Javi wrote:

In Spain we have a nice word to describe this: Hartistas.

An artista is an artist, of course. Someone who makes art pieces, and that can´t be taken lightly. Art is something worthy, something that moves your emotions.

But what happens when someone pretends to be an artist and (what´s even worse) someone else feeds that troll? You get an hartista, which is a play on words of harto (fed up with something) + artista (artist). This goes with a lot of "modern" "artists".

With the poor Royal P is pretty much the same. You pretend your crap is art. First of all, it isn´t because the quality is, ahem, not there. Secondly, you´ve destroyed something much more valuable in the process. Next stop: someone might find your "creation" interesting, and that´s putting out a fire with gasoline. Every way you look at it, it´s wrong. It´s no a matter of underrating the work of someone who might have done it with the best intention (who am I to contend that), it´s that the result is plainly wrong.

Sometimes I see these kind of things at shops on displays, and at least for me they get the opposite effect of what was intended. Yeah, they catch my attention, and they make me want to turn away from that shop. Is there any need to destroy a typewriter?

This is a bit of a rant, but that´s how I see it. If a typewriter can´t work anymore, its pieces can help other typewriters. And if you are going to make something different, it´d better be REAL good.

I can think of two other words--a couple of bromides that are quite applicable here: Hack and Hackneyed.  A hack is a person who performs a task (or creates "art") in a hamhanded way, often for mercenary reasons.  Hackneyed describes the low quality and the failed end result of the work of a hack.  So, for all practical purposes, at least from my vantage point, the one who calls himself, or herself, an artist, has done the hackneyed work of a hack.
 

A thousand pardons!!  I didn't think of that when I looked up that word!  To anyone from Great Britain, especially from that area, I am terribly sorry, and I was not making any reference whatsoever to anyone in that region.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA&list=RDTFCuE5rHbPA

The adjective 'hackneyed' is an 18th derivation of the very old noun 'hackney: hackney (n.) "small saddle horse let out for hire," c. 1300, from place name Hackney (late 12c.), Old English Hacan ieg "Haca's Isle" (or possibly "Hook Island"), the "isle" element here meaning dry land in a marsh. Now well within London, it once was pastoral and horses apparently were kept there. Hence the use for riding horses, with subsequent deterioration of sense (see hack (n.2)). Old French haquenée "ambling nag" is an English loan-word.A hackney carriage just means a carriage for hire - i.e., a cab. This is where we get NYC's hacks - taxis - and hackstands, etc. And also where we get 'hack' a hack writer, a writer for hire - with its connotation of eroded quality, as with 'overused', worn out, etc. 

KatLondon wrote:

The adjective 'hackneyed' is an 18th derivation of the very old noun 'hackney: hackney (n.) "small saddle horse let out for hire," c. 1300, from place name Hackney (late 12c.), Old English Hacan ieg "Haca's Isle" (or possibly "Hook Island"), the "isle" element here meaning dry land in a marsh. Now well within London, it once was pastoral and horses apparently were kept there. Hence the use for riding horses, with subsequent deterioration of sense (see hack (n.2)). Old French haquenée "ambling nag" is an English loan-word.A hackney carriage just means a carriage for hire - i.e., a cab. This is where we get NYC's hacks - taxis - and hackstands, etc. And also where we get 'hack' a hack writer, a writer for hire - with its connotation of eroded quality, as with 'overused', worn out, etc. 

Good stuff! Thanks! I'll have to find a map of London to see just where it is (and thus where you are)!