SELL THE PAINTING
October 11, 2014 8:24 AM   Subscribe

“I want to install it in my house,” Ségalot recalls Bryant saying, “but my wife hates it. She can’t live with a work that says ‘SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS.’ So do you know anyone who might want to buy it?” What the 350,000% rise in value of a single painting by Christopher Wool says about the contemporary art world.
posted by How the runs scored (73 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
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posted by lalochezia at 8:26 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


My word, it almost as if contemporary gallery art is being used for some other purpose than aesthetic value by people with unholy amounts of money. Whatever could it be?
posted by The Whelk at 8:32 AM on October 11, 2014 [48 favorites]


It's nice that rich people can buy these little toys.
posted by freakazoid at 8:40 AM on October 11, 2014


Next painting:

tell the leaders to
stop war tell the
leaders to stop

And then if that works:

Give the mone
y to the peopl
e give the mon
posted by freyley at 8:41 AM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


I really tried to read this article but it's like the whole thing is sheathed in an unbelievably massive SEP field and my eyes would just slide off it before I could even finish a sentence.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:41 AM on October 11, 2014 [37 favorites]


It's funny, that tulip looks just like a painting.
posted by JHarris at 8:42 AM on October 11, 2014 [11 favorites]


I'd trade it for any Bruegal painting, though I'd prefer something by Pieter Bruegal the Elder.
posted by jb at 8:47 AM on October 11, 2014


I've been peripherally involved in the art world for years - was a partner in a noted (now defunct) gallery. I've spent quite some time explaining to people why some art isn't as stupid as it looks...

Sorry, this art is as stupid as it looks. It has neither historic nor aesthetic value. Even buying it as an investment is a stupid idea, because it's a matter of certainty that this will be worthless except as a curiosity in a hundred years - and long before that, once the winter comes, the emperor's new clothes will be revealed for what they aren't.

Honestly, I read so many news articles these days where I say, "Future generations will point to this as an example of a decadent society in slow collapse" - this is just one of many.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:53 AM on October 11, 2014 [29 favorites]


I happen to like some of Christopher Wool's work; my favorite of his text pieces is Untitled (1991). Nevertheless, the prices these works command are clearly absurd, and the details of the endless financial machinations behind them are eye-crossingly dull.

Having said that, it's a mistake to confuse the big, gross, gaudy New York/London/LA art market with the art world as a whole. David Byrne makes this error in his widely circulated grumpy little squib, in which he bemoans the fact that the Chelsea gallery scene is nothing more than a row of temples to Mammon.

I think Ric Kasini Kadour's sharp response to Byrne is exactly right. Once you drag your eyes away from the spinning dollar signs -- perhaps even away from New York itself! -- there is wonderful art being made everywhere, quietly and with great dedication. The hedge fund crowd will ignore it, and it will make no one rich, which makes it all the more depressing that it is constantly marginalized in favor of follow-the-money stories like this one.
posted by informavore at 8:56 AM on October 11, 2014 [20 favorites]


What else are people supposed to decorate their empty multi-million dollar investment apartments in London and New York with?
posted by MikeMc at 8:58 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


"Koons’s Balloon Dog, a 10-foot-tall stainless-steel rendition of a child’s party favor, went for roughly the same amount the White House recently requested to develop an Ebola vaccine."

I got that far and then I stopped reading. The asteroid can't come quick enough.
posted by photoslob at 9:06 AM on October 11, 2014 [34 favorites]


The asteroid can't come quick enough.

