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Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sell

Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sells for more than what many people can make in a decade or a career means a stratospheric concentration of wealth in society or a bubble in the commercial art world. If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? That millions of children still starve but a piece of simplistic art is worth more than the value of food a whole village consumes in a decade is a sorry effect of the financial system we use or the way our society assigns ‘coolness’ score to people and activity.

TomMarius 8y ago
It is not artifact of any financial system, this would happen even if we had full communism, just illegally and with barter/favor payments. It is artifact of human nature.
- throw0101011 8y ago
  With a different kind of accounting, people behaviors may change. The wealthy art consumers want status, prestige, and acceptance as one of the ‘cool’ crowd. Or when buying for investment, they expect some will buy from them for those effects. If we make it much more prestigious and ‘cool’ for people to show off their equivalent donations to starving children, fewer will bid for the drawings and more will donate.
  - jacobwilliamroy 8y ago
    As someone who makes most of his money from non-profit organizations, I can say that "competitive donating" is a sport which many of the older rich people will play. The ones who play hardest are typically near the end of their rope and worried that they won't be remembered fondly or won't get into heaven (see: the catholic church).
    - kbenson 8y ago
      It was so much simpler when the church could just sell indulgences...
      - fjsolwmv 8y ago
        The free market provides more efficient price discovery for indulgences
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    Definitely, but that has nothing to do with the financial system. Actually the current financial system is the only known system able to create fortunes big enough that someone is able to donate anything; and the system enables it, contrary to others that are designed only with citizens in mind. Another problem is that other systems are designed, the one we have now is more or less natural - people will always trade unless they can get everything for free, which is not possible at the moment and probably won't be for the next 50 years at least. A lot of value would be lost if people didn't use money; this value might seem low per transaction, but it's a lot on a country/global scale.
    - fuzzfactor 8y ago
      >the current financial system is the only known system able to create fortunes big enough that someone is able to donate anything You mean the current financial system where concentrated wealth yields concentrated power to effect change? And almost everyone is born into a situation where their wealth & power is insignificant compared to the rare individual who has been the beneficiary of the feature where rapidly or not there is a net flow concentrating resources disproportionately toward those already wealthy & powerful? Nominally, the traditional result is that the few having most concentrated wealth are the ones capable of effecting the changes they desire, with most everyone else serving these masters in one way or another. With the servant class being highly restricted in their ability to develop personal wealth of their own, much less direct major resources toward independently progressive positive objectives. I must assume that the current financial system is the same one as that of Genghis Khan. So naturally there is a long precedent. Anyway, back on topic not every single artist or engineer serves this type of master, just most of them. Some create value or enhance wealth, some devalue or destroy, what else is new? >We could invest in lofty ideas to alleviate starving... This wise investment was fortunately made starting at just the most opportune time in human history, and has compounded itself remarkably in only a few generations. Many approaches are now well known, only requiring a properly-scalable "seed" committment for their relative degrees of success to be proven on the larger scale. I guess we need to invest in lofty equitable distribution of resources, especially essential survival commodities. Creating or spreading surplus value can require a lot of work, but those at the top of the food chain don't really have to do it if they don't feel like it since wealth is flowing their way already. Plus there is just so much wealth & plenty already which is not having a fraction of the positive effect it could be making.
  - harimau777 8y ago
    Two thoughts: I don't see a viable way to change what society views as prestigious and 'cool'. I can see the argument that the amounts spent on works of art are excessive, but it seems like we should at least keep in mind that this does benefit society by supporting the creation of great art.
- smhost 8y ago
  that's a pretty vapid statement. aren't all crimes an "artifact of human nature"? isn't everything we do and create, for that matter? also, how would a stateless society even have the concept of legality?
