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They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

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Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#11

Post by aaron695 »

philwelch wrote: post #5
aaron695 wrote: post #3

Ummmm you could sell your "3 year old nephew's" art for $100,000 but for some reason you haven't? Right.... I do get tired of the old insult to art that "I could do better" but for some reason that person has 'chosen' not to make millions and be famous. People need to stop fearing things they don't or can't understand.

What's there to understand?

Exactly, really it's not that hard, but as this blog article shows some people still just don't get art and/or how it's valued.

And it's ok not to understand things, but it's not ok to ridicule things just because you don't understand them.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#12

Post by philwelch »

aaron695 wrote: post #11
philwelch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's there to understand?

Exactly, really it's not that hard, but as this blog article shows some people still just don't get art and/or how it's valued. And it's ok not to understand things, but it's not ok to ridicule things just because you don't understand them.

I think one of us missed the other's point.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#13

Post by philwelch »

wallflower wrote: post #7

Reposting an old comment. The art world obeys supply and demand - where demand has no relation to the real world: If you are more curious about the contemporary art world market and why $29M is not that expensive[1], I recommend "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art". In general, brand (in this case Christie's and Sotheby's) ranks supreme above all else. Once you are branded, you c…

This is the kind of conspicuous consumption that used to get people beheaded or shot in revolutions. It's an obscenity.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#14

Post by mjn »

philwelch wrote: post #13
wallflower wrote: post #7

Reposting an old comment. The art world obeys supply and demand - where demand has no relation to the real world: If you are more curious about the contemporary art world market and why $29M is not that expensive[1], I recommend "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art". In general, brand (in this case Christie's and Sotheby's) ranks supreme above all else. Once you are branded, you c…

This is the kind of conspicuous consumption that used to get people beheaded or shot in revolutions. It's an obscenity.

Isn't that true of just about anything relating to the very rich? Maybe excluding the Buffett-style low-key-lifestyle rich. I find it difficult to get more worked up about millions for a painting than millions for a Maybach or ostentatious yacht/mansion/jet. I'm somewhat bothered by the inequality of such concentration of wealth existing in the first place, but if it's going to exist, I guess it's fine with me if they waste it on status symbols.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#15

Post by aaron695 »

philwelch wrote: post #13
wallflower wrote: post #7

Reposting an old comment. The art world obeys supply and demand - where demand has no relation to the real world: If you are more curious about the contemporary art world market and why $29M is not that expensive[1], I recommend "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art". In general, brand (in this case Christie's and Sotheby's) ranks supreme above all else. Once you are branded, you c…

This is the kind of conspicuous consumption that used to get people beheaded or shot in revolutions. It's an obscenity.

This is not consumption at all.

A painting is probably a few hundred $ worth of materials perhaps a couple of hundred hours labour tops.

The average person probably wastes/consumes more rubbish in a week or two.

This is a rich person not consuming if anything.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#16

Post by rdouble »

philwelch wrote: post #13
wallflower wrote: post #7

Reposting an old comment. The art world obeys supply and demand - where demand has no relation to the real world: If you are more curious about the contemporary art world market and why $29M is not that expensive[1], I recommend "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art". In general, brand (in this case Christie's and Sotheby's) ranks supreme above all else. Once you are branded, you c…

This is the kind of conspicuous consumption that used to get people beheaded or shot in revolutions. It's an obscenity.

It's not really conspicuous, since it's usually not revealed who owns the painting, and the paintings are warehoused or displayed in a private home. It's also not really consumption, since it's just a painting.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#17

Post by mtraven »

This seems relevant: http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2013/02/eefin-and-hambone-or-what-...

What gives the appearance of some monopoly on genius to the sort of cultural output that is housed in museums and Lincoln Plaza and so on is just this: that brainless one-percenters are spending huge amounts of money to put their names on these monuments, and the brainless bourgeoisie makes pilgrimages to them, spending medium sums of money to have a brush with cultural objects that supposedly edify by their simple proximity. The illusion that genius is stored up in sites of high culture is sustained by capital and by the laziness and gullibility of culture's consumers: all the season-ticket holders, all the dupes of the museums' advertising departments, for their part driven ever further, under the compulsion of capital, to make the Ottoman sultan's throne, or medieval armor, or Greco-Bactrian statuary, look like so many things to buy-- passing them off as a special class of objects, museum objects, that you can buy in a way just by going and standing in front of them.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#18

Post by philwelch »

mjn wrote: post #14
philwelch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of conspicuous consumption that used to get people beheaded or shot in revolutions. It's an obscenity.

Isn't that true of just about anything relating to the very rich? Maybe excluding the Buffett-style low-key-lifestyle rich. I find it difficult to get more worked up about millions for a painting than millions for a Maybach or ostentatious yacht/mansion/jet. I'm somewhat bothered by the inequality of such concentration of wealth existing in the first place, but if it's going to exist, I guess it's fine with me if the…

Jets are actually really useful, and even yachts and cars can be actively enjoyed. Buying shitty ugly art just as a status symbol is nothing like that, and you pretty much deserve a guillotine or a bullet for that kind of bullshit.

Re: They Paid What? Absurd Paintings that Sold for Millions

#19

Post by [deleted] »

philwelch wrote: post #18
mjn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that true of just about anything relating to the very rich? Maybe excluding the Buffett-style low-key-lifestyle rich. I find it difficult to get more worked up about millions for a painting than millions for a Maybach or ostentatious yacht/mansion/jet. I'm somewhat bothered by the inequality of such concentration of wealth existing in the first place, but if it's going to exist, I guess it's fine with me if the…

Jets are actually really useful, and even yachts and cars can be actively enjoyed. Buying shitty ugly art just as a status symbol is nothing like that, and you pretty much deserve a guillotine or a bullet for that kind of bullshit.

[deleted]
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