Child's painting sells for $86.9m

[Audley Strange]

Every tried it? Go on, if it's as easy as a lot of you seem to think, go and make millions.

That's a really false argument.
If Damien Hirst took a child's painting, and claimed that it was one of his, you can be 100% certain that it would sell for a huge price.
And if he produced the best work he could, and sold it as the work of an anonymous 12 year old, it would sell for bugger-all.

Everybody know that it's true.

Well no you asserting everyone knows that it's true, does not mean that they do or agree.

Is a lot of it bluff? Sure. Are there idiots in the art world? Of course, there are idiots in every walk of life. Are their blaggers? Undoubtedly. Do blaggers sometimes make money from idiots? Yes.

What's the problem exactly?

And really I don't think it is a false argument. I'm tired of people complaining about how much footballers earn or CEO's or artists. It sounds like nothing more than resentment to me, because given half the chance I doubt any single one of you would turn down the opportunity to make the same amount for as little as you could possibly get away with. Things and people are worth what they paid for by the people who shell out the cash.

[Hermit]

Another news flash, my friend: this thread has ranged beyond the definition of the OP. As do many threads. I certainly can respond to what people actually say here. It's rather unfair to then say "hey, you're out of bounds."

Quite so, but between you and me, the discussion was about the price tag and nothing else.

I never said the price tag is justified. I never said it isn't. Those things have a lot to do with the market, attitudes and competition among collectors and among auction houses, provenance and the value people place on it - a whole host of things I'm in no position to know. Therefore I'm in no position to make an informed judgment. And, as I've said, I'm not really that interested in that aspect.

That's the end of the discussion on the matter between you and me then. In this thread it's only the absurdity of prices fetched by works of art, and the hype generated by the art industry in order to achieve them, that I am interested in rather than arguing the definition of art or the merits of any particular work in the context of "art for art's sake". I really don't give a fuck if people are highly appreciative or critical of signed urinals or compositions for orchestra consisting entirely of total silence. I just wonder how that sort of stuff can be priced at absurd levels.

I hope you'll have a productive time and meet your deadline.

[mistermack]

And I can assure you that you're wrong about that in terms of Rothko. Now, the information you do get from the reproduction may be so distasteful to you that you have no desire to see the original. That's fine. But given your experience, you should know that different works will lose different amounts in translation to reproductions. And that can really vary quite a lot.

I'm wrong for you, but not for me.
Forty years ago, I was impressed with "fine art".
I had an uncle in the print business, and he used to send us monthly magazines, well made, with good sized prints, of "The Masters". I had a whacking great pile of them, and knew a lot more than I know now.

I went to see exhibitions in London, and saw quite a lot of the famous paintings that were in these magazines.
Not once, not never ever, did I see anything that was as massively better than the print as you are suggesting. To me, they were exactly what I expected. There's more to see, in more detail, but to me, it's more of the same.

I'm not saying that YOU don't see more. I'm sure that you do.
But I think that the difference is in your head. You MAKE more of it.
I wouldn't.

[hadespussercats]

In these arguments people always seem to pull out examples like Duchamp's urinal or (in music) Cage's "4:33" - example that do stretch the definitions of what art is.

Please don't try to play the "philistines don't understand art" card. Art is a broad church indeed. I will not try to delimit it, but never mind whether we are talking about Duchamp, Rothko, or come to think of it, Rembrandt, can't you see the absurdity of the prices at all?

Sure. Of course I can. But I've already said I have no interest in that. I've been talking about the art itself, the artists themselves, and statements people here have made about those things. I've not disagreed with anyone about the buying and selling of art.

Newsflash: The thread is about $86.9 million dollars being paid for a work of art. Look at the title, Orpheus. OK, Animavore belittles the product as a "child's painting", but so what? I'll ignore that aspersion for the purposes of the argument in order to make it easier for you to justify the price tag. Can you?

I don't know, Seraph. How do you justify the price tag on anything? It's what someone's willing to pay.

[hadespussercats]

Though to expand on why a Rothko might be worth that to someone--
He's an artist beloved by many, respected by more, still fresh enough to be controversial, but he's dead, so he has a limited body of work. Only a small amount of that is available for the open market, so when that happens, people go a little crazy trying to grab a piece of him for themselves.

Plus, he's been popular/controversial for long enough that a buyer can be fairly sure than in ten years, when they maybe want to sell this piece and get something else, it will still be worth what they paid, if not more.

[Clinton Huxley]

Peter Singer would argue that if you spend £70 million on a work of art when for the same price you could, for example, literally save the lives of thousands of starving people, you are implicitly saying, "this paint and canvas are more important than a persons life. My enjoyment of it is more important than a persons life". And Peter Singer would be right.

[Rum]

There's one factor that is so far missing in this exchange (unless I have missed it somewhere), and that's the rarity/collector issue. Once a painting is labeled as a masterpiece, or whatever, however much you choose to disagree with that judgment, it becomes desirable for the simple and sole reason that it is unique and the value becomes a thing in itself, irrespective of its artistic merit.

Some of the best known Picassos, Van Goughs and Rothcos are no doubt owned by very rich collectors who don't know a damned thing about art, but who want to own the thing because they can - and maybe because they know they can sell it for a lot more later on.

That is nothing to do with art, just market economics.

[Svartalf]

And as I mentioned on RatSkep, until you see it in real life, your opinion is worthless. We should take it as seriously as someone who says "that food tastes terrible, the chef is a fake, and it's not worth the price" - after only seeing a picture of the food on the Internet.

Have to disagree there... this is a fairly simple work, so I doubt that seeing the original from up close would reveal intricacies of detail or allow you to spot the artist's superior technique.