{Disquieting comment about valuation [Disquieting comment about valuation (Disquieting comment about valuation)]}
posted by hawthorne at 9:22 AM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


The artist's name is like something out of a novel. It conjures up metaphors of fleece, of sheep, of pulling wool over eyes. It's almost too good to be true.
posted by mochapickle at 9:26 AM on October 11, 2014 [9 favorites]


this article is satire and I flatly refuse to believe otherwise, thank you good day
posted by poffin boffin at 9:32 AM on October 11, 2014 [13 favorites]


Does anybody want to salve my curiosity by summarizing, succinctly, "What the 350,000% rise in value of a single painting by Christopher Wool says about the contemporary art world?"
posted by Wolfdog at 9:36 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


it's the same reason people don't always have altruistic motives when donating large amounts of money to institutions
posted by The Whelk at 9:47 AM on October 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


Seconding Ric Kasini Kadour's piece linked by informavore above. Six-seven-eight-nine-figure art is not the extent of the art world. Limiting the "contemporary art world" to art that's bought and sold by the global 0.1%, and then condemning "contemporary art" as gross/wasteful/'over' - that move is tempting (because ultra-expensive art for the 0.1% is sickening in a world of desperate inequality). But it's also a move that, well, hurts art, and limits the value art can provide to society. There's so much interesting and worthwhile art being made outside that ultra-rich sphere! Let's shift the discourse to talk about that stuff!
posted by erlking at 9:47 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


What is the right price for a painting that took the artist two days to paint and $55 worth of materials?
posted by sammyo at 9:51 AM on October 11, 2014


I just wish the vintage Fender & Gibson tulip market would crash. It's planed out in the last couple of years, but real guitars & basses are still out of reach of ordinary musicians.

Art is funny. I have some ostensibly valuable art (a few pieces supposed to be worth low-to-mid 4 figures) but I'll be damned if I can find a gallery or dealer that will even return my phone calls. If you can't sell it at any price, it's not really worth anything at all. Having connections in the gallery space would be useful, but alas.

At least you can hang a guitar in a music store without much trouble.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:51 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I saw this painting when it was at the Art Institute of Chicago a little while back, and found it pretty arresting. Not saying I would pay these amounts for it, even if I could, but I liked it a lot.
posted by burden at 10:05 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


That there painting looks like a prime target for some forgery shenanigans.
posted by valkane at 10:09 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


"What the 350,000% rise in value of a single painting by Christopher Wool says about the contemporary art world?"

Demand outstrips supply.

The real question is, what's up with demand? The answer is too much money floating around with too few places to park it in relative safety. There's only so much London real estate, French vineyards, Italian villas. And one must diversify - gold is volatile, bonds are pitiful these days, stocks toppy. It is not even a question of making a profit, it's keeping some fraction of the money paid.

To my mind, the most brilliant modern art scam was the Saatchi collection. Buy up relatively modest but edgy modern crap, promote the hell out of your collection, then put the stuff back on the market. No surprise that they started out in advertising.

Which could be what's happening with this. Anonymous buyer? Maybe he has a stock of Wools and wants to build up the market price. It's what I would do.
posted by IndigoJones at 10:24 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


Man, I think the most I've ever sold a piece for was like $500. I guess this is why there's a certain type of artist who wants to move to New York: chasing these obscene prices.
posted by egypturnash at 10:26 AM on October 11, 2014


Everyone should appreciate the extent to which the celebrity artist / billionaire collector art trade is kind of a self-licking ice cream cone. They are mainly moving the same dollars back and forth amongst themselves, supplemented by each year's new crop of billionaires paying dues to join the club, and everyone wins in terms of portfolio valuations when works continue to set new record highs.

There's really zero connection to markets for commodities, real estate, stocks and bonds, which are both vastly too large for any club of billionaires to maintain for any period of time, and disciplined by a (general) expectation for productive/consumptive value justifying prices.
posted by MattD at 10:26 AM on October 11, 2014 [9 favorites]


I have the highest regard for these people as artists, of a sort. I'm just not sure if it's the art of the long con or of the short.
posted by tyllwin at 10:28 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Does anybody want to salve my curiosity by summarizing, succinctly, "What the 350,000% rise in value of a single painting by Christopher Wool says about the contemporary art world?"

I'm guessing The Whelk is close to it here:

My word, it almost as if contemporary gallery art is being used for some other purpose than aesthetic value by people with unholy amounts of money. Whatever could it be?

The article does go some way toward answering that, though without saying anything in so many words (kind of like contemporary art, when I think about it) ...