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    We're not talking about crimes, we're talking about desires. And yes, that's why blaming the financial system is wrong - nothing would change. Stateless society can still have justice, courts, rules, police... It's just driven by someone else.
    - smhost 8y ago
      you're actually not making any sense. you're saying that no matter what financial system we have, nothing would change, so there's no point in changing it, and there's no point in not changing it. and if courts and police exist in the way that they exist in our society, then that wouldn't be a stateless society by definition.
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        I'm saying that changing the financial system will change nothing and there is no point in changing it, yes. Part of the world tried other systems and failed miserably, thus we should focus on education and other social factors instead of trying to fix something that isn't broken (what is broken is the current regulation, not the system itself). Ad communism: That's not true. Have you read anything from the communist theory? Marx, at least? I mean, more than a part of one book? Communism is a change in ownership and control, but that doesn't mean that a police-like body wouldn't exist (it might not, though). They just call it "people's militia". The court system would be different, but a court nonetheless. A corporation can have police and courts and it's still a corporation. Military, the same. Even today these are deliberately kept as separate as possible from the governing body (what we usually mean with "state"). Thus I think you have mixed up the definition of "state" in "stateless".
psergeant 8y ago
You know Banksy made a film about exactly what you’re describing called “Exit Through The Gift Shop” right?
- drasticmeasures 8y ago
  What good was that film if it made us "think", but not act? I believe OP is putting the lessons in that film into action in his life, and those actions are present in the thoughts expressed in his words, and happily not the other way around like the people in and outside the art world giving lip service to Banksy.
hueving 8y ago
>If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? First, if it's just from climate change, it will be gradual increase in scarcity and all kinds of methods of growing food become viable as the price of bread increases. So unless climate change actually makes Banksy undesirable, it will still be worth more loaves of bread than one person could eat in a lifetime. Second, if it's an acute wide-spread disaster, the only thing that becomes relevant is food/water/shelter /weapons/first-aid. Not only would a Banksy be worthless, but so would the world's biggest diamond as well as the cure for cancer. So it's a meaningless comparison just based on the fact that you don't like rich people out-bidding each other over art (and subsequently supporting artists). Once you start down the road of being dictator of spending on expensive things that aren't solving starvation, all kinds of things like space exploration, the development of the internet, etc all become "sorry effects". Guess how many villages could be fed on the budget of the Apollo program.
- throw0101011 8y ago
  The difference is the number of people a product or a project will likely help times the ‘utility’ each person receive. > Once you start down the road of being dictotoe of spending on expensive things that aren't solving starvation, all kinds of things like space exploration, the development of the internet, etc all become "sorry effects". Guess how many villages could be fed on the budget of the Apollo program. I do not advocate dictating spending but propose designing a better incentive system for rich people to spend money on useful things. See my reply to another comment down below. What are ‘useful’ things? Your examples here have good probabilities of turning into ‘utility’ for the masses. Cure of cancer (obvious), Apollo program (many scientific advances), ... Bidding up prestige and coolness is a zero sum game and only increases a small bit of satisfaction of a few rich people. It is about valuing the needs of the rich and the masses more equitably.
  - andrepd 8y ago
    You've put my thoughts about this very succinctly. Completely agree.
darawk 8y ago
> Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sells for more than what many people can make in a decade or a career means a stratospheric concentration of wealth in society or a bubble in the commercial art world. Not really. The level of wealth required to reasonably make a purchase like this is what? 20 million? That's not 'stratospheric'. It's richer than I am, to be sure. But it's only between 2 orders of magnitude richer than your average software engineer's annual salary. I think that's a pretty reasonable level of wealth inequality, and not really indicative of much at all. > If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? Your point here proves the exact opposite of what you think it does. The fact that people can invest vast resources in things that aren't