3 ms·

A blue painting with a white stripe does not take an ounce of talent. Nor should that painting sell for more than the cost of paint to paint the canvas with. Be

by Nadya 11y ago

A blue painting with a white stripe does not take an ounce of talent. Nor should that painting sell for more than the cost of paint to paint the canvas with. Believing it is a front for money laundering is far easier to believe than a fool spending millions of dollars for a color separated by a stripe of another color. There's also "Voice of Fire" [0]. Same concept but uh... red and blue instead of blue and white. Really speaks to me ya know? Don't forget Onement I [1]. The same painting, again, but brown with a yellow stripe! How does he come up with it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Newman#/media/File:Newman-Onement_1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Newman#/media/File:New...

charlesdm 11y ago
I actually quite like those paintings. Maybe not worth $44m (to me, maybe to others), but probably a lot more than paint + canvas. From afar, it seems that being an artist is actually sort of similar to being a developer/entrepreneur. Let's say you're a technically able artist. You can create anything. But what do you actually deliver? How do you create "value" (i.e. a piece someone, somewhere, loves) As a comparison: there are plenty of developers who can reverse engineer device drivers. But knowing which driver to actually reverse engineer, that can actually deliver value to someone, that's the tricky part.
- Nadya 11y ago
  My point is things like this are why people "outside the scene looking in" see it as nothing but millionaires losing a bet, money laundering, or some form of joke rich people pull just because they can. "Look how rich I am. I can spend $35m on an unpainted canvas." [0] I have respect for two things: Things that require such skill that other humans are not able to trivially reproduce it and things that are so damn simple that it is amazing it took us 10s/100s years to figure it out. I feel there are two schools of thought. Those who "get" modern/contemporary art and those who don't. Those who do say: "Yeah, you could have done this. But did you?" Those who don't say: "I don't think I'd get paid $10 million for a 20ft canvas covered in my own feces and I don't think any reasonable person would. So they don't." Looking back, I should have used a less criminal/more light-hearted example to try or made a better attempt at illustrating where I stand on these things. [0] At least I hope this hasn't happened and there was at least some paint on them. [1] [1] But a redditor did hang up 3 blank canvases on their wall out of laziness and others saw "art" in it. So there's that at least. http://i.imgur.com/oTKPb.png http://i.imgur.com/oTKPb.png

by Nadya 11y ago

charlesdm 11y ago

I actually quite like those paintings. Maybe not worth $44m (to me, maybe to others), but probably a lot more than paint + canvas. From afar, it seems that being an artist is actually sort of similar to being a developer/entrepreneur. Let's say you're a technically able artist. You can create anything. But what do you actually deliver? How do you create "value" (i.e. a piece someone, somewhere, loves) As a comparison: there are plenty of developers who can reverse engineer device drivers. But knowing which driver to actually reverse engineer, that can actually deliver value to someone, that's the tricky part.

Nadya 11y ago
My point is things like this are why people "outside the scene looking in" see it as nothing but millionaires losing a bet, money laundering, or some form of joke rich people pull just because they can. "Look how rich I am. I can spend $35m on an unpainted canvas." [0] I have respect for two things: Things that require such skill that other humans are not able to trivially reproduce it and things that are so damn simple that it is amazing it took us 10s/100s years to figure it out. I feel there are two schools of thought. Those who "get" modern/contemporary art and those who don't. Those who do say: "Yeah, you could have done this. But did you?" Those who don't say: "I don't think I'd get paid $10 million for a 20ft canvas covered in my own feces and I don't think any reasonable person would. So they don't." Looking back, I should have used a less criminal/more light-hearted example to try or made a better attempt at illustrating where I stand on these things. [0] At least I hope this hasn't happened and there was at least some paint on them. [1] [1] But a redditor did hang up 3 blank canvases on their wall out of laziness and others saw "art" in it. So there's that at least. http://i.imgur.com/oTKPb.png http://i.imgur.com/oTKPb.png