ARTIST’S PROOF
Part of ‘The Best Things In Life Are For Sale’ series.
Conceptual Description
This artwork is not a representation of a sunset.
It is the sunset itself.
The work consists of the daily astronomical event commonly known as “sunset,” occurring when the sun passes below the visible horizon due to the rotation of the Earth. Unlike paintings of sunsets, photographs of sunsets, or poetic descriptions of sunsets, this piece presents the phenomenon directly, without mediation.
The collector(s) who acquire this artwork becomes the owner of the sunset.
Ownership here is both literal and paradoxical. The buyer possesses the conceptual rights to the event as an artwork while simultaneously possessing nothing that can be physically removed, stored, or restricted. The sunset remains visible to everyone, continues to occur each evening, and remains entirely indifferent to the fact that it has been purchased.
The irony is intentional.
The work exists within a long tradition of conceptual art in which the idea of the artwork holds greater significance than any physical artifact. In this case, the purchased object is an event already freely available to every person on Earth. By declaring the sunset a work of art and transferring its ownership to a private collector, the piece highlights the strange boundaries between public experience and private possession.
The sunset itself performs the artwork each day.
The performance begins gradually. The sun lowers in the sky, moving westward with steady inevitability. As it descends, the atmosphere scatters light into shifting bands of color, gold, orange, pink, violet, and eventually deep blue. These colors are not decorative additions but the fundamental material of the piece. They are produced by the interaction of sunlight with particles in the air.
The owner does not control this process.
Clouds may amplify the spectacle or obscure it entirely. Dust in the atmosphere may intensify the reds. A perfectly clear sky may create a quieter, more restrained performance. Each variation alters the composition of the work while remaining fully outside the authority of the collector.
This lack of control is central to the piece.
Ownership traditionally implies the ability to possess, manage, restrict, or display an object. Yet the owner of the sunset cannot delay it, accelerate it, relocate it, or prevent others from witnessing it. Every evening the work unfolds across the entire visible horizon regardless of the owner’s presence or absence.
Millions of people may unknowingly view the artwork simultaneously.
They do so without paying admission, without acknowledging the owner, and often without realizing that the event has been designated as a privately owned artwork. In this sense, the sunset becomes perhaps the most publicly accessible privately owned artwork imaginable.
The owner may choose to watch the work whenever it occurs.
They may travel to a high hill, a quiet field, a city rooftop, or a shoreline to witness their acquisition. Alternatively, they may ignore it entirely. The sunset will still occur. The artwork is indifferent to whether the collector attends its daily performance.
Each iteration is both identical and completely unique.
The underlying mechanism, the Earth rotating away from the sun, remains constant. Yet atmospheric conditions, seasonal variations, and geographic location ensure that no two sunsets appear exactly the same. The owner therefore possesses an artwork that perpetually changes while remaining conceptually stable.
It is an edition of infinite variations performed once per day.
The work also raises subtle questions about the meaning of value. A sunset is one of the most universally shared experiences on Earth. It requires no ticket, no museum, no special training to appreciate. By placing this freely available phenomenon into the framework of private ownership, the artwork exposes the strange logic of the art market, where value is often determined less by rarity than by designation.
What happens when something infinitely available is declared owned?
The answer is both humorous and unsettling. Nothing about the sunset itself changes. The sky continues to glow. The sun continues to disappear below the horizon. Yet the act of naming it an artwork, and assigning it an owner, creates a conceptual layer that transforms the way we think about it.
The sunset becomes both common and exclusive at the same time.
Everyone can see it. Only one person owns it.
This contradiction is not a flaw in the work but its central feature. The artwork exists precisely within the tension between shared experience and private possession. It asks whether ownership truly means control, or whether it sometimes exists only as a story we collectively agree to believe.
The sunset continues, evening after evening, performing the piece whether acknowledged or not.
The owner merely holds the title.
Installation and Display
Artwork Title: THE SUNSET
Medium: Solar radiation, atmospheric scattering, planetary rotation, legal designation.
Frequency: Daily, weather permitting.
The artwork requires no traditional installation because the work itself already occurs naturally across the entire western horizon. However, the acquisition of the piece allows the owner to frame and present the sunset as a work of art through minimal contextual elements.
The owner receives a certificate of ownership declaring that the sunset, as a conceptual artwork, belongs to them. This certificate functions as the only physical artifact associated with the work.
The sunset itself remains permanently installed in the sky.
To exhibit the artwork, the owner may designate any location with a clear western view as a temporary viewing site. Parks, beaches, rooftops, open fields, and mountain overlooks are all suitable exhibition spaces. No special construction is required.
A simple sign may be placed at the site reading:
THE SUNSET
A Conceptual Artwork by BREVKi
Owned by: __________________
Below the label, a smaller line may read:
Viewing is free.
This gesture quietly emphasizes the central irony of the work. The sunset, though privately owned within the conceptual framework of the artwork, cannot be meaningfully restricted. Anyone present may witness it without permission.
In gallery contexts, the work may be represented indoors by the ownership certificate accompanied by a wall label directing visitors to step outside at sunset to experience the artwork itself.
In this way the museum becomes merely an administrative extension of the sky.
Each evening the artwork activates again as the sun approaches the horizon. The performance lasts approximately twenty to forty minutes depending on atmospheric conditions. No two performances are identical, yet all belong to the same work.
The owner may attend or not attend.
The sunset will occur regardless.
The artwork therefore exists simultaneously as a private possession and a universal experience, perhaps the only artwork whose audience includes nearly the entire planet.
And yet, according to the certificate, it belongs to someone.