immediately useful for survival is an incredible testament to the stability and productivity of our economy. Because you're right, if people thought there was any significant chance of things going mad max, they certainly wouldn't be investing in art. > That millions of children still starve but a piece of simplistic art is worth more than the value of food a whole village consumes in a decade is a sorry effect of the financial system we use or the way our society assigns ‘coolness’ score to people and activity. Is it? Or do prices simply reflect our personal valuations of things? Which is to say, every decision each of us makes of what to do with our individual time and money sets a price. When you wrote this comment, you chose to invest your free moments in it, rather than earning money to donate to the poor. Is that a sad commentary on the state of the world? Or is it just the natural consequence of people being allowed to allocate their own resources?
- Sharlin 8y ago
  Two orders of magnitude above something that’s already a ridiculous amount of money globally speaking. That’s not exactly reasonable, the fact that it’s not that much money compared to the real super-rich people is just a reminder of the unfortunate reality of long-tail economy.
  - jexah 8y ago
    You are free to spend your "ridiculous amount of money" however you please. If you don't donate most of what you earn to help starving children, maybe doing that and living just above the poverty line is a good place to start, before advocating that others give up their QoL.
beerlord 8y ago
Millions of children will starve because they are being born by women without access to contraception, without the intelligence/education to know that having multiple children without food security is a bad idea, or because they are forced to by their husbands. Help solve those issues first if you must, and don't worry about paintings.
mch82 8y ago
Joy also has value and part of being an artist is building an audience
coldtea 8y ago
>Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. Art was never about difficulty of reproduction. Once an artwork has been done any hack with 2-3 years of art school can create a great imitation, and with some more talent, even do a Rembrandt or whatever. There are entire cities in China who live by making copies of famous oil paintings. >That millions of children still starve but a piece of simplistic art is worth more than the value of food a whole village consumes in a decade is a sorry effect of the financial system we use or the way our society assigns ‘coolness’ score to people and activity. It's the same when a company buys some BS social app like Instagram (mainly an avenue for vanity and time-wasting) for several billion, which could just be used to save millions of lives. Society was never about goodness or helping the most (and especially not for helping people elsewhere).
- theoh 8y ago
  "Art was never about difficulty of reproduction." While it's true that a skilled forger can effectively copy an old master painting, it's a pretty rare skill to have at a really high level. "Painting factory" copies from China are kitsch and definitely lack nuances that matter in the original. But the skill of making a facsimile (a copper engraving of a painting for an edition of prints, for example) is something that used to be respected, though, to be fair, respect was pretty in proportion to how much interpretation/discretion the copier needed to bring into play. Converting colour oil painting -> black & white fine engraving is not a mechanical process, whereas turning cruder drawings into woodcuts apparently was considered merely a technical job. What I'm getting at is the idea that the processes of reproduction are a part of the way art is made and circulated. They aren't something external that comes after the end of the creative act in a way the artist can't control. It's only in a world of immaterial digital media that it feels like art is replicated trivially and endlessly. Uniqueness seemed important when reproduction was costly (and art materials were expensive) and a lot of artworld practices, like editioning, are based on the assumption that the authentic work can't actually be copied, except by the artist. So I don't really agree with your claim.
  - coldtea 8y ago
buboard 8y ago
Auctioning art is now part of art, imho. Auctioneers and buyers are part time artists. It is quite meta but fits well with the postmodern world we live in. Art as aesthetic creation is finished, commodified, and soon to be produced by robots. As for the prices, people can allocate a lot of money to a token, as long as other people still believe in it. Cryptocurrencies take this abstraction to the max. Art is more traditional than cryptos. I am personally very cynical that there is even a shred of value to high-market art sales. It's all a game for the upper-rich. But your "children are starving" comment is off. People have different motives to spend money, a starving kid's has a motive and so does a rich person's who wants to be the buyer of a piece. Both are respectable, human needs, but we are much more likely to relate to the kid. This doesnt mean its somehow bad to have the other.
