A 17-year-old prankster who placed a pair of glasses on the floor of an art gallery has fooled visitors at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

TJ Khayatan told BuzzFeed he had felt underwhelmed by the exhibits at the gallery, and decided to test out if people would be impressed by anything masquerading as art.

"Upon first arrival we were quite impressed with the artwork and paintings presented in the huge facility," he said.

The glasses used in the prank. (Twitter: @TJCruda)

"However, some of the 'art' wasn't very surprising to some of us.

He found one example in particular baffling.

"We stumbled upon a stuffed animal on a gray blanket and questioned if this was really impressive to some of the nearby people," he said.

The teen tested out his theory by setting down a pair of glasses and walking away.

The prank tricked a number of tourists. (Twitter: @TJCruda)

As expected, people soon began to surround the "exhibit" to admire it and take pictures.

Khayatan was there to capture the moment unsuspecting tourists began to admire the faux exhibit.

Since posting the photos to Twitter, they quickly went viral, and have received more than 52,000 retweets and 56,000 likes.

The success of the glasses prank is in contrast to Khayatan's other attempts with a baseball cap and a rubbish bin which were less successful.

Previous pranks weren't as successful. (Twitter: @TJCruda)

Even though the prank was tongue-in-cheek, Khayatan said the stunt hasn't shaken his faith in art.

"I can agree that modern art can be a joke sometimes, but art is a way to express our own creativity," he said.