In one scene, a gallery assistant says of the contemporary art world, “This is the last bastion of legal insider trading.” Three years later the illegal kind of insider trading would change the course of David’s career. In November 2010 his Level Global was among four firms raided by the FBI in a wide-ranging probe of insider trading at hedge funds. At the start of 2011, Ganek and his co-founder, Anthony Chiasson, closed the $4 billion fund, citing the federal investigation. Chiasson was later convicted and sentenced to 6½ years in prison for using illegal tips to make more than $68 million for his fund. Ganek, who wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing, set up a new fund to manage his own money. He called it Apocalypse 22.

I don't know finance. I always get lost whenever someone tries to explain to me what a hedge fund is, how it works etc. What I do know is that nothing is entirely irrational once you've got enough of the details ...

“If you’re looking for something rational in the art market,” says art adviser Thea Westreich, “go fishing or go do something else insteadI.” Collectors and dealers have come together to invert the law of supply and demand, making the nearly limitless pool of new works more valuable than rarities. A collector who’s excited about Camille Pissarro, who died in 1903, may only be able to purchase two. A collector excited about Christopher Wool could buy 20.

So what's missing in order to see the rationality in this? My guess, is that whoever is paying the big bucks does NOT want something whose monetary value can be rationally fixed via classic supply/demand analysis. They want the opposite. Why? Because the game they're playing demands it. What game are they playing?

Well, that is the question.
posted by philip-random at 10:35 AM on October 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


There's really zero connection to markets for commodities, real estate, stocks and bonds

From the Article:

"In the same way a homeowner can take out a home-equity loan, a collector can borrow against a painting, and in 2006, Apocalypse Now became collateral with Bank of America (BAC), and then, a year later, with JPMorgan. According to loan documents, the painting was pledged to JPMorgan for almost the entire time Ganek and his wife owned it."

I assume the skyrocketing prices have something to do with this. What are the interest rates on these loans borrowed against the value of an artwork? If they're low enough, then it would be considerably cheaper to inflate the value of your artwork and borrow against that enormous amount at a low interest rate: to my knowledge you don't have to pay property taxes on artwork, so this would be a terrific tax-dodge.
posted by Ndwright at 10:51 AM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


Which could be what's happening with this. Anonymous buyer? Maybe he has a stock of Wools and wants to build up the market price. It's what I would do.

Wasn't the seller anonymous, too? If they're one and the same, then the price of the deal was just the auction house commission. (Would that even be illegal?)
posted by nobody at 11:04 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'd trade it for any Bruegal painting

I'd trade it for a bagal with cream cheese.
posted by spitbull at 11:06 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


Another sign that taxes are too low, especially wealth taxes.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:09 AM on October 11, 2014 [15 favorites]


Part of it is just a classic cartel. You can't buy art at this level of insanity without connections, and if you break the cartel (by reselling too cheaply or too often) you lose your connections.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:10 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


Well I for one have no artistic integrity so how does one enter this market, perhaps under a pseudonym, escalate the value of factory exquisite paintings, then kill off the fake artist persona sad accident while capturing the spirit of indigenous peoples on a mountain top, to radically crank up the value of the stash of authentic works tucked away in a storage unit?
posted by sammyo at 11:20 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I love all kinds of art, modern and otherwise, but these prices are hilariously insane.
posted by freakazoid at 11:20 AM on October 11, 2014


real guitars & basses are still out of reach of ordinary musicians.

Naah. As someone who owns both pre-CBS and mid-CBS Fenders, my brand new Mexican made Nashville Telecaster (ca. $600) is remarkably close to perfect, for less than a tenth of what the guitar it copies costs now. It's amazing how good a $600 solid body can be these days. Instruments have functional value that should not be compared with rarity/aesthetic value, which is entirely subjective.

In terms of action, neck feel, responsiveness, and tone, a brand new quality guitar is only a few notches away from its vintage counterpart, notches only a very experienced player would notice or care about.

An instrument's use value is based on how well made it is, from what quality of materials. Its market exchange value may reflect irrational valuation of such qualities in terms of rarity of the specific instrument, but mythology aside they are frankly making them better than they used to, also just like cars.

