Yours, for $43.8m...

[Words]

no because no one in high society gives a fuck about abstract music, and no one in normal society gives a fuck about high-society abstract visual art
and only poor kids in New York and beard strokers on the internets care about abstract film
it's weird... I've never heard of a sound recording being sold for any price... save some collectors item vinyls and such. Maybe bc the concept of "the original" doesn't carry over to sound recordings... No one would pay that much for a pint of the painting, but to own the real canvass with paint on it is something else

I don't know why. These ideas are so weird. Noise artists can't get the attention of big brokerages and auction houses etc. who knows if they even try
we've got the record industry, whose parallel i guess would be the mid-range graphical industry. rich people do strange things with their riches

high society does care about abstract music/film, but the artist's they like are usually completely cut-off from the non-art-world side. matthew barney would be a good example of this - DVDs of his Cremaster series of films sell for six figures but for most film enthusiasts he's barely a blip on the radar. i guess if you make sound art (or performance art, or land art, or anything else hard to commodify) it's expected to be part of a wider practise that includes stuff like photography and drawings so dealers can actually make money off you

[karmacazee]

So if you make lots of money you automatically aren't allowed the freedom to do whatever you want with what you earned?

Exactly my point, i find it very hypocritical when people have a go at the rich for buying outlandish things instead of donating to charity when they themselves give nothing or only a small proportion of their earnings to charity.

Ummm, yes, basically. If you have a moral sense of duty and empathy for the wider population, you would be a philanthropist and not waste your money on doing pointless shit like buying a 40mil blue square.

But yeah fuck it, let rich powerful people do whatever they want, because that's been working out really well so far! 19,000 children die everyday because of poverty related causes, but who cares? I have a fucking blue square man!

And just for the record, yes, I contribute regularly to altruistic causes, with time and money. And if I had a spare $40 million I would do something massively altruistic with it, like build some homes for every homeless person in Cardiff or some shit like that.

With great power (wealth) comes great responsibility!

[ezza]

So if you make lots of money you automatically aren't allowed the freedom to do whatever you want with what you earned?

Exactly my point, i find it very hypocritical when people have a go at the rich for buying outlandish things instead of donating to charity when they themselves give nothing or only a small proportion of their earnings to charity.

Ummm, yes, basically. If you have a moral sense of duty and empathy for the wider population, you would be a philanthropist and not waste your money on doing pointless shit like buying a 40mil blue square.

But yeah fuck it, let rich powerful people do whatever they want, because that's been working out really well so far! 19,000 children die everyday because of poverty related causes, but who cares? I have a fucking blue square man!

And just for the record, yes, I contribute regularly to altruistic causes, with time and money. And if I had a spare $40 million I would do something massively altruistic with it, like build some homes for every homeless person in Cardiff or some shit like that.

With great power (wealth) comes great responsibility!

dude its all a nice idea

and if you do that fairplay

but in reality that arguments dumb

dont get me wrong id contribute, but i wouldn't all of a sudden start dedicating my life to helping others

if u get rich your spending it and living the good life

and 99% of people will (regardless of what they say)

but again fairplay if you would be the 1%

[Words]

So if you make lots of money you automatically aren't allowed the freedom to do whatever you want with what you earned?

Exactly my point, i find it very hypocritical when people have a go at the rich for buying outlandish things instead of donating to charity when they themselves give nothing or only a small proportion of their earnings to charity.

Ummm, yes, basically. If you have a moral sense of duty and empathy for the wider population, you would be a philanthropist and not waste your money on doing pointless shit like buying a 40mil blue square.

But yeah fuck it, let rich powerful people do whatever they want, because that's been working out really well so far! 19,000 children die everyday because of poverty related causes, but who cares? I have a fucking blue square man!

And just for the record, yes, I contribute regularly to altruistic causes, with time and money. And if I had a spare $40 million I would do something massively altruistic with it, like build some homes for every homeless person in Cardiff or some shit like that.

With great power (wealth) comes great responsibility!

a lot of big collectors are philanthropists too... it's not one or the other, in fact it sort of goes hand in hand

[deadly_habit]

So if you make lots of money you automatically aren't allowed the freedom to do whatever you want with what you earned?

