Extremely expensive art sells well, top 5 of 2017

[32BT]

Top 5 of 2017 so far i guess unless it's seasonal or something. Don't really know since i don't frequent those circles (just yet?).

Article is in dutch but comprehensive readingskills aren't really required...

top 5 art

[RSL]

Proves once again, Oscar, that Barnum was right.

[Otto Phocus]

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. -- Publilius Syrus or Leonard Nimoy 

[Rob C]

I never thought I'd come to think this.

Idle money at this level, thrown into the pan after that kind of shit, added up, would buy so many hospital scanners, staff to use them and save so much misery due to lack of resources, lack of investment. And hey, that little list of five is just one of many.

If these people or companies have that sort of money to waste on that sort of rubbish, then tax the mothers a damned sight harder than they appear to be taxed! If they want to buy huge yachts, fine, it creates lots of jobs; ditto amazing houses, private jets, fancy cars. That is all money circulating and providing a lot of people with honest jobs. I think there is a difference.

As I indicated when I came in, I didn't think I'd ever see riches as obscenity.

Rob

[Cornfield]

It really is becoming a mad world with people spending huge amounts of money to buy "art" like this.

[GrahamBy]

Pretty much this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw5kme5Q_Yo

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I think I'm going to slap a price tag of $200,000,000 on one of my  randomly chosen prints.
Any takers?

[Otto Phocus]

A cogent question would be: Why do some people get concerned at what some people choose to do with their money?

[GrahamBy]

It's more the question of how stories are created that allow some people to remove other people's money. It's why fraud is illegal, it's why most stock exchange trading is regulated with regard to insider trading and subject to transparent pricing... none of which apply to the art market.

[Otto Phocus]

It's more the question of how stories are created that allow some people to remove other people's money. It's why fraud is illegal, it's why most stock exchange trading is regulated with regard to insider trading and subject to transparent pricing... none of which apply to the art market.

That's an interesting slant on this issue. I would imagine it would be difficult to prove fraud in these cases.

[Rob C]

That's an interesting slant on this issue. I would imagine it would be difficult to prove fraud in these cases.

Which brings us right back to the recent thread on Annie L's images being collected and claimed upon for tax benefits...

[Mark Lindquist]

There is a world of difference between the world of photographic art and the world of academic fine art.  For the most part art in the art world is bolstered by art historians, galleries and collectors who essentially participate in creating enough interest that museum curators deem the work important enough to be accessioned by some of the world's top museums.  The Top 5 artists who created the works in the survey article are super well known in the art world and doubtless unknown by photographers, unless they have a fine art background or other historical perspective.

Remember, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.  A lot of photographic art is belittled and looked down upon by the people who appreciate and buy such works as shown in the article.  The Brancusi is immensely historical - he was (and is) called the father of Modern Sculpture, although sometimes that distinction is shared by Rodin.  When a Brancusi bronze like that comes on the market, it is a rare thing indeed, and often museums and collectors vie for ownership. Perhaps the painting most ridiculed, (by Basquiat), was one which was instrumental in shaping the face of American culture during an important period in the development of American Art History.  All those painters are big names - as big in the art world as Weston, et al, in the photographic world. Read a little bit about Basquiat here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat  This artist was no less committed to his art as you are to yours.  He struggled to gain acceptance and actually did. The same can not be said of many photographers who work hard all their lives with little or no public acknowledgement.

There's a place for everything, and room enough in the world for art of all kinds, whether we like or understand it, appreciate it or not.
If you haven't studied art movements in America, haven't followed art history, then you just don't know anything about what is so easily criticized.  You know as little about them as they do about you.

Live and let live. It's not as though photographic artists and galleries and collectors and museums are not trying to elevate the art of photography to similar levels of acceptance.
Perhaps one day fine art photography will come into its own in similar fashion.  It is what many working today aspire to.  Everybody's got a dream.

"Courage is the power to let go of the familiar."

[Rob C]

Reading your post, Mark, makes me conclude that whilst you are defending (?) the art world and its 'heroes' you are, at the same time, entirely sceptical about the worth of any of it, and simply pleading for the 'artists' rights to do what they do. I would agree with the point about their right to do as they do, but not about values, relative or absolute.

Have an encyclopaedic knowledge of every name, and product of said name, whilst it denotes familiarity with the material and its maker, it doesn't equate with that product having or not having a real value distinct from its monetary valuation based on nothing more than commercial exploitation or opportunity, not mutually exclusive, one to the other.

The problem is so basic: while there is no definitive way of apportioning a true value upon anything such as art, there remains no valid way of verifying that value beyond the one conferred by investors or innocent buyers.