Not that I would sell my 1963 Fender for less than twice what it's "worth" to someone. Or really, a good deal more than that. Because love.

Compared to art works that are insanely valuable but represent no objective quality difference from a fourth grader's doodles, I think this is apples and oranges. Instruments may be rare or beautiful, but they don't need to be so to be as functional as something much more expensive, and priced fairly as more expensive than objectively lower quality models.

Also true of cars or any other tool.

I like beautifully functional tools a whole lot better than beautiful looking art works of any sort. But then I'm not rich so I'm irrelevant to the art market.
posted by spitbull at 11:31 AM on October 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


26.4 million. Twenty-six point four million. TWENTY-SIX POINT FOUR MILLION!

This number doesn't even make sense to me. I like the piece ok (although it seems derivative of Jenny Holtzer), but I can't fathom making that much money in a lifetime, let alone hanging it on my wall.
posted by sfkiddo at 11:31 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Fine art gives the rich entree into rarified social circles, while also providing them with safe investments they can can borrow against.

And, oh yeah, that article forgot to mention that it's a great way to launder money.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:40 AM on October 11, 2014 [7 favorites]


26.4 million. Twenty-six point four million. TWENTY-SIX POINT FOUR MILLION!

The price is part of the performance of this artwork.

(and I think you mean:

TWE NTYS
IXPO IN
TFO URM
ILL IO
N

)
posted by chavenet at 11:42 AM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


Financier Ronald Perelman’s fortune includes $3 billion in art—more than a fifth of his $14.8 billion total—according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Artwork valued at $2.3 billion is the single biggest chunk of music mogul David Geffen’s total $6.6 billion, and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad’s $7 billion includes $2.2 billion of art. The Bloomberg index counts $1 billion of art each in the fortunes of hedge fund manager Steven Cohen, publishing baron Si Newhouse, and Pinault, who owns Christie’s.

Sincere question here: Is there a way to tank the art market? Or is it as safe as these guys seem to think it is?
posted by StopMakingSense at 11:43 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


As I understand it, lots of pricey new artwork never ends up decorating anybody's walls. It goes straight from dealer to climate controlled warehouse, where it ages, gains or loses value as the artist gains and loses cachet, is sold and traded accordingly, a speculative token in a speculative game, played by professional speculators who have made billions speculating in real life.

Zany.
posted by notyou at 11:50 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


The art market always fades in sympathy with really big financial market episodes, because a few collectors will need cash and the rest be unusually reluctant to part with it, but the moves are mellow. Maybe a 25% price decline 2008-2009, on few sales and quickly recovered.
posted by MattD at 12:00 PM on October 11, 2014


This will never compare to Johannes Van Hoytl The Younger's Boy with Apple.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 12:12 PM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


THE EMPE
ROR HASNO
CLOTHES
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:19 PM on October 11, 2014 [11 favorites]


Sincere question here: Is there a way to tank the art market? Or is it as safe as these guys seem to think it is?

Destroy confidence in the authenticity of art across the board with a forgery campaign. Or create the appearance of one & have the same effect. Also, attack the credibility of appraisers so art can't be reliably authenticated. Not an easy thing to pull off but it could be done.
posted by scalefree at 12:21 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Is there a way to tank the art market?

Yes.

Make lots of new art that lots of people really, really want.

I can't remember who said it (Truffaut?), but someone said the best way to criticize a film is to make your own.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:39 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


What's interesting to me is how, even here in this thread, people immediately jump to attacking the artists instead of the capitalists who play these games in the auction market.
posted by bradbane at 12:44 PM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


I want to acknowledge the many fine points above about this not being as irrational as it looks on the face of things, because money.

Nevertheless, I cannot stop thinking: Rich people are weird as fuck.
posted by brennen at 12:45 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Is there a way to tank the art market?

Yes.

Make lots of new art that lots of people really, really want.



But it's not about art. the High End Gallery World is a hermetically sealed box for moving vast amounts of money around - both as a status game and as speculative tax dodges.

