Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

henrikkarlsson.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 200 posts

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#191

Post by talldayo »

neaden wrote: post #152
Aunche wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever an absurdly priced work of art makes it to the news, laypeople immediately jump to the explanation of money laundering, but any artist, art purchaser, or even money launderer would know that this is ridiculous. You'd be an idiot to launder their money in the most publicized auction in the year. If you wanted to launder money, it would most likely be through low-profile private sales.

In this specific case we know who bought it Justin Sun. He's a Hong Kong based cyrptocurrency investor who ate it. So it seems like in this case it was more about getting some press, and probably a bit of distraction against some of the allegations against him.

"Ahh, you were at my side all along... my true mentor, my guiding moonlight..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#192

Post by hiatus »

llamaimperative wrote: post #184
hiatus wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you have dirty money in a high-scrutiny jurisdiction, you buy a piece of art for $10M How does the sale take place? Cash? So when the seller deposits the cash, no one asks where it came from?

It came from an art sale… you can go read an article about it in the news, in fact, and sure you may think it’s ridiculous but that’s just because you’re uncultured and don’t understand Fine Art. People are demonstrably willing to pay millions for bananas on walls. Obviously it attracts some attention (we’re here talking about it), but a whole lot less than a wire transfer of $10MM out of the country which would trig…

Ah so why do the sale at all then? Why not just deposit $10MM in cash at the bank and say it was from an art sale? Something is missing in your explanation.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#193

Post by trgn »

llamaimperative wrote: post #170
trgn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that isn't money laundering though. I wonder that too fwiw, what's the exact mechanism with this banana NFT-purchase by which elicit money (from who (?)) is now being laundered as legal income (of who (?)). How does the process work?

Again, I have no clue whether this banana falls into this category, but generically and hyper-simplified: you have dirty money in a high-scrutiny jurisdiction, you buy a piece of art for $10MM, you move that piece of art to a more permissive jurisdiction and sell it for $8MM. That buyer gets a good deal and you just mostly cleaned $10MM for 20% in one transaction, which you can then layer into its now-local (permissi…

Any examples of this happening? Famous artwork being bought in us (high scrutiny preusmably) then sold in , i don't know, Switzerland (low scrutiny presumably). And then repatriated!!

Seems a lot of steps on the way.especially in crypto era.

Anyway, would love to see some real examples here. Why can't it just be exuberance, pumpanddump if we want to be cynical.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#194

Post by schrijver »

p1nkpineapple wrote: post #22

Thanks for sharing. Henrik Karlsson is one of my favourite writers on the internet at the moment. His other piece called "Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process" [1] left such a big impression on me and I return to it frequently, highly recommend. 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20240816150009/https://www.henri...

Interesting we get so many likes here, as I can’t stand this style. It’s the same annoying pretentiousness Paul Graham’s peddles. Karlsson even calls his blog posts essays just like PG!

These authors have this habit of reflecting on their live experiences and trying to make some sense out of them (a time honed and worthy pursuit!), but then moving into thought leader / self help / linkedin territory by making every other sentence an imperative in second person person singular.

A sentence like —

The context is smarter than you. It holds more nuance and information than you can fit in your head. Collaborate with it.

Could be

The context is smarter than me. It holds more nuance and information than I can fit in my head. I keep telling myself to collaborate with it.

And it wouldn’t annoy me half as much. It would feel as if a peer wants to share experiences with me, whereas now I feel like I’m being shouted at by a middle manager.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#195

Post by llamaimperative »

hiatus wrote: post #192
llamaimperative wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It came from an art sale… you can go read an article about it in the news, in fact, and sure you may think it’s ridiculous but that’s just because you’re uncultured and don’t understand Fine Art. People are demonstrably willing to pay millions for bananas on walls. Obviously it attracts some attention (we’re here talking about it), but a whole lot less than a wire transfer of $10MM out of the country which would trig…

Ah so why do the sale at all then? Why not just deposit $10MM in cash at the bank and say it was from an art sale? Something is missing in your explanation.

Are you an artist who'd pass KYC for doing $10MM art sales...? If so, then yeah, you probably could do that.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#197

Post by [deleted] »

llamaimperative wrote: post #195
hiatus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah so why do the sale at all then? Why not just deposit $10MM in cash at the bank and say it was from an art sale? Something is missing in your explanation.

Are you an artist who'd pass KYC for doing $10MM art sales...? If so, then yeah, you probably could do that.

[deleted]

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#198

Post by hiatus »

llamaimperative wrote: post #195
hiatus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah so why do the sale at all then? Why not just deposit $10MM in cash at the bank and say it was from an art sale? Something is missing in your explanation.

Are you an artist who'd pass KYC for doing $10MM art sales...? If so, then yeah, you probably could do that.

So you're just making things up as you go along? You haven't really explained the mechanics at all and are doing a lot of handwaving.

Re: Lessons I learned working at an art gallery

#199

Post by lesostep »

I cannot stress enough how the whole thing reads as a parody. Like modern Jerome K. Jerome. To be given such slack by your boss where they just allow you to do "whatever whenever", while not doing a lot, and then attribute your successful bout of work evading to your "work culture". And not only that, but learning lessons from it! Learning how you must work more and better, while gradually doing less and less!

I especially enjoy the little math&physics section, where he introduces few metaphors that are never explained or used.

I really hope that this a parody. It's kinda too sad if it's not.

Post reply on HN