Now, predictably, "Banksy tried to destroy his art after it sold for $1.4 million. The shredded version just went for $25.4 million" (WaPo).
On Thursday, three years after Banksy’s act of destructive creation, the anonymous buyer put up for auction “Girl With Balloon,” or rather, its successor — the retitled “Love Is in the Bin.” After nine bidders battled for 10 minutes, the semi-shredded artwork sold for $25.4 million. That’s more than three times the auction house’s top estimate going into Thursday’s auction and more than 18 times what the spray-paint-on-canvas creation sold for in 2018 when it was intact.Does anyone really care? Art commenting on the commerce of art has been going on for more than a century. Or maybe you find it lightly amusing, the impish artist. Is there satire in the sight of $1.4 million growing into $25.4 million in 3 years? I'd say it's not really enough profit — on an Earth bestridden by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — to be perversely funny. Just a random transaction.
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30 comments:
Working in an finance I’m amused when I hear works selling for huge…er…’inflated’ price tags, then reading critics talking about throwing money away. As an asset class major works outperform almost every other investment category decade after decade…
As performance art, that’s amusing.
We live in a prosperous nation.
it is true that today's "Art" is literally garbage.
"Too much money chasing too few goods" is the classic formula for inflation. The Fed and other central banks have been creating lots of money to fund COVID relief programs. The results are hardly shocking.
"is this period of inflation systemic or transitory?"
I think we know the answer to that question. We had a nice run while we were all young enough to enjoy it. It gets more interesting all the time.
My problem is with all the cynicism and postmodern blurb-first approach behind this stuff.
Good art is just nice to look at. It can elevate and expand.
‘It’s difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserable every day for lack of what’s is found there.’
The 2018 buyer certainly is profiting off Banksy’s stunt. I assume Sotheby’s took 30% of the initial $1.4M and Banksy’s agent another 10% (customary) so the artist may have banked about $840K on the first sale, but the $20M the buyer made reselling it is pure capital gains. To think I felt sorry for him in 2018!
I'm too stupid to understand it and not wealthy enough to own it, therefore, it's just garbage produced by a culture going down the tubes. It all went to hell when people stopped dressing up for airline flights.
Spending that kind of money on something so selfish and stupid and UGLY is heartbreaking. That kind of money could help actual suffering - in so many ways.
Selfish rich art-snob twats.
EPIC TRUMP: “While I Have Never Painted Before, Hunter Has Inspired Me to Immediately Begin – I Could Surely Get at Least $2 Million Per Painting”
It's called money laundering.
As a sentimental old father, I have framed and hung on my walls the exuberent art products of my childrens' early years. A turtle painted in the style of Australian aboriginal rock art. Our black dog, tongue lolling out, in crayon. Our cat looking like a Puritan, for some reason. My wife and I, from a wedding picture, pencil sketched without faces because faces are hard! An angry monkey, looking spanked, from my son's bedroom. I enjoy these works of art, and would sell them for any amount from $1.4 million up to or above $25.4 million at the drop of a hat. Buyers may contact me through Althouse, to whom I offer a 25% commission, should she be willing to act as intermediary.
what's wrong with "bestrode" ?
how about bestroon ?
Whatever happened to "windfall profits"?
Oh, that's right, the corporations and the government are BFF now.
Them's Hunter Biden prices!
More proof that the artworld is nothing more than sophisticated money laundering.
Banksy is the McDonald's of street art.
I used to live in Berlin, and you could see better street art going in a random direction for a few blocks.
https://berlinstreetart.com/blu-berlin-street-art/
https://www.instagram.com/berlinstreetartguide/
Seriously folks, you'll see better art on the way to the auction house. Save your money.
"Does anyone really care?"
Well, if you want an argument for why "the rich getting richer" is an inherently bad thing, even if the poor are also getting richer, then this story is an entry on the "it's really bad that these morons get so much money" side.
Anyone who has $25 million to spend on artwork is part of "the elite".
This story is strong evidence that the Western World's "elite" is utter trash, and that the only reasonable political position is populism.
Yeah, I dropped out at 23.
What's the shredder going for?
Art is for money laundering.
"what's wrong with "bestrode" ?"
It's not the past participle.
Think about "ride": He rode the horse. The horse was ridden. It's not: The horse was rode.
'Art is for money laundering.'
Bingo...
Really?
Isn't "rode hard and put away wet" perfectly cromulent?
West of the Pecos, it is. You effete easterners better keep away.
(Ha! Automistake insisted on correcting to "westerners"!)
Really?
Isn't "rode hard and put away wet" perfectly cromulent?
West of the Pecos, it is. You effete easterners better keep away.
(Ha! Automistake insisted on correcting to "westerners"!)
But "that horse was rode hard and put up wet" sounds so much better than "that horse was ridden hard and put up wet."
Situational grammar.
Part of the reason for current art prices: new participants in Asia and the Middle East are now big participants in the western art world. Places where there’s little need for laundering money…
'Places where there’s little need for laundering money…'
Unless you're suddenly 'un-favored' by the CCP and need a nest egg outside of Xi's reach.
Or the wrong branch of the family when the head guy in Saudi Arabia gets pissed off at your uncle.
Those kinds of people especially need a place to put their cash...not actual laundering but definitely parking.
Joe Smith said...
Those kinds of people especially need a place to put their cash...not actual laundering but definitely parking.
Isn't that why Bitcoin exists?
“Does anyone really care?”
I care! I like Banksy’s work; but more than anything, I find Banksy’s work to be stimulating; and interesting. There was a blogger who once said “I am interested in interestingness.”
Me too.
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