Have you ever wondered what kind of artwork a rock star would make if someone gave them the use of a gallery? Well, it seems that Brian Eno, the rock star in question, does not make objects; he makes installations that take ten thousand years to watch. Recently at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts he set up his newest art show titled77 Million Paintings.

Eno appeared at the opening to speak about his work. To me he seemed like a very ordinary middle aged-man. He was dressed rather unremarkably and did not project the aura I thought he would. However, his presence was a promise to us that he was really engaged and really connected to this work. Why else would he be there?

Admittedly I was apprehensive about the exhibition's title—it seemed to claim that he had made more paintings than any painter in the history of art, and perhaps in all of human history. It sounded a little odd especially because these 77 Million Paintings were to have been created in just a year or so.

By way of comparison, one might consider that in his lifetime, the painter Vincent Van Gogh, it is generally agreed, produced only about 2,000 works. Those include around 900 paintings and 1100 drawings. From a mathematical standpoint, Brian Eno clearly out-produced Van Gogh. And probably even Andy Warhol too, who made silk-screened “paintings” and bragged about their mass production in his Manhattan studio. Yet despite his aspiration to be an art producing machine, Warhol made only about 400 print editions and his sculptures, paintings and other works all together don’t total anywhere close to a million—let alone 77 Million. So it begs the question, how did Brian Eno do it?

To begin with, Eno explained to us that he did not produce any actual, physical paintings. Instead, his are a collection of hand-colored slides that he had scanned and then mixed together randomly. He said that by using custom-made software there are 77 Million possible combinations of the images, not 77 Million paintings. The show’s title, it appeared, was just a hyperbolic expression. There were no paintings. Instead what viewers saw was a big, abstract and colorful projection of three rectangular shapes that slowly, very slowly, faded into one another. He even claimed that to view all of the combinations it would take a human being ten thousand years of sitting and staring.

While it was a big let-down, I could see how people might not go to a show called “77 Million Possible Random Combinations of a Collection of Abstract Hand-Colored Slides Originally Intended to be Viewed on a PC.” It just doesn’t have the same ring to it, you know? After all, the group he was addressing was the membership of the Long Now Foundation, not an art audience with an expectation that the art had to make sense. Artists ask pesky questions like: “Who cares?” or “Why did you make it?” or “Was it necessary to make that?” or even worse, “Is the software really an art expression or just another ego-driven exercise like the paintings of Sylvester Stallone?”

I had to admit though, his semantic reframing (77 Million Paintings) played much better to the audience. The crowd seemed ready to accept that they were really paintings, but he could have just as easily called them “77 Million Ham Sandwiches” and they would have thought it was just another stroke of his great genius. That’s how it felt anyway. I was disappointed.

He went on to say he was really excited by the idea of software randomly combining images. He called his work a “site-based” installation, which seemed to confuse several concepts such as site-specific, site-adjusted and the word “installation” itself. If he meant site-specific then the work had to have a reason to be put in that space specifically. If he meant site-adjusted then he would be indicating that it is a portable installation that would change depending on the location it’s shown in. He also said that the project was originally intended to be viewed on a personal computer, not as an installation. I sensed from his attitude that this was really just an experiment and that he was just preaching to his fans.

Eno lamented several times that people don’t slow down anymore to just enjoy things, which I agree with. So he encouraged everyone to sit and stay in the space and experience his installation. He said that he personally had witnessed people walking into the space, looking around for 30 seconds and then leaving. Both amused and annoyed by this behavior, he said that it took a lot longer to absorb the experience of his art and to reach the state of mind he is trying to access. Unfortunately he didn't quite say what state he was talking about and he seemed to expect we would all just "get it."

Now, I'm not trying to make Eno out to be a fraud, but there is a well-known California artist named Glen McKay who pioneered the use of hand-painted slides with moving lights to create psychedelic light shows for concerts. He would actually use various liquids and pigments, mix them live and project them behind live bands. Among the acts he worked with were the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. He is solidly placed as an art & music icon, not some fringe, minor character. McKay also makes works of hand-painted, abstract slides that slowly fade into one another which he calls “Millennium Paintings.” Whereas McKay has a context for his work, which was connected to hippie phenomenological experience (music, drugs, light shows), Eno’s installation seems to come more from a place of cold intellect, disconnected from any audience.

Perhaps the best way to interpret Eno is as a part of the grand tradition of celebrity art. Since the aura surrounding the art itself is its own reason to exist—not quality or content—what a famous person says about what they make may or may not matter at all. But I had been hopeful it wouldn't be the case here. Was I being starstruck and naive? Sometimes the art that a celebrity creates can be interesting despite all of the forces that conspire against that possibility—but for me this time it wasn’t.