simonh 8y ago
It an effect if individual freedom. Unfortunately, that includes the freedom to assign value to things that may be objectively valueless. People spend billions on junky movies, tv shows and apps. But what are you going to do, ban entertainment? It’s been tried.
Theodores 8y ago
Recently Damien Hirst has had to scale back operations because his brand of 'art business' is not selling. Fashions change and also there is a limit as to how many people will pay an absolute fortune to become part of the exclusive club of people with 'spot paintings' on their walls. When the going was good his company hired hundreds of people. All of them slaving away making and 'retailing' his art. This was good for the local economy as lots of younger people with no local workplace opportunities were given a chance to earn a crust. Although Damien Hirst never was the 'housewife's favourite' in the way that Banksy is, essentially it was the same game, 'art business' which is not to be confused with 'art'. 'Art business' is very much about making money, not making 'art'. With Banksy there are a lot of hangers on that try their hardest to monetize official Banksy creations. Although Banksy's style is original it is also an easy style to fake. Banksy by being anonymous keeps some safe artistic distance from this ugly art business aspect. More generally though it is funny how there is no money in the wider art business right now. It is a business that has gone the same way as antique collecting, there is no greater fool to sell on to.
- tim333 8y ago
  >Global auction sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips jumped 21.6% in the first half of 2018, according to the latest report by ArtTactic. - Salvator Mundi sold last year for $430 million. I imagine the art business will go on a while. Even if Hirst is having a down turn.
wazoox 8y ago
There is an obvious political response to the question of "why is contemporary art what it is?" Some contemporary pieces sell for more than works by the ancient masters, sometimes at the astonishment of the public ("how can an ugly piece of burnt wood sell for more than a Goya painting?"). As art is exempted of taxes in most parts of the world, this is an obvious vehicle for tax evasion, money laundering, speculation and financial crime. That's why so many things that the common man would deem "bad jokes" are supposed to be "art": because it's financially useful for the rich and the powerful. It's (mostly) a sham, not to say a swindle.
tim333 8y ago
>sorry effect of the financial system Maybe but if you think about it it's an exchange of a bit of paper with some marks on which could easily be reproduced for some 0s and 1s representing a bank balance which could be reproduced or qualitatively eased and the like too. The transaction has no direct effect on the amount of food produced or how much get to children. The worst famines in recent history have been caused by people in ok fed countries saying look at this financial system, it's wack, lets smash it, and then finding millions get hungry and possibly dead, see Russia, China and Venezuela.
kasey_junk 8y ago
This is a funny comment about this particular piece of art because it is an obvious & unsubtle reading of the theme of this piece (and other Banksy pieces).
- drasticmeasures 8y ago
  What's your reading of it?
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    I’m not sure honestly. I’ve been thinking about it a lot (which to me means it’s actually good art). I think the obvious & unsubtle reading above makes a ton of sense. It is a critique of the modern art business for sure. But also it seems likely that the auction company was in on this so I sort of read it as a statement that you cant separate the business of art from the making of art.
drasticmeasures 8y ago
You raise a good point. People are free to do how they like with their money, but outrageously some spend it frivolously in cheaply-made art for status or tax evasion purposes. Bill Gates late-life philanthropy raises a counterpoint to this, in my view. The wealthy don't owe anything to anyone, but that's how a person starves to death waiting for a little mercy. Mr. Gates now invests in saving people, not in art, and that's a worthier status giver. From a moral point of view, they should be charitable since they have so much that giving away a little bit of their fortune would have a tremendous impact on a significant amount of people while themselves being none the worse for it.
djrogers 8y ago
> is a sorry effect of the financial system we use or the way our society assigns ‘coolness’ score to people and activity. Sorry, but if you think this is a modern, western, or somehow unique situation in human history you’re lacking a lot of context. This is just how humans work. A good percentage of people appreciate art, a small percentage of people like flaunting their wealth, and between these two groups societies have elevated artists and art since we stopped roaming the plains and start building cities.
ashildr 8y ago
> Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings But you didn’t.