The fact that it's art has more to do with the laws regarding art sales from what I understand. It could've easily been large smooth stones that sit at the bottom of the sea.
posted by The Whelk at 1:05 PM on October 11, 2014 [21 favorites]


When a painting changes hands from one private owner to another through a purchase, does the artist receive any money from the transaction?
posted by falsedmitri at 1:06 PM on October 11, 2014


How much of this money ever makes it into the hands of artists? It really seems like the vast sums just pass from non-artist rich person to non-artist rich person, and the (possibly non-rich, I have no idea) artist only sees a bit trickle down to them on the first sale, but after that they are totally uninvolved.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:08 PM on October 11, 2014


When a painting changes hands from one private owner to another through a purchase, does the artist receive any money from the transaction?

Nope, they already sold it. However, they get something better: now their next artwork is worth much, much more.
posted by sfkiddo at 1:10 PM on October 11, 2014


To quote Tommy Chong in After Hours, "art sure is ugly."
posted by jonmc at 1:27 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


When a painting changes hands from one private owner to another through a purchase, does the artist receive any money from the transaction?

Some sales agreements do include stipulations about future sales, but I don't have a sense of how rare this is. It's possible this only flies with editioned work, in which the authentication certificate is (if you squint just right) the thing that holds the money value (since the work itself, if ruined, can -- under some agreements -- be replaced at cost)?
posted by nobody at 1:33 PM on October 11, 2014


I can report first hand that at least some artists who choose to spring big bucks for a major MFA program do so with the explicit intention of gaining entrance into the high value circuit of collectors, brokers, and galleries, while those folks get their egos stroked by being given early access to the work of promising young stars, pretty much the same theory many cultivate of paying extra for the Ivy League for an undergrad degree.

It's a system designed to produce a relatively controlled market. Of course outsiders sometimes break in and plenty of Yale or Columbia MFAs go hungry, but it is a well understood game among the many young artists I have known in my career.

Insider trading as it were, and there are entrepreneurial artists and schools that are in on the fix.
posted by spitbull at 1:43 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


An instrument's use value is based on how well made it is, from what quality of materials. Its market exchange value may reflect irrational valuation of such qualities in terms of rarity of the specific instrument, but mythology aside they are frankly making them better than they used to, also just like cars.

I really don't disagree. I have a '93 Mexi-Jazz that cost me 319.00, I slapped 100.00-worth of Seymour Duncans in it, and for less than 500 had a bass almost as good as a $5000.00 mid-sixties Jazz, tone-wise. I have picked up a lot of Precisions though, and while the old ones did vary kinda wildly, that nth difference on a really, really good pre-'66 P-bass is just... there.

That said, my Mexi-Jazz is now older than a '63 P-bass was when I started coveting them in the early 80's. It's vintage!

This is a bit of a derail, though. A musical instrument as a functional tool has some sort of floor value compared to a painting, all asthetics aside, and it really a different debate qualitatively. I could move my basses in a heartbeat if I needed cash, but hanging on to my signed Koziks thinking that some day I might find a buyer is probably a fool's errand. The high-stakes art world is very much an insider thing.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:55 PM on October 11, 2014


> "It could've easily been large smooth stones that sit at the bottom of the sea."

Tell me more about these large smooth stones of yours. Are they high-quality large smooth stones?

It is very important that I only buy large smooth stones of the highest quality.
posted by kyrademon at 1:57 PM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


It could've easily been large smooth stones that sit at the bottom of the sea.

Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
posted by chrchr at 2:03 PM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


I admit on my first skim of the article I assumed the cartoon illos were pictures of the painting and others in its series. They're much more interesting.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:14 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


> It is very important that I only buy large smooth stones of the highest quality.

What you really want is one with "anecdotal heft". Not unlike this painting, really.
posted by Westringia F. at 2:20 PM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


What else are people supposed to decorate their empty multi-million dollar investment apartments in London and New York with?