Exactly my point, i find it very hypocritical when people have a go at the rich for buying outlandish things instead of donating to charity when they themselves give nothing or only a small proportion of their earnings to charity.

Ummm, yes, basically. If you have a moral sense of duty and empathy for the wider population, you would be a philanthropist and not waste your money on doing pointless shit like buying a 40mil blue square.

But yeah fuck it, let rich powerful people do whatever they want, because that's been working out really well so far! 19,000 children die everyday because of poverty related causes, but who cares? I have a fucking blue square man!

And just for the record, yes, I contribute regularly to altruistic causes, with time and money. And if I had a spare $40 million I would do something massively altruistic with it, like build some homes for every homeless person in Cardiff or some shit like that.

With great power (wealth) comes great responsibility!

a lot of big collectors are philanthropists too... it's not one or the other, in fact it sort of goes hand in hand

Then you have stnuc like the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch.
Now if more people would actually volunteer their time and effort instead of "praying" for everything instead...

[karmacazee]

dude its all a nice idea

and if you do that fairplay

but in reality that arguments dumb

dont get me wrong id contribute, but i wouldn't all of a sudden start dedicating my life to helping others

if u get rich your spending it and living the good life

and 99% of people will (regardless of what they say)

but again fairplay if you would be the 1%

I used to be that cynical. But it isn't that dumb is it? We can't all be billionaires.

What is dumb is forever chasing money to spend on throw away material goods, then realising you need more money because you've just spent it all on something unsatisfying... and so the vicious circle of consumer emptiness continues.

And I really don't think 99% of people would be selfish like that, most people enjoy helping others.

There seems to be this prevailing idea in society that most people, given half the chance, would go bat shit insane in times of crisis and it'd be every man for himself, but that just isn't the case. Most people tend to help each other out.

The most poisonous idea in all of society, IMO, is that competition is better than collaboration, that solitary is better than solidarity. That we're somehow totally selfish. What bollocks! I mean, in genetic terms, yeah, a lot of decisions we make can be selfish, but not all decisions made are genetic. I doubt I was thinking about my future lineage when I nursed a sparrow my cat had savaged back to health as a child, for example!

Also, that selfish gene theory is a bit of a paradox, because if all our decisions are based on whether or not they'd benefit our genetic future, then what we're really ensuring is the survival of the group - not the individual - as a healthy gene pool requires one that is mixed and diverse not interbred. You need a large co-operative group for that.

Humans like to trade and co-operate. Trade pre-dates fire, farming and civilization. It evolved alongside human communication, that other most important co-operative trait we possess. We teach each other, and the successive generations, for a reason. We're having this conversation right now because we all feel part of a group, important enough for us to contribute to thousands of times, sometimes with posts as long as this one! It's because ultimately, we need each other.

I don't buy that ' most humans are naturally selfish' argument for one second. We have the potential to be equally as cunty or as goody-goody as we choose.

I just think that one of those choices is more reasonable, fair and logical than the other.

Bill Gates is kind of the embodiment of someone torn by that duality I think. Rich nerd makes billions from a technology that has radically changed the world, from an industry that is pretty shitty to a lot of people, has a mountain of shares in some spurious companies, yet is the most philanthropic individual in history....


Basically, being rich doesn't make you a tnuc, being a tnuc makes you a tnuc. And if you're willing to pay that much money for art, then there's probably a great big tnuc shaped hole in your soul. Either that or you're a bit stupid.

[DiegoSapiens]

lol at the people who says that you have to be a complete tnuc to spend that money in that shit, nobody likes enough that for spending that money is just business in some years it could get the double for it

[karmacazee]

lol at the people who says that you have to be a complete tnuc to spend that money in that shit, nobody likes enough that for spending that money is just business in some years it could get the double for it

So that some other tnuc can come along and pay even more for it? fucking What's the point in that?? Why not donate the shit painting to a library, and spend that $40 million on something really worthwhile.

If it isn't cuntishness then it must be stupidity.

Auctioneers are like the best con-men ever!