TomMarius 8y ago

It is not artifact of any financial system, this would happen even if we had full communism, just illegally and with barter/favor payments. It is artifact of human nature.

throw0101011 8y ago
With a different kind of accounting, people behaviors may change. The wealthy art consumers want status, prestige, and acceptance as one of the ‘cool’ crowd. Or when buying for investment, they expect some will buy from them for those effects. If we make it much more prestigious and ‘cool’ for people to show off their equivalent donations to starving children, fewer will bid for the drawings and more will donate.
- jacobwilliamroy 8y ago
  As someone who makes most of his money from non-profit organizations, I can say that "competitive donating" is a sport which many of the older rich people will play. The ones who play hardest are typically near the end of their rope and worried that they won't be remembered fondly or won't get into heaven (see: the catholic church).
  - kbenson 8y ago
    It was so much simpler when the church could just sell indulgences...
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      The free market provides more efficient price discovery for indulgences
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Definitely, but that has nothing to do with the financial system. Actually the current financial system is the only known system able to create fortunes big enough that someone is able to donate anything; and the system enables it, contrary to others that are designed only with citizens in mind. Another problem is that other systems are designed, the one we have now is more or less natural - people will always trade unless they can get everything for free, which is not possible at the moment and probably won't be for the next 50 years at least. A lot of value would be lost if people didn't use money; this value might seem low per transaction, but it's a lot on a country/global scale.
  - fuzzfactor 8y ago
    >the current financial system is the only known system able to create fortunes big enough that someone is able to donate anything You mean the current financial system where concentrated wealth yields concentrated power to effect change? And almost everyone is born into a situation where their wealth & power is insignificant compared to the rare individual who has been the beneficiary of the feature where rapidly or not there is a net flow concentrating resources disproportionately toward those already wealthy & powerful? Nominally, the traditional result is that the few having most concentrated wealth are the ones capable of effecting the changes they desire, with most everyone else serving these masters in one way or another. With the servant class being highly restricted in their ability to develop personal wealth of their own, much less direct major resources toward independently progressive positive objectives. I must assume that the current financial system is the same one as that of Genghis Khan. So naturally there is a long precedent. Anyway, back on topic not every single artist or engineer serves this type of master, just most of them. Some create value or enhance wealth, some devalue or destroy, what else is new? >We could invest in lofty ideas to alleviate starving... This wise investment was fortunately made starting at just the most opportune time in human history, and has compounded itself remarkably in only a few generations. Many approaches are now well known, only requiring a properly-scalable "seed" committment for their relative degrees of success to be proven on the larger scale. I guess we need to invest in lofty equitable distribution of resources, especially essential survival commodities. Creating or spreading surplus value can require a lot of work, but those at the top of the food chain don't really have to do it if they don't feel like it since wealth is flowing their way already. Plus there is just so much wealth & plenty already which is not having a fraction of the positive effect it could be making.
- harimau777 8y ago
  Two thoughts: I don't see a viable way to change what society views as prestigious and 'cool'. I can see the argument that the amounts spent on works of art are excessive, but it seems like we should at least keep in mind that this does benefit society by supporting the creation of great art.
smhost 8y ago
that's a pretty vapid statement. aren't all crimes an "artifact of human nature"? isn't everything we do and create, for that matter? also, how would a stateless society even have the concept of legality?
- TomMarius 8y ago
  We're not talking about crimes, we're talking about desires. And yes, that's why blaming the financial system is wrong - nothing would change. Stateless society can still have justice, courts, rules, police... It's just driven by someone else.
  - smhost 8y ago
    you're actually not making any sense. you're saying that no matter what financial system we have, nothing would change, so there's no point in changing it, and there's no point in not changing it. and if courts and police exist in the way that they exist in our society, then that wouldn't be a stateless society by definition.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      I'm saying that changing the financial system will change nothing and there is no point in changing it, yes. Part of the world tried other systems and failed miserably, thus we should focus on education and other social factors instead of trying to fix something that isn't broken (what is broken is the current regulation, not the system itself). Ad communism: That's not true. Have you read anything from the communist theory? Marx, at least? I mean, more than a part of one book? Communism is a change in ownership and control, but that doesn't mean that a police-like body wouldn't exist (it might not, though). They just call it "people's militia". The court system would be different, but a court nonetheless. A corporation can have police and courts and it's still a corporation. Military, the same. Even today these are deliberately kept as separate as possible from the governing body (what we usually mean with "state"). Thus I think you have mixed up the definition of "state" in "stateless".

psergeant 8y ago

You know Banksy made a film about exactly what you’re describing called “Exit Through The Gift Shop” right?

drasticmeasures 8y ago
What good was that film if it made us "think", but not act? I believe OP is putting the lessons in that film into action in his life, and those actions are present in the thoughts expressed in his words, and happily not the other way around like the people in and outside the art world giving lip service to Banksy.

hueving 8y ago

>If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? First, if it's just from climate change, it will be gradual increase in scarcity and all kinds of methods of growing food become viable as the price of bread increases. So unless climate change actually makes Banksy undesirable, it will still be worth more loaves of bread than one person could eat in a lifetime. Second, if it's an acute wide-spread disaster, the only thing that becomes relevant is food/water/shelter /weapons/first-aid. Not only would a Banksy be worthless, but so would the world's biggest diamond as well as the cure for cancer. So it's a meaningless comparison just based on the fact that you don't like rich people out-bidding each other over art (and subsequently supporting artists). Once you start down the road of being dictator of spending on expensive things that aren't solving starvation, all kinds of things like space exploration, the development of the internet, etc all become "sorry effects". Guess how many villages could be fed on the budget of the Apollo program.

throw0101011 8y ago
The difference is the number of people a product or a project will likely help times the ‘utility’ each person receive. > Once you start down the road of being dictotoe of spending on expensive things that aren't solving starvation, all kinds of things like space exploration, the development of the internet, etc all become "sorry effects". Guess how many villages could be fed on the budget of the Apollo program. I do not advocate dictating spending but propose designing a better incentive system for rich people to spend money on useful things. See my reply to another comment down below. What are ‘useful’ things? Your examples here have good probabilities of turning into ‘utility’ for the masses. Cure of cancer (obvious), Apollo program (many scientific advances), ... Bidding up prestige and coolness is a zero sum game and only increases a small bit of satisfaction of a few rich people. It is about valuing the needs of the rich and the masses more equitably.
- andrepd 8y ago
  You've put my thoughts about this very succinctly. Completely agree.