At these prices, they could probably paper the walls with gold-leafed $100 bills and end up spending less.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:23 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Art isn't SEC regulated. Means all the tricks that are illegal with stocks are legal with the art market. No wonder the wall street hooligans love to play in the art markets.
posted by Freen at 2:42 PM on October 11, 2014 [7 favorites]


>Wasn't the seller anonymous, too? If they're one and the same, then the price of the deal was just the auction house commission. (Would that even be illegal?)

Genius! And since commissions are negotiable, this could be done relatively cheaply. As to legality- I can't see anything to prevent it. If I have seller's remorse and the objet is already being bid up, am I forbidden from making up for my mistake?

When a painting changes hands from one private owner to another through a purchase, does the artist receive any money from the transaction?

In the US, no, though California once tried to institute such a measure. In France and elsewhere, yes. It's called the Droit de Suite.
posted by IndigoJones at 3:01 PM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


I couldn't read it either! Weird.

Thank goodness, Wolfdog, I thought it was that Old Timer's Disease again.
posted by glasseyes at 3:44 PM on October 11, 2014


60 million for a Jeff Koons piece? These assholes need a progressive wealth tax.
posted by persona au gratin at 4:41 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I really don't disagree. I have a '93 Mexi-Jazz that cost me 319.00, I slapped 100.00-worth of Seymour Duncans in it, and for less than 500 had a bass almost as good as a $5000.00 mid-sixties Jazz, tone-wise. I have picked up a lot of Precisions though, and while the old ones did vary kinda wildly, that nth difference on a really, really good pre-'66 P-bass is just... there.

whatever - does YOUR p-bass have "THINK - IT AIN'T ILLEGAL YET!" in big ass block lettering?

mine will - just as soon as i make that trip to lowe's tomorrow ...
posted by pyramid termite at 5:42 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


HIDE YO
UR KIDS
HIDE YO
UR WIFE
posted by Spatch at 6:48 PM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


THIS PAIN
TING KILL
S FASCISTS
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:02 PM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


It could've easily been large smooth stones that sit at the bottom of the sea.

In that case you may find this glossary helpful.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:36 PM on October 11, 2014


TWE NTYS
IXPO IN
TFO URM
ILL IO
N


"For Twenty Six Point Four Million" would be a touch more ambitious than Kienholz's Barter Series.

FOR TIMEX ELECTRIC WATCH
posted by zamboni at 9:56 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I will indeed hide my ur-kids and my ur-wife, thanks .
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 11:55 PM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


The punch line is that both the buyer and the seller are Bernie Madoff.
posted by localroger at 8:43 AM on October 12, 2014


Some sales agreements do include stipulations about future sales

I own a piece that came with (or is, really) an absurdly long set of test questions to ask any future buyer. Stuff like 'Have you ever been to Wales?' - if the potential puchaser answers Yes or No, I can sell it to them, if they 'appear uncertain', I cannot - and 'Would you like a cup of tea?', which must be answered in the affirmative or I can't sell. IIRC, the last question is something like 'How much will you pay for the work?' and I can only sell to someone who offers less than I paid for it.

Not exactly subtle satire, I know, but it made me giggle, the physical component of the piece is a rather pretty watercolour of a flower, and it was only ten quid.

(In the unlikely event that this artist makes it big I will, of course, demand a fucking enormous fee to perform the test questions.)
posted by jack_mo at 9:05 AM on October 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


What is the right price for a painting that took the artist two days to paint and $55 worth of materials?

TWE NTYB
UC KSSA M
EA SINTO
WN
posted by hambone at 9:43 AM on October 12, 2014 [6 favorites]


What is the right price for a painting that took the artist two days to paint and $55 worth of materials?

Attorney-General: [...] How long did you take to knock off one of your pictures?
Whistler: Oh, I knock off one possible in a couple of days — one day to do the work and another to finish it. (Laughter)
Attorney-General: And that was the labour for which you asked two hundred guineas?
Whistler: No; it was for the knowledge gained through a lifetime.

[Whistler v Ruskin 1878]
posted by hawthorne at 5:55 AM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


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