I really do believe that some people mistake edginess, abrasiveness, or plain old controversy for “art.”

The recently leaked private images of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, among others, are set to be printed onto life-sized canvases and exhibited at an upcoming event held in Los Angeles.

Cory Allen Contemporary Art (CACA) has announced that the works will be among the new additions to artist XVALA’s “Fear Google” concept.

They are set to be displayed at his upcoming exhibition, named “No Delete”, at the CACA’s space The Showroom in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

The artist’s publicist, Cory Allen, said in a statement: “XVALA appropriating celebrity compromised images and the overall ‘Fear Google’ campaign has helped strengthen the ongoing debate over privacy in the digital era.

“The commentary behind this show is a reflection of who we are today. We all become ‘users’ and in the end, we become ‘used.'”

That’s quite a bold statement for an artist who uses a pseudonym and speaks through a publicist. I had never heard of XVALA before I saw this article, and I already hate them.

I thought this article was satire at first, initially because of the subject matter, and then because the promoter goes by the name CACA.

I am perfectly willing to accept that no one person gets to define “art,” and that any single piece of art will mean 50 different things to 40 different people. What I do not accept, however, is that displaying stolen, intimate photographs of people without their permission is any less a grotesque invasion of privacy if you add some pretentious artiste-speak to it, than if it was posted anonymously to 4Chan.

“In today’s culture, everybody wants to know everything about everybody. An individual’s privacy has become everyone else’s business,” XVALA added. “It has become cash for cache.”

Shut the hell up.

UPDATE (09/07/2014): Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice named XVALA “Douchecanoe of the Week,” and the description made it into his Wikipedia page. Well done, internet.