3 ms·

It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos. What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're ava

It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos. What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're available for free on the internet.

vijayr 11y ago
For $90K, no less!
wmeredith 11y ago
I had the same thought. This story is about a transaction between charlatans and fools. It's a business that has a long and storied history. Anyone could hunt down an Instagram post that spoke to them and have a very high quality large print reproduction of it for a couple orders of magnitude less than $90k. Stuff like this is at the root of my whole beef with modern art. It's much more about being clever than talent or dedication or anything else. I could spend a lifetime trying to imitate Rembrandt and never get there. I could knock this Richard Prince stunt out before lunch if I started now (it's currently 10:13 AM CST here in Kansas City).
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  I don't think it's quite accurate to call the participants charlatans / fools. The pieces are presented as clearly ripped off of Instagram, the last bit of the comment thread preserved along with one of the artist's. The people buying the prints know exactly what they are, it's difficult to maintain the position that they're getting ripped off. Art's a weird world. White canvases have sold for many millions: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-14/why-pay-15-million-for-a-white-canvas http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-14/why-pay-15-... What you're actually buying when you purchase a piece of art is bound to be subjective, as the enjoyment of visual art is much more individual than, say, a video game. There are games that blur the lines of what makes up a game, and people still buy them, play them, and enjoy them. Also, there's plenty of ways to enjoy a game without ever playing it. When I was a kid, I would buy strategy guides for games I never played or owned. I'll watch people playing games that I would never play myself. If someone like John Romero or Sid Meier made something like a Pac-Man clone, I might buy it. So it's easy for me to see why someone would buy these Instagram shots. There's something about the curation and attention being given to them by the artist that makes it a more interesting experience to look at than if you just took a screenshot and saved it in a folder or printed it out. The artist isn't just producing visuals, he's also applying a more cultivated taste to 'what' he's producing. He's only got so much time to make things, what he chooses to make tells as much of a story as the skills he used to make it.
  - defen 11y ago
    There's a tax shell-game aspect to modern art, as well. If you sell a piece of art and re-invest the proceeds into a substantially similar work of art (painting for a painting, sculpture for a sculpture, etc) you can avoid paying capital gains taxes. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/arts/design/tax-break-used-by-investors-in-flipping-art-faces-scrutiny.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/arts/design/tax-break-used...
ThomPete 11y ago
Thats equivalent of saying why are people painting, selling and buying pictures that a 2 year old could draw. Thats not how art world works :).
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Presumably based on the Prince decision you can take a duplicate of one of "his" works [which are really just minor amendments and not new works at all ...], get a friend to write a comment to go with it and appropriate the newly commented work without infringement? That extends the principle fairly. Regardless, this all makes Prince in high demand - basically any work now can be validated by his comment and then can be reproduced without paying the original creator for a license.

It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos. What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're available for free on the internet.

vijayr 11y ago

For $90K, no less!

wmeredith 11y ago

I had the same thought. This story is about a transaction between charlatans and fools. It's a business that has a long and storied history. Anyone could hunt down an Instagram post that spoke to them and have a very high quality large print reproduction of it for a couple orders of magnitude less than $90k. Stuff like this is at the root of my whole beef with modern art. It's much more about being clever than talent or dedication or anything else. I could spend a lifetime trying to imitate Rembrandt and never get there. I could knock this Richard Prince stunt out before lunch if I started now (it's currently 10:13 AM CST here in Kansas City).

vinceguidry 11y ago
I don't think it's quite accurate to call the participants charlatans / fools. The pieces are presented as clearly ripped off of Instagram, the last bit of the comment thread preserved along with one of the artist's. The people buying the prints know exactly what they are, it's difficult to maintain the position that they're getting ripped off. Art's a weird world. White canvases have sold for many millions: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-14/why-pay-15-million-for-a-white-canvas http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-14/why-pay-15-... What you're actually buying when you purchase a piece of art is bound to be subjective, as the enjoyment of visual art is much more individual than, say, a video game. There are games that blur the lines of what makes up a game, and people still buy them, play them, and enjoy them. Also, there's plenty of ways to enjoy a game without ever playing it. When I was a kid, I would buy strategy guides for games I never played or owned. I'll watch people playing games that I would never play myself. If someone like John Romero or Sid Meier made something like a Pac-Man clone, I might buy it. So it's easy for me to see why someone would buy these Instagram shots. There's something about the curation and attention being given to them by the artist that makes it a more interesting experience to look at than if you just took a screenshot and saved it in a folder or printed it out. The artist isn't just producing visuals, he's also applying a more cultivated taste to 'what' he's producing. He's only got so much time to make things, what he chooses to make tells as much of a story as the skills he used to make it.
- defen 11y ago
  There's a tax shell-game aspect to modern art, as well. If you sell a piece of art and re-invest the proceeds into a substantially similar work of art (painting for a painting, sculpture for a sculpture, etc) you can avoid paying capital gains taxes. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/arts/design/tax-break-used-by-investors-in-flipping-art-faces-scrutiny.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/arts/design/tax-break-used...

ThomPete 11y ago

Thats equivalent of saying why are people painting, selling and buying pictures that a 2 year old could draw. Thats not how art world works :).

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

Presumably based on the Prince decision you can take a duplicate of one of "his" works [which are really just minor amendments and not new works at all ...], get a friend to write a comment to go with it and appropriate the newly commented work without infringement? That extends the principle fairly. Regardless, this all makes Prince in high demand - basically any work now can be validated by his comment and then can be reproduced without paying the original creator for a license.