I’m sorry, but I just don’t think I’d pay $23.8 million for this:
But that’s exactly what a New York art dealer paid:
NEW YORK (AFP) – A large-scale metal sculpture by American artist David Smith has become the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction, fetching 23.8 million dollars at Sotheby’s in New York.
….
The 1965 sculpture was finally snapped up by Manhattan dealer Larry Gagosian at nearly twice its high estimate of 12 million dollars.
Experts attributed the record price to the fact that most of Smith’s works are in museums or permanent collections and therefore make extremely rare auction appearances.
I don’t care how rare it is; I just don’t like it. The flow isn’t there for me.
I asked a friend who’s an art collector and an artist himself. His immediate reaction?
“What a piece of trash! The emperor’s new clothes!!!”
I told him that I thought a 1950s bumper sculpture he owns would be worth far more to me, and that if he’d send me a photo, I’d be glad to put it in my blog.
So here it is:
(It’s made from 1950s car bumpers.)
In all honesty, I would pay more for the bumper sculpture than I would for the one that fetched the $23.8 million.
I know there’s no accounting for taste, things are worth what they sell for, and you get what you pay for. I’d rather get value.
Sheesh!
Comments
8 responses to “Good art is cheaper than bad art!”
Interesting differences in taste here. I won’t say that one is better than another, as both are of the same type of abstract scupture, but, like Dawn, I like the square-looking sculpture above. Norma would like neither, insisting that a sculpture must more concretely represent a human figure or a Deity.
Interesting questions about it all….
quick, somebody wrap that thing in saffron!
1st Item: Except for the leaning blocks I was building that sort of thing when I was four.
Steven, while I can’t say that 1950s bumpers are “better” than sterile blocks, I find the sculpture more esthetically appealing, and by far the better value. Anyway, I’d rather see it in my yard.
Good seeing you again Mick! Hope all is well.
Alan, if only you’d have saved your art, you could have sold it and had a nice retirement fund.
It seems to me that a good chunk of art(especially modern art) is based more around the artist than around the actual value of the art. If you find doodlings of Picaso or Da Vinci, they can be worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. They’re no longer just art, but a gateway and connection to the artist.
In the case of this ‘block’ art, that seems to be along those lines. Maybe there’s something here I’m missing in the camera angle, but I doubt it. The dealer didn’t buy the art per-se, he bought the name of the artist.
Eric,
There is nothing more transient than the work of a small child. 🙂
I wrote [one word added here]:
“….like Dawn, I like the square-looking sculpture above. Norma would like neither, insisting that a sculpture must more concretely represent a heroic human figure or a Deity.”
Two thoughts here:
1) The contrast between these two abstract sculptures here is extremely interesting. Paradoxically, the one you prefer is curvaceous, sensuous, feminine, surrounded by lush, dark foliage, while the one I prefer is linear, angular, masculine, standing on bright sunlight, surrounded by tall, angular skyscrapers. A reversal? Femocrats vs. Transcendental Scientists? Yin vs. Yang?
2) Norma, to the Right even of Dawn on this issue, opposes both abstract sculptures, for, as I said, for her a sculpture must be a concrete representation of a heroic human figure or of a Deity.
I think she would see it more harshly, as in the light of what W. Cleon Slousen described here in his list of 45 “Current Communist Goals”:
“….22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate sll good sculpture from from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms”….”
(from W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Communist, 1961)
Though I oppose W. Cleon Skousen on certain things (i.e., censorship, homo-sexuality), his style is extremely interesting and he is absolutely right about what the Communists are doing. We must expose them and stop them.
I also admire the style of the man who, when asked what were the worst crimes he could think of, replied:
“Incest with his mother or matricide (crime against an individual). Destruction of world culture, e.g., books, sculpturing, etc. (crime against humanity).”