TIL Price tags are no object when you refer to them as 'realizations'. Classic Automobile Conveyance, Realize for $2,000,000 today!
Frank Stella faints. Art is not conceived in a vacuum. History, context, contemporaries, and social/philosophical climate all contribute to its manifested reflection of society and the artist within. Being unfamiliar with those subtleties often makes one unable and unqualified to determine the true merit of any one artist or piece. That said, as others are noting, the middlebrow influence of the high end art market is perpetuated by the same people that have enough money to cause said market to behave much like the stock market and bend perceived value to their wishes, legitimate or otherwise. In a media where subjectivity IS objectivity, money or perceived value does not necessarily equal quality, like many other things in this world. So, yeah, I don't care for Berman's zips either, but I always had a soft spot for Rothko. Still, it is from this place of questioning "what is quality in art" that is frequently if not always exactly how artists and pieces (like this) have risen to notoriety. If nothing else, it fosters change and what some consider progress that continues in perpetuity.
This isn't about art. It's about commodity trading. Art collecting is like kids and trading cards, except that painting don't lose value (hence rich people like to do it).
So...by my estimations...Bob Ross' artwork *should* be selling for a gazillion brazillion jukillion dollars. Happy little clouds. The world will never know the true value. RIP BR
Wow. I've been there before, more than once. Heck, I've probably stood about where that photo was taken. It is an interesting coincidence. I'm one of those "crazy" people that likes "modern art" (some of these works were created before some of us were born, so "modern" may not be the best term). Of course, I like all sorts of art. If anyone is visiting New York, go to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to gaze at a world class collection. It's mind blowing.
I like the Newman piece. I'm not willing to pay the going rate, but I'd be willing to hang it on my wall. But the art and art market are so crazily different. People are buying and selling art, but artifacts. The image of a painting isn't worth anything while the meta-properties of the canvas carry all the value. If someone were to conclusively prove that the Newman piece was not really painted by Newman, it'd lose all value though the image and the impact on the viewer is exactly the same. Meanwhile, if you took this same Newman and irreveribly defaced it, it would lose value but would still retain some because it had been painted by Newman. Collectors would rather own a defaced Newman than a perfect painting by an unknown artist. It's the same impulse, I suppose, for wanting to own the original paper Bob Dylan wrote a song on, or the baseball that was hit for a homerun to win the World Series. People pay for the story, not the experience. I own a painting by a quasi-famous 20th century Chinese painter (whose name escapes me) who was also infamouse for making counterfeits of older traditional Chinese watercolors. So, his paintings are worth something, but not a ton because (1) he produced a lot and (2) there's a lot of uncertainty about the meta-story of his paintings. I think it's an interesting challenge to the art market to sort out where it sees value: are his counterfeits valuable because a famous painter made them? are his legit paintings less valuable because the artist's other career was as a counterfeiter? are traditional chinese paintings less valuable because a modern famous painter counterfeited some of them? And why should any of this matter? They don't like to talk about it, but those Rotkos have been stolen 11 times. They just paint another canvas black and hang it up in the stolen painting's place. Cheaper than paying a security guard. (Seriously, I'm sure they would be upset about a theft, but it's the chapel that makes the paintings. Any black canvas would set the mood in the chapel. And any black Rothco painting is just a random black canvas outside of the chapel.)
This had to have been a sarcastic post.... considering how the poster followed it - which btw, isn't art... it's pandering... however enjoyable it may be...
There is actually some truth to this. The Nahmad family owns a warehouse of paintings dating back to the impressionsts. They buy a a ton of stock and hold on to it for 10+yrs, then auction it off. When a new painting by an owned artist is auctioned they outbid everyone to increase the value of their supply. They've been doing this since the 60s. Needless to say the cliquish art world hates them. On a side note, it's only paintings that go for so much. The current crop of modern artist lack the technical skills of those before them and focus in instalations/mixed media. Those rarely get sold if ever. Jeff Koons is the biggest one.
The most saught after millennial painter is Colombian born/London raised Oscar Murillo. But he has yet to crack a million on the second hand market.
Agree with everything you said. Rothko has been a huge influence on my own artistic aesthetics. Some of you people commenting in here are hopeless. There is a reason Rothko has influenced so many modern artists, musicians and thinkers. If you don't understand the context or intent behind this art, you are free to not like it. Having said that, Rothko is one of my all time favorite painters and this is coming from an art enthusiast. I don't give a **** about rich people and the way they like to compare dicks. Do you think it is any different in pop music? Divas and rappers are making money like bandits and I assure you, if you look deep enough for answers, Rothko has more depth than all of them. Don't care about the monetary games, I care about the art and I have every right to be an informed fan of his work.
To me, this is the same argument about Gold being worth more than a brick paperweight. Gold has value because of the scarcity. Art is an investment and probably a good investment at that. It doesn't matter WHAT it looks like or how easy it is made because the piece is ONE of a kind. It's framed money, basically. You could look at it another way: popularity. Why is beiber so much more popular than say bon ivers? even though bieber is ****ter at music than ivers, I'd rather inverst in bieber to make money. Art works much the same way.
I will never understand art. I consider this art: But that painting? It just looks like random ass graffiti. And I can't really justify why I think, because its just gut feeling.
I don't understand either..What is about this ugly art pictures that can make millions of dollars? I even don't know what the picture is.
I do understand what several of the posters are talking about. I can understand buying a baseball that broke the HR record or something like that even though it's no different than any other baseball physically. To me there is a historical importance there. So I get memorabilia, autographs, etc. but the price tags on those items don't come close to $84 million for a painting by an artist I have never even heard of! Now I get that I am no aficionado and there's much that I don't know but still that's nuts. Conceptually the idea that art isn't about skill is just depressing....
Interesting article on Jackson Pollock who many of us feel just threw paint on a canvas: http://discovermagazine.com/2001/nov/featpollock
