When I first read Ulysses as a teen-ager, I was struck by James Joyce's implicit notion that almost any sentence you or I might utter probably has been spoken verbatim by someone, somewhere in the past.

        In response, I started making up sentences that I reckoned never had been spoken before, such as: “Each llama was carefully selected on the basis of skill with weapons and mastery of the Talmud.” This has been my “get-the-creative-juices-flowing” exercise ever since, and it drives my friends nuts.

        Such is the idea, I suspect, behind artist Rob Pruitt's 101 Art Ideas You Can Do Yourself, on exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center. Each of the 101 do-it-yourself projects is aimed at getting the viewer to perform acts that would never occur to most people.

        For instance, how many of you have sat backward on your toilet? Not me, until I saw Mr. Pruitt's work. (By the way, this is Idea No. 11.) Others include “Making an Aluminum Foil Death Mask” (No. 67), “Write Secret Messages in Your Underwear with a Laundry Marker” (No. 88) and “Turn Your Television Upside Down” (No. 31).

        By encouraging viewers to think about familiar objects and surroundings in unorthodox, even bizarre ways, Mr. Pruitt pushes each of us to think in entirely different ways. In the process, we might find our way around barriers to creativity.

        It's an intriguing and fun idea; whether or not it's an important one is a subject for debate.

Don't try this at home

        It would be wrong to see this exhibit as another stage in the “anyone can be an artist” movement instigated by Joseph Beuys and his Fluxfest colleagues in the late 1960s. To the contrary, Mr. Pruitt readily admits that carrying out any one of these ideas will not produce a recognizable piece of art; but then, such is not the purpose of this exhibit.

        The irony — and perhaps the point — of 101 Art Ideas is that you aren't expected to do them; they are more rightly seen as mental exercises in removing creative blocks. That's a good thing, because doing some of them could get you in trouble: “Shoplift” (No. 41); “Kill Yourself” (No. 84); “Tell a Lie” (No. 24); and my personal favorite, “Get Plastic Surgery” (No. 40).

        One might think of these ideas as the extreme sports of performance art. (It could be worse: One of Mr. Pruitt's pieces a few years back at a private residence was titled “Cocaine Buffet” and consisted of a 16-foot-long mirror on the floor with a line of real cocaine running down the middle, and viewers were encouraged to partake of it.)

Two ways to take it

        I'll admit to being entertained by this exhibit. The whole affair is expertly mounted, and the 101 ideas are fascinating, hilarious and in their own loony way, thought-provoking. Yet, I left the CAC feeling vaguely unfulfilled. How one responds to Rob Pruitt willlikely hinge on how one responds in general to pop/conceptual art. If you're a devotee, you'll probably love his work.

        If you're a curmudgeon like me, you'll look at it and wonder how well this kind of art will stand the test of time.

        Pausing your VCR, and then tracing the frozen images of Ellen DeGeneres' “coming out” episode on the screen with colored markers is an amusing enough idea (No. 36), but how relevant and important will it seem in 20 years? In 50? For conceptual artists like Mr. Pruitt, even asking such a question betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what art actually is.

        In an art school setting, 101 Art Ideas You Can Do Yourself would be a great in-class exercise to jolt students out of their artistic ruts and get the creative juices flowing; as an exhibit at a major arts institution, it seems a bit lightweight.

        101 Art Ideas, Contemporary Arts Center, through Nov. 4. 721-0390.

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