ADDED: Poor Andy!
He's not around to enjoy the fabulous joke of his pictures of money grabbing so much money. And yet, the price of the painting is affected by the fact that Andy Warhol is dead. How did he die? Not from the bullet wounds, the scars of which you can see in that painting (by Alice Neel). He died after a gall bladder operation:
His condition was stable after the operation... but he had a heart attack in his sleep...It was 1987.
In 1968... a would-be follower shot and critically wounded Mr. Warhol at the Factory....He lived almost 20 years after the assassination attempt, and then he died mysteriously, at the age of 58.
He never denied his obsession with art as a business and with getting publicity; instead, he proclaimed them as philosophical tenets.What would he say if he could have seen the price grabbed by "200 One Dollar Bills"? What do you want him to say?
"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art," he said on one occasion. On another, he said: "Art? That's a man's name." As widely known as his art and his own image were, however, Mr. Warhol himself was something of a cipher. He was uneasy while speaking about himself. "The interviewer should just tell me the words he wants me to say and I'll repeat them after him," he once said....
In his glancing and elliptical style, Mr. Warhol wrote about subjects ranging from art to money and sex. "Checks aren't money," he wrote in one section of the book. In another, he said: "Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet."
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28 comments:
No, I won't do it! I won't quote P.T. Barnum!
That kind of return is good for dollars, and perhaps for Marilyns, but god forbid, not for Maos.
It's not just the bills. According to the article it is "a seminal Warhol".
I don't pretend to understand the appeal of Warhol's work but that it has appeal is undeniable.
I don't know exactly how 200 ONE DOLLAR BILLS was created, but I've read Richard Polsky's book I Bought Andy Warhol, which describes the rather mechanical process Warhol used to make his portrait silkscreens. Apart from the original idea, there's really no artistry in the execution. It was all rather "mechanical," as Warhol would freely admit. The whole Pop Art phenomenon has much less to do with Art than with Pop.
Soon enough, 43,700,000 dollar bills may be enough to buy you a cuppa joe, but little else.
Uh, huh.
Sheesh, are you people that easy to scam?
Southeby's won't identify the seller or the buyer. But they promise it went for $47 million. Cross their hearts.
Has nothing to do with what they might make in commission on the next Warhol "sold."
Sotheby's, Christie's in price scam, says European Commission
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/apr/20/andrewosborn
Proves the stupidest people have the most money.
How sad is Treasury.. still not getting the knock off right.
$219,000 per dollar. Hyperinflation just make that real.
Somebody bought at the top of the market, I think.
Of course the crumbling US dollar may soon become a relic.
Florida- did you read any of the comments? What people are you talking about. Also, did you read the article you linked to?
After 11 years staring at stuff like that (where I worked), I'm firmly convinced of the saying, "Modern Art isn't" .
For those who doubt the wisdom of that line, read how the Rockefellers (I believe) "discovered" Jackson Pollock.
WV "comych" One who does it standing up.
Trying to think of an analogy.
It was millions of Mario Mendozas for one Ted William.
You cant go wrong.
You Tube
...to have great things...
Comforting to know that many IRA's remain intact.
Fitzgerald: "The Rich are different from you and me."
Hemingway: "Yes, they have more money."
Goldman Sachs bonuses
I hate the New York Times. It runs this piece mentioning all sorts of art and doesn't have a single photograph, or a direct link to a photograph, of any of the pieces. If it does, they are not obvious.
$43.7 million? According to the World Bank, only 75 countries in the world have a higher GDP.
"After 11 years staring at stuff like that (where I worked), I'm firmly convinced of the saying, "Modern Art isn't"."
Ah, yes, the ol' "that thar ain't art! Mah two-year-old cudda done that, dadgummit!" school of commenting.
Maybe if we can collect 200 of these kind of comments we can sell the thread for 43,700,000 dollars.
Somehow I doubt it.If there's anything more boring and painful to look at than bad art, it's generalized, uninformed bitching about bad art.
In Warhol's shoes I would have spent some money on breast-reduction surgery.
"In Warhol's shoes I would have spent some money on breast-reduction surgery.
Warhol had breasts in his shoes?
Explains a lot.
What would he say if he could have seen the price grabbed by "200 One Dollar Bills"? What do you want him to say?
'It could have fetched more.. had I gone for 300'.
wv - revausa
Didn't know Andy had banana-tiddies like Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell.
"Z-Man? There is no Z-Man, varlet. And indeed, it's not a game we play. I am Superwoman!"
What would he say if he could have seen the price grabbed by "200 One Dollar Bills"? What do you want him to say?
"Sorry."
(Preferably in the same manner as John Belushi in Animal House, after he picks up the guy's guitar and smashes it against the wall.)
Palladian said...
Ah, yes, the ol' "that thar ain't art! Mah two-year-old cudda done that, dadgummit!" school of commenting.
Maybe if we can collect 200 of these kind of comments we can sell the thread for 43,700,000 dollars.
Somehow I doubt it.If there's anything more boring and painful to look at than bad art, it's generalized, uninformed bitching about bad art.
One of the pieces we had at my place of employment was a NY Times front page with all the photos colored in - yes, just like every five year-old has done at one time or another. Another was a five gallon mayonnaise jar filled with pieces of marble - which we dubbed, "Jar O' Rocks".
I may not have a Fine Arts degree, such as herself, but, if you want to tell me how uninformed I am and how that's art, I've been exposed to enough good work to know it when I see it (regardless of the opinion of any pseudo-sophisticates) and, yes, I do know junk when I see it.
I must post a correction... Robert Rafton (must be a lurker?) kindly emailed me to point out I misread the heading on the GDP chart I linked, above; the numbers reported are in millions of dollars, so all of those countries have a GDP in excess of $43 million. That's what I get for posting (and linking) in haste -- I was just going to ask, "Don't some 3rd world countries have lower GDPs?" but thought I would answer the question instead.
Oops. Thanks, Robert!
(Still, ten million here, ten million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.)
The new owner should cut the canvas into individual one dollar pieces and try to spend them.
Cuz that would be funny.
Althouse asks, "What would he say if he could have seen the price grabbed by "200 One Dollar Bills"?
This is what he is reported as saying upon being shot. Maybe we can extrapolate something from that.
"Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."
So, since Warhol never saw the 'real and strong' emotions of the movies give way to the internet, I think it's safe to assume that he would still say,
"Hey, it's all television."
In the future, Warhol will be famous only for saying that in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
I was never much interested in Warhol while he lived, but I've subsequently found his life pretty interesting. That odd combination of dissipation and work ethic overdrive.
Anyway, I'd like to recommend Songs for Drella, a song cycle by John Cale and Lou Reed. It's really quite good.
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