darawk 8y ago

> Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sells for more than what many people can make in a decade or a career means a stratospheric concentration of wealth in society or a bubble in the commercial art world. Not really. The level of wealth required to reasonably make a purchase like this is what? 20 million? That's not 'stratospheric'. It's richer than I am, to be sure. But it's only between 2 orders of magnitude richer than your average software engineer's annual salary. I think that's a pretty reasonable level of wealth inequality, and not really indicative of much at all. > If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? Your point here proves the exact opposite of what you think it does. The fact that people can invest vast resources in things that aren't immediately useful for survival is an incredible testament to the stability and productivity of our economy. Because you're right, if people thought there was any significant chance of things going mad max, they certainly wouldn't be investing in art. > That millions of children still starve but a piece of simplistic art is worth more than the value of food a whole village consumes in a decade is a sorry effect of the financial system we use or the way our society assigns ‘coolness’ score to people and activity. Is it? Or do prices simply reflect our personal valuations of things? Which is to say, every decision each of us makes of what to do with our individual time and money sets a price. When you wrote this comment, you chose to invest your free moments in it, rather than earning money to donate to the poor. Is that a sad commentary on the state of the world? Or is it just the natural consequence of people being allowed to allocate their own resources?

Sharlin 8y ago
Two orders of magnitude above something that’s already a ridiculous amount of money globally speaking. That’s not exactly reasonable, the fact that it’s not that much money compared to the real super-rich people is just a reminder of the unfortunate reality of long-tail economy.
- jexah 8y ago
  You are free to spend your "ridiculous amount of money" however you please. If you don't donate most of what you earn to help starving children, maybe doing that and living just above the poverty line is a good place to start, before advocating that others give up their QoL.

beerlord 8y ago

Millions of children will starve because they are being born by women without access to contraception, without the intelligence/education to know that having multiple children without food security is a bad idea, or because they are forced to by their husbands. Help solve those issues first if you must, and don't worry about paintings.

mch82 8y ago

Joy also has value and part of being an artist is building an audience

coldtea 8y ago

>Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. Art was never about difficulty of reproduction. Once an artwork has been done any hack with 2-3 years of art school can create a great imitation, and with some more talent, even do a Rembrandt or whatever. There are entire cities in China who live by making copies of famous oil paintings. >That millions of children still starve but a piece of simplistic art is worth more than the value of food a whole village consumes in a decade is a sorry effect of the financial system we use or the way our society assigns ‘coolness’ score to people and activity. It's the same when a company buys some BS social app like Instagram (mainly an avenue for vanity and time-wasting) for several billion, which could just be used to save millions of lives. Society was never about goodness or helping the most (and especially not for helping people elsewhere).

theoh 8y ago
"Art was never about difficulty of reproduction." While it's true that a skilled forger can effectively copy an old master painting, it's a pretty rare skill to have at a really high level. "Painting factory" copies from China are kitsch and definitely lack nuances that matter in the original. But the skill of making a facsimile (a copper engraving of a painting for an edition of prints, for example) is something that used to be respected, though, to be fair, respect was pretty in proportion to how much interpretation/discretion the copier needed to bring into play. Converting colour oil painting -> black & white fine engraving is not a mechanical process, whereas turning cruder drawings into woodcuts apparently was considered merely a technical job. What I'm getting at is the idea that the processes of reproduction are a part of the way art is made and circulated. They aren't something external that comes after the end of the creative act in a way the artist can't control. It's only in a world of immaterial digital media that it feels like art is replicated trivially and endlessly. Uniqueness seemed important when reproduction was costly (and art materials were expensive) and a lot of artworld practices, like editioning, are based on the assumption that the authentic work can't actually be copied, except by the artist. So I don't really agree with your claim.
- coldtea 8y ago

buboard 8y ago

Auctioning art is now part of art, imho. Auctioneers and buyers are part time artists. It is quite meta but fits well with the postmodern world we live in. Art as aesthetic creation is finished, commodified, and soon to be produced by robots. As for the prices, people can allocate a lot of money to a token, as long as other people still believe in it. Cryptocurrencies take this abstraction to the max. Art is more traditional than cryptos. I am personally very cynical that there is even a shred of value to high-market art sales. It's all a game for the upper-rich. But your "children are starving" comment is off. People have different motives to spend money, a starving kid's has a motive and so does a rich person's who wants to be the buyer of a piece. Both are respectable, human needs, but we are much more likely to relate to the kid. This doesnt mean its somehow bad to have the other.

simonh 8y ago

It an effect if individual freedom. Unfortunately, that includes the freedom to assign value to things that may be objectively valueless. People spend billions on junky movies, tv shows and apps. But what are you going to do, ban entertainment? It’s been tried.

