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So basically everyone has seen those million dollar *masterpieces* of art that legit look like they were done by 7 year olds who splashed paint everywhere. So why are they so expensive? Is there some hidden meaning I'm not getting or is it just a scam
| It's a scam | 14 | |
| You uncultured brat it's true art! | 6 | |
| It looks nice | 5 | |
| I don't get it either | 14 |
May I also add Tracey Emin's 'My Bed' as the biggest steaming pile of shit masquerading as art. £2.2 million!
You uncultured brat it's true art!
I had to pick that, but I understand totally what you must be thinking. It's sometimes absurd like Andy Warhol, or Dadaism. Art is art, whatever.
I have looked at some paintings or sculptures that fetch millions that have left me unsatisfied at the technical disappointment before my eyes. Abstract art, they tend to call it. Um, you mean Crayola water painting one rainy afternoon? Fine, fine. Actually, I have really found some kid art to be my favorite. Kid art is unspoiled, innocent, and truly original. But, if I'm going to pay millions, I am going to be like, where's the skill, I ask!?!?!?
Caravaggio, now that's some incredible talent! His paintings are dramatic with the shadow and light (Chiaroscuro -- technical term for this type of oil technique).
http://light-radiant.com/wp-content/uploads/Caravaggio-Vocazione-di-San-Matteo.jpg
Here's a direct view of his paintings. This is at the San Luigi dei Francesi Church in Rome. Epic!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Chiesa_di_San_Luigi_dei_francesi%2C_cappella_Contarelli.jpg
Bernini's sculptures in the Borghese Gallery. That is pure unrivaled skill there done way back in the 16th Century.
Please, take a look! Better than Michelangelo, yes.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/monarchy-enlightenment/baroque-art1/baroque-italy/v/bernini-david-1623-24
Here's a look at Apollo & Daphne:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/monarchy-enlightenment/baroque-art1/baroque-italy/v/bernini-apollo-and-daphne-1622-25
Aha, speaking of surprisingly surprise artists I didn't know were doing art that could very well fetch millions here's one...
Jim Carrey - I Needed Color - Behind Closed Doors He's An Amazing Artist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFy8GY_sGYM
If this guy in this video ever sells his art, it could probably net quite a following.... Go to 17:58 to see the paintings.
True Norwegian Black Metal | VICE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32iX5lbVDto
Sometimes those splashes of paint that you see netting millions of dollars probably are the result of egotistical public displays of boasting by obscenely rich people. I've actually seen this at thoroughbred yearling sales. Once a bidding war starts, sometimes these people loose their senses, and just keep upping the price. Human nature, lol.
Rich people need places to park money. It's just like any collectible. Remember those stupid beanie babies that cost 10 cents to make but went for hundreds.
People get swept up in crazy shit.
I wish some rich people would park a cool million of unmarked bills on me. Unfortunately, they waste their dollars for reasons of prestige, not simple charity. That sort of charity would be pointless if it were to remain anonymous which is precisely what I would want.
They seem near worthless to me. It's hard for me to believe people will pay millions for splashes of paint as well.
There's no cosmic valuation service which puts a price tag on things. The monetary value of anything is whatever someone with money is willing to pay for it.
That applies to a diamond as big as your head, a house, your time, a painted piece of canvas, and everything else.
Art is an extreme example of this, since the value of any art is entirely subjective.
Pollock, for example, could have gone to his local dump and salvaged canvas from a discarded army surplus tent and gathered up half empty cans of paint. The value of those materials would have been nil. If he'd lived in 1800, nobody would have seen his flicks of paint as "art", and so the value of his paintings would have been nil, and therefore his value as an artist would have been nil.
However, he happened to live in a time when people with money saw his products as new and original, and so his canvases had value.
Jean-Michel Basquiat is getting a resurgence of publicity at the moment, since next year is the 30th anniversary of his death. As far as I can tell, he's still lauded by the majority of the art community, but if you want to understand how the art market works, Google "Basquat is crap" and have a read of some of the critical assessments.
He's a good example of how the art market finds a novel product, mythologizes the artist, hypes their work, and slaps a ridiculous price tag on it. Everyone makes money out of this. Often the artist makes enough to go into full self-destruct mode, and then the value of the art goes even higher, and the dealers and investors are all happy.
I think Pollock today is somewhat of an interesting question though..
To attempt to put myself in the shoes of someone back then, I could perhaps have a more visceral response to the subversiveness of this, in contrast to realist and even expressionist paintings, as well as its novelty.
I think it was an interesting and useful experiment to have a sort of 'abstract expressionism' in art.
But in 2017, with what the internet has become, to the younger generation and more technologically adapt older folk, novelty itself has become far less novel I believe.
And also, abstract art, in the sense of Pollock's work is something many more people today are not surprised by falling under the label of 'art'.
Yes there is the "you like what you like" pov, which I accept but I'd like to challenge that more.
Because I think there is a case to be made that reading or listening to music can allow the average person to connect with and feel what an artist is attempting to articulate emotionally, much more viscerally than by looking at paint on a canvas.
It could be that I'm just not tuned into it, which I'm fine with, but that's I guess what I'm asking, is if abstract expressionist paintings can in fact show an artist's self, which is I believe the intended goal.
I personally only see an artist's personality in that I see their attempt to do this, so perhaps I see emotion which would be analogous to a person writing "I am sad", but I don't feel emotion, which would be analogous to a person crafting emotive poetry to express this feeling.
I much prefer contemporary art, and can enjoy the minimalism and concepts and absurdity as the artist intended
Edit: Also I accept the economics of this(why Pollock is worth millions) is an entirely separate issue.
They rarely are worth that much. If they are, they are probably from someone famous or, more likely, from a renowned artist in the style. You may not like the style in question, but it gets talent to know how to add to it, and that artist probably knew how to do so, even if those that don't know much about it like you or me don't get it.
I don't get it at all. Maybe the person was a good talker and enthralled the idiot masses who bought into his "art".
I don't properly understand it, but if the colours go together well I guess i can appreciate it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to spend millions of pounds splashes of paint, but i can see where they are coming from.
Art is composed of a couple things. Aesthetic, skill, and concept are generally the things people look at when deciding if the like or don't like something. If you read about the history of movements like pollocks or rothkos you will understand that conceptually they were talented and affected the way people viewed art. However, you could argue that they are ugly and easy to paint. If you were to recreate and sell a pollock today I would say it is probably worthless in all departments, but it wasn't about making money when it was first thought up. I don't personally care for pollock, rothko, duchamp, or other artists people have these questions about, but there is objective value in their work. Looking at a conceptual piece while only searching for aesthetic value is the equivalent of reading a book to hear music. The reason a pollock is expensive is the same reason any historically relevant thing is expensive.
one time i told a museum curator i could fart a better painting out of my asshole . im not afraid to speak my mind .
Didn't Jackson Pollock paint with enemas sometimes? Or was that somebody else..
Context. That person did it first. Working hard to improve your skill isn't inherently valuable.
The price of art is usually pegged to the artist rather than the piece itself. Once you gain wealth and enter more sophisticated art circles, the "celebrities" you associate yourself with changes compared to that of a middle/lower class person.
For example, plebs would pay good money for a signed shoe from Kobe Bryant/Kim Kardashian despite it being just a shoe, however the signature elevates the value to thousands even if it is just scribbles with a pen. It is the same for contemporary art enthusiasts but instead of Kobe Bryant/Kim Kardashian, they are more interested in signed pieces from Yayoi Kusama/Damien Hirst who are big names in the contemporary art world and would pay big money for items associated with them, even if it is just "splashes of paint".
I'm sure there are people who think contemporary art is a scam but at the same time would love to buy splash art if it was made by PewDiePie.
I recommend reading a book titled "The $12million Stuffed Shark, The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art."
While the 'what is art?' is its own horse. There's a great Adam ruins everything on the economics of modern/contemp art