So apparently somebody in East TN sold a painting for like $400K. They had a reproduction of it in the Sentinel, and I'm like, OK, it's a nice painting, but $400,000? Really? I've never really gotten why stuff like that sells for so much money. I mean, I get that there's talent involved, it's just always seemed to me that eleventy billion people could produce something comparable (at least in my mind). And there's so much art out there that sells big and you look at it and think WTF is that? To which my coworker tried to say there's a lot of people who feel the same way about sports, to which I responded that I feel like a zillion people could paint something as good as what that painting is, but there's not a zillion people who can kick a 52-yd FG, and none of those people are here. Anybody else as mystified as I am? As an aside, obviously I'm not equating this painting with some obvious works done over the course of human history that pretty much everybody acknowledge as something spectacular, like the Sistine Chapel or David etc. I think there's some things that even the most right-brained people in the world (like me) can see the greatness of.
every time i watch antiques roadshow i see dozens of things worth in the 6 figures that i would have trashed, if given, in under 50 seconds. i guess i can see buying art if you have money to burn.
Its probably called having more money than you know what to do with so you just pay a lot for stuff just to say you paid that much for it! I do the same thing at Wal Mart!
It's one of those things where people who are into art convince themselves of what is good and what isn't. I'm sure that painting is probably considered good because some guy who supposedly knows what is good and what isn't said it was good. And at that point, the purchase price of it becomes obscene because it's a status item. Some rich person isn't buying it because he loves to look at it and thinks that looking at it is worth 400K...it's because the possession of that item independently gives them a boