This page is a work of art

Back in the glorious Eighties, a deliciously daft story went around concerning a strikingly pretty, well-connected young girl who was drafted in by the deputy editor of Tatler after an "interview" at a swish party. On her first day, the girl turned up looking reliably gorgeous and sat at her desk. Half the day passed without anyone asking her to lift a finger, so, feeling a tad guilty and surplus to requirements, the fabulous creature approached the editor and said, "What do you want me to do?" "Do?" replied the editor incredulously. "Darling, I don't want you to

Like this legendary Tatler girl, the Three, a triumvirate of fashion models who have elegantly gatecrashed the conceptual art-world party, don't actually "do" anything. They don't paint, they don't sculpt, they don't draw, film or photograph. They just "are". You think Martin Creed's Turner Prize effort with the light turning on and off is silly? Or perhaps you still regard Tracey Emin's unmade bed as the apotheosis of over-hyped conceptual art lunacy? Well, brace yourselves, conceptualist fans, because this is where it gets even sillier.

The Three are the world's first purely media-driven art collective, so this, the very article that you are reading right now, is their "art". On Wednesday night, when the trendies flock to their private view at the Percy Miller Gallery, SE1, this page of newspaper will be part of the exhibition: framed and hung on the wall next to more examples of the Three's publicity.

"We had no formal training in art, but soon realised that the very idea of the art school is outdated," says the tallest one of the Three (they insist on strict anonymity). "You only have to call yourself an artist and with luck the rest will follow. What really interests us is the relationship between art and media, mass media in particular. When they first started, artists such as Damien Hirst and that whole Goldsmiths set were always talking about press coverage and column inches rather than the content of their show. Artists began to tailor their work in order to gain as much media attention as possible to secure their celebrity and hence artistic status. We thought, wouldn't it just be easier to make the content of the show all the press coverage?" Indeed.

The girls, who have worked for glossy magazines and walked the runway for Gaultier and Rykiel, seem happy to be part of this knowingly arch swindle. "We love to play with that whole hoax and fraud aspect, to excite the papers with the notion of a 'scam', yet a scam that any art historian can

place in a serious context and history," says the one who moonlights as a trapeze artist.

has cast himself in the managerial role of the Three. Think of him as a hybrid of Charles Saatchi and Charlie, the conference-phone playboy who looks after the Angels, and you won't be too wide of the mark.

Dannatt has pre-empted any accusations of hype by coolly admitting that the Three are con artists of the highest order. But there is apparently a sound and erudite theory behind all this dippiness. Dannatt cites as a major influence Tom Wolfe's concept of "Believing is seeing" from his art polemic, The Painted Word. "Wolfe suggested that art criticism had actually become art itself, ie, it is only when one has read about art that one becomes convinced that something is art," says Dannatt. "We're just taking that idea one step further."

"We are determined never to make art; only to be represented through publicity media," says the girl with the dimples, by way of confirmation. "It may sound priggish, purist or snobbish, but we are determined not to have to start making art ourselves. Our work consists of doing nothing." And if you want to buy a part of this "doing nothing", you can expect to pay up to £5,000 a piece. So today's Evening Standard, yours for 35 pence, is a bit of a bargain. Alternatively, print this web page off for nish - now we're giving it away.

? Percy Miller Gallery, 39 Snowsfields, SE1. Opens Wednesday and runs until the end of January. Call 020 7207 4578.