New York Magazine's art critic Jerry Saltz loves Gerhard Richter's paintings. A lot. So much so that on his Facebook page, the three-time Pulitzer nominee offered either $1,000 or a sex act (plus the cost of materials) to any artist who can make me a Richter that looks EXACTLY like an abstract Richter - more or less indistinguishable from the real thing. (You can sign your own name on the back of the damn thing; I just love these and want one.)...Offer: $1000.00 plus materials. I'd like a biggish one.

After several hundred comments and offers responding to his Facebook posting, Saltz further clarified his immodest proposal:

1. We agree that you will make me a Richter. 2. We agree on size and cost. 3. You make it. 4. A curator from a MAJOR NY Museum inspects it. 5. IF he/she cannot distinguish it (more or less) from real thing, then I

A. I pay you the amount of money we agreed on previously.
B. You get a bj or female equivalent.

Saltz, a judge on the Bravo television program Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, is married to New York Times senior art critic Roberta Smith, and has a reputation for being -- as behooves a critic -- outspoken, irreverent and pranksterish. He relishes discourse and uses his Facebook page as a forum for discussion, bantering and repartee.

So is this offer Saltz's way of provoking, of trolling to see what kind of a response/reaction a call for a Richter manqué will get, to subversively question and explore the value of art? Is a painting worth $18 million solely because of the artist's name and reputation? Can a $1,000 version of an artist's work by another artist inspire the same awe as an original? And wouldn't you rather spend that cash on one or two emerging artists' originals that you love, rather than ordering up a replica much like lunch delivery from the local deli?