For example, if a person cannot afford a large, framed print by whoever, but does buy a much smaller one at a quarter of the price of the large one, does that mean that the same artwork has no intrinsic value of its own, and that only the paper and frame have a true value that can be measured with reference to the purchase price of the raw materials? Something coming out of a factory can be analysed and broken down into production costs, and priced for sale with a percentage applied to make the exercise sustainable and profitable. You can't do that with a 500th of a second.

The world of art is a mess, a conspiracy and game for those with too much time and money to play with - if there's such a thing as too much, which leads to another debate.

"Live and let live. It's not as though photographic artists and galleries and collectors and museums are not trying to elevate the art of photography to similar levels of acceptance.
Perhaps one day fine art photography will come into its own in similar fashion.  It is what many working today aspire to.  Everybody's got a dream."

Of course those galleries want to turn everything into money, and the more confusion and opaqueness they can spread the better; exactly as with electricity and mobile 'phone contracts...

[GrahamBy]

Perhaps the painting most ridiculed, (by Basquiat), was one which was instrumental in shaping the face of American culture during an important period in the development of American Art History.

Or perhaps not. Robert Hughes certainly opined that he was utter rubbish. There were so many other things that were more visible than Basquiat's paintings, and so *might* have been more influential, and hence by the logic of preservation of historical artifacts more valuable. Why not the original tape of Warhol being given a blowjob under the table (was it Warhol or someone else at the Factory?) Surely that was more transgressive, breaking of homosexual taboos, linking on from Stonewall, the rise of video as an art form and marked a real change in mores and so culture. It's far less clear to me what Basquiat pointed to, let alone changed.

It keeps coming back to the same thing: there is no reliable measure of aesthetic quality, so art is worth what anyone will pay for it... which may include a very large proportion due to its value as a tool for money laudering, tax evasion or pure speculation (ie gambling). Why not a poker chip or a print-out of the list of the companies comprising one of the stock-exchange indices in 1985? Because no one certified by the hype machine chose to sprinkle his magic artist's urine on them.

[Rob C]

Or perhaps not. Robert Hughes certainly opined that he was utter rubbish. There were so many other things that were more visible than Basquiat's paintings, and so *might* have been more influential, and hence by the logic of preservation of historical artifacts more valuable. Why not the original tape of Warhol being given a blowjob under the table (was it Warhol or someone else at the Factory?) Surely that was more transgressive, breaking of homosexual taboos, linking on from Stonewall, the rise of video as an art form and marked a real change in mores and so culture. It's far less clear to me what Basquiat pointed to, let alone changed.

It keeps coming back to the same thing: there is no reliable measure of aesthetic quality, so art is worth what anyone will pay for it... which may include a very large proportion due to its value as a tool for money laudering, tax evasion or pure speculation (ie gambling). Why not a poker chip or a print-out of the list of the companies comprising one of the stock-exchange indices in 1985? Because no one certified by the hype machine chose to sprinkle his magic artist's urine on them.

Thanks! Now I understand why the interest in the High Table. Never did trust those studious fellows.

[Mark Lindquist]

OK guys, I must have stumbled into the wrong room. Big mistake.

I'll go check door number 3.

Caviar Empire, Crappy Day Um, Soc Et Tuem and all that  -

Don't worry, there will be other idiots that will also come along and y'all can mug and run them off as well.

Carry on gents.

[TommyWeir]

The prices for works by name artists are closely bound to the needs of high net worth individuals for places to store money.

It's a form of safe deposit box.   Much like NY real estate. http://www.432parkavenue.com no one actually lives there.  They've just deposited money somewhere relatively safe.

[Rob C]

OK guys, I must have stumbled into the wrong room. Big mistake.

I'll go check door number 3.

Caviar Empire, Crappy Day Um, Soc Et Tuem and all that  -

Don't worry, there will be other idiots that will also come along and y'all can mug and run them off as well.

Carry on gents.

What are you talking about?

Rob C

[Rob C]

The prices for works by name artists are closely bound to the needs of high net worth individuals for places to store money.

It's a form of safe deposit box.   Much like NY real estate. http://www.432parkavenue.com no one actually lives there.  They've just deposited money somewhere relatively safe.

Yep, that's how it appears to me, too. The only probem is this: if those rich folks suddenly need the money and nobody wants to buy the art, then the pyramid collapses like the rest of them ultimately do. Lots of pretty pictures (hopefully) sitting in vaults or on wallls, but the bills might still have to go unpaid. Of course, it could also be the perfect moment to step in and take advantage of the distress sale, in a sort of last rich man standing takes all, scenario. Interesting; I wonder if it has ever been arranged?

It's tough out there. It's tough in here, apparently.

;-)

Rob

[elliot_n]

I'm surprised that members of this forum seem to have not heard of Brancusi, Klimt, Twombly and Basquiat. They are very famous artists. Their work is deserving of high prices.