[DiegoSapiens]

obviously i don´t agree with that business but is like economy, investing in a product that can increase it value. you can win or you can lose

[DiegoSapiens]

normally the guy who spend the money don´t even choose the picture, they have a group of art geeks that predict the future value of the paintings

[deadly_habit]

I wonder how many people complaining on here use their disposable income on things like out of print vinyl on discogs, it's basically the same thing on a larger scale.

[DiegoSapiens]

^loool like that guy who asked for 1000000 for eyes vip

[karmacazee]

I wonder how many people complaining on here use their disposable income on things like out of print vinyl on discogs, it's basically the same thing on a larger scale.

Meh, I seem to be the only one complaining, and no, I don't have disposable income, lol.

[Laszlo]

In the same sale -


$22m


$37.1m (a record for any living artist at auction)


$15.4m

[BonerJams04]

fuck music im gonna go paint some squares.

[deadly_habit]

^loool like that guy who asked for 1000000 for eyes vip

Heh search ebay for VGA graded for a laugh at the prices some ask for retro video games.

Also (fucking image height and width size limit here)
http://i.imgur.com/f43mJs9.png

[flint33]

dont understand the line of thought where people remove paintings like these from their contexts, as if painting this in the early 50s is the same thing as painting it in 2013. aesthetic value is subjective but an artist's importance can be sort-of-quantified by looking at their influence on what came next. that's where the value of a piece like this comes from - it's real estate on the art history timeline. but then you could always argue that timeline itself is just based around what wealthy Westerners like to buy

Completely agree with this. This can also be applied to other arts like music, theater, etc. But as it has been said, some art pieces can still be appreciated without placing them in a timeline or context, but then we'll be talking about the subjectivity toward art.
Imagine you painted naked portraits in a country in the 16th century where painting naked people was illegal. Then your paintings pave the way to a new artistic current that changes the general perception by transgressing the rules. Nowadays these paintings may appear to us as they have no originality at all, but they played a great role in changing our perception of art. The same can be applied to the paintings of the first humans on their caverns (in fact, there is nothing original to these primitive painting if you see them with the brain and perception of a 21st century homosapiens). But it's still ridiculous to put a price tag to these.
Painting a blue square is quite the same when art becomes elitist, it's kind of ironic that it's sold at these ridiculous prices.

[noam]

At least pay for art that makes an effort to actually be art!

So some art is more art than other art? How much art must an art art before it can be considered art?




Show your working.

I suspect you know exactly what I am talking about wub!
If the only thought that this kind of thing provocates is "why do people pay for that/is that even really art/what qualifies as art" then it tends to be a rather airy piece with little to no real substance.

*edit, at that point I would even say it almost becomes a self parody of art, an inside joke or something else altogether more cynical.

if the thought it provokes in people is 'why do people pay for this??'' and then follows a discussion about art between people who never, ever would discuss art i'd suggest its worth exactly what was paid for it for the millions of minds stimulated by something other than X-Factor or the Fast and the Furious 6 for once in a good while

art is not just about what you can see

now there's 6 pges of this thread and i posted this after reading only 2 so what are the chances of this having already been said, and the following 4 pages i haven't read, discussing this very same thing?

[SCope13]

At least pay for art that makes an effort to actually be art!

So some art is more art than other art? How much art must an art art before it can be considered art?




Show your working.

I suspect you know exactly what I am talking about wub!
If the only thought that this kind of thing provocates is "why do people pay for that/is that even really art/what qualifies as art" then it tends to be a rather airy piece with little to no real substance.

*edit, at that point I would even say it almost becomes a self parody of art, an inside joke or something else altogether more cynical.

if the thought it provokes in people is 'why do people pay for this??'' and then follows a discussion about art between people who never, ever would discuss art i'd suggest its worth exactly what was paid for it for the millions of minds stimulated by something other than X-Factor or the Fast and the Furious 6 for once in a good while

art is not just about what you can see

This is actually a good point. Hadn't thought about it that way. However, $43.8 still seems a bit steep

[DiegoSapiens]

In the same sale -



$37.1m (a record for any living artist at auction)

i like that one