That kid maybe a Mozart of graphic arts, but that piece sure ain't a graphic symphony.

[Svartalf]

I've argued in greater detail over at RatSkep. I'm not going to repeat myself here.

Yeah. I can see how copy-pasting is time-consuming and can be a bit of a challenge for some. What's the point of it anyway? A copy is always inferior to the original. It must lack something real yet ethereal of the original that can never be transmitted through a reproduction.

The bogus religiosity surrounding original works of art is akin to traditional religion, and it is exploited in a similar way. I will not be sucked in by either.

Bogus religiosity? I mean, if you don't see the difference between having a poster of great paintings on your walls, and having a real master work canvas in your home... something is wrong with your sensibilities.
That's why I love going to the Louvre rather than simply looking at pictures or buying posters.

[Svartalf]

Listen to a piece by Mozart that you've never heard before. You have a certain experience of it. You like it; you don't like it, you think various things about it, it makes you feel certain emotions. If I then tell you it's not by Mozart after all, but by another late 18th-century composer you've never heard of, does that change your experience of the work?

Haha. Fritz Kreisler used to have a lot of fun with that. He'd regularly come up with lost scores by major composers he happened to find while rummaging around in dusty archives of some of the thousands of minor and neglected castles and palaces of Austria, Germany, Italy and France. He performed them in concerts. Works by Mozart, Bach and whoever. Later on it transpired that he actually composed them himself in the style of... They were, in short, fakes. Lots of egg was wiped off faces.

Not the same. We're talking about a PERFECT replica of the original. Not something convincingly in the same style.

You know what? I wouldn't mind having one of those fake Vermeers that the guy made in WWII to sell to Germans, and had to prove he had actually made them himself because he was tried for selling national treasures and treason.

[mistermack]

Nobody that I know resents artists making loads of money. But it shouldn't be at the public expense.
The loony prices that art sells for spills over into sculptures that are bought for public places.
And some arty conman gets millions of public money for something a child could make.

Private is different, but they shouldn't put public money into it.

National galleries are different, if they draw in tourists, of the gullible kind.

But the trouble is that public money isn't treated like private money. A private buyer normally buys very carefully, only paying what they think is right, and trying to buy something that will appreciate.
People spending public money don't have the same pressure to buy wisely. They often indulge their own preferences, and blow too much money on stuff that isn't worth it.

I still agree with the OP. A child could easily have painted that, and improved on it.

[Hermit]

Though to expand on why a Rothko might be worth that to someone--
He's an artist beloved by many, respected by more, still fresh enough to be controversial, but he's dead, so he has a limited body of work. Only a small amount of that is available for the open market, so when that happens, people go a little crazy trying to grab a piece of him for themselves.

Plus, he's been popular/controversial for long enough that a buyer can be fairly sure than in ten years, when they maybe want to sell this piece and get something else, it will still be worth what they paid, if not more.

Yes, I am aware of all of that. What I don't like is the hype that causes the prices of painted canvas and other works of art to those stratospheric levels. Basically, someone paid 86.9 million dollars for the item under discussion "because it's a Rothko". I ask you this: If the exact same work had been created by Fred Bloggs, can you imagine it fetching even a hundredth of that amount? Elmyr de Hory was a painter who could not make a living from his work. Then he found that by producing stuff in the style of the likes of Matisse, Modigliani, Renoir and Picasso among others, it was easy to rake in the money. Of course, his agents' and subsequent onsellers' profit were a magnitude or three higher than his own. The determination of price is governed by hyped reputation and more bullshit. As soon as an artwork by da Vinci - once acquired at vast expense - is discovered to be a fake, its value drops to next to nothing. So, where does supply and demand come in, or the desperate desire to own a piece of top quality art?

Also, what Clinton Huxley said.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yes, I am aware of all of that. What I don't like is the hype that causes the prices of painted canvas and other works of art to those stratospheric levels. Basically, someone paid 86.9 million dollars for the item under discussion "because it's a Rothko". I ask you this: If the exact same work had been created by Fred Bloggs, can you imagine it fetching even a hundredth of that amount? Elmyr de Hory was a painter who could not make a living from his work. Then he found that by producing stuff in the style of the likes of Matisse, Modigliani, Renoir and Picasso among others, it was easy to rake in the money. Of course, his agents' and subsequent onsellers' profit were a magnitude or three higher than his own. The determination of price is governed by hyped reputation and more bullshit. As soon as an artwork by da Vinci - once acquired at vast expense - is discovered to be a fake, its value drops to next to nothing. So, where does supply and demand come in, or the desperate desire to own a piece of top quality art?

Also, what Clinton Huxley said.

Good point. Reputation of artist, no matter how contrived, is more important than the actual work. This is, of course, because most people's taste is solely in their mouth.

Did anybody notice that "art" in Ironman 2? A white canvas with a black rectangle in it. It could have been done in ten minutes by a school kid. But it was worth a fortune because of who did it.

[Hermit]

Half a billion dollars in today's currency, and they are all forgeries. What are those paintings worth now? I can imagine some people being prepared to shell out a few thousand dollars for each fake in order to be able to boast that they own a work of a well known forger, but that's about it.

"Wow! It's a Rothko. I so must have this brilliant piece of art! Here, have 86.9 million dollars."

Later on: "Whaaaaat? It's a Bloggs? Gimme my money back!"

[Robert_S]

I wonder if part of the housing market collapse was down to people starting to ask themselves "What is it actually worth to live in this house in this location?" What would happen to the art market if buyers would ask themselves what it is worth to actually be able to gaze upon that work in one's own home, office or wherever?

*goes off to paint Dutch tulips*