Theodores 8y ago

Recently Damien Hirst has had to scale back operations because his brand of 'art business' is not selling. Fashions change and also there is a limit as to how many people will pay an absolute fortune to become part of the exclusive club of people with 'spot paintings' on their walls. When the going was good his company hired hundreds of people. All of them slaving away making and 'retailing' his art. This was good for the local economy as lots of younger people with no local workplace opportunities were given a chance to earn a crust. Although Damien Hirst never was the 'housewife's favourite' in the way that Banksy is, essentially it was the same game, 'art business' which is not to be confused with 'art'. 'Art business' is very much about making money, not making 'art'. With Banksy there are a lot of hangers on that try their hardest to monetize official Banksy creations. Although Banksy's style is original it is also an easy style to fake. Banksy by being anonymous keeps some safe artistic distance from this ugly art business aspect. More generally though it is funny how there is no money in the wider art business right now. It is a business that has gone the same way as antique collecting, there is no greater fool to sell on to.

tim333 8y ago
>Global auction sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips jumped 21.6% in the first half of 2018, according to the latest report by ArtTactic. - Salvator Mundi sold last year for $430 million. I imagine the art business will go on a while. Even if Hirst is having a down turn.

wazoox 8y ago

There is an obvious political response to the question of "why is contemporary art what it is?" Some contemporary pieces sell for more than works by the ancient masters, sometimes at the astonishment of the public ("how can an ugly piece of burnt wood sell for more than a Goya painting?"). As art is exempted of taxes in most parts of the world, this is an obvious vehicle for tax evasion, money laundering, speculation and financial crime. That's why so many things that the common man would deem "bad jokes" are supposed to be "art": because it's financially useful for the rich and the powerful. It's (mostly) a sham, not to say a swindle.

tim333 8y ago

>sorry effect of the financial system Maybe but if you think about it it's an exchange of a bit of paper with some marks on which could easily be reproduced for some 0s and 1s representing a bank balance which could be reproduced or qualitatively eased and the like too. The transaction has no direct effect on the amount of food produced or how much get to children. The worst famines in recent history have been caused by people in ok fed countries saying look at this financial system, it's wack, lets smash it, and then finding millions get hungry and possibly dead, see Russia, China and Venezuela.

kasey_junk 8y ago

This is a funny comment about this particular piece of art because it is an obvious & unsubtle reading of the theme of this piece (and other Banksy pieces).

drasticmeasures 8y ago
What's your reading of it?
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  I’m not sure honestly. I’ve been thinking about it a lot (which to me means it’s actually good art). I think the obvious & unsubtle reading above makes a ton of sense. It is a critique of the modern art business for sure. But also it seems likely that the auction company was in on this so I sort of read it as a statement that you cant separate the business of art from the making of art.

drasticmeasures 8y ago

You raise a good point. People are free to do how they like with their money, but outrageously some spend it frivolously in cheaply-made art for status or tax evasion purposes. Bill Gates late-life philanthropy raises a counterpoint to this, in my view. The wealthy don't owe anything to anyone, but that's how a person starves to death waiting for a little mercy. Mr. Gates now invests in saving people, not in art, and that's a worthier status giver. From a moral point of view, they should be charitable since they have so much that giving away a little bit of their fortune would have a tremendous impact on a significant amount of people while themselves being none the worse for it.

djrogers 8y ago

> is a sorry effect of the financial system we use or the way our society assigns ‘coolness’ score to people and activity. Sorry, but if you think this is a modern, western, or somehow unique situation in human history you’re lacking a lot of context. This is just how humans work. A good percentage of people appreciate art, a small percentage of people like flaunting their wealth, and between these two groups societies have elevated artists and art since we stopped roaming the plains and start building cities.

ashildr 8y ago

> Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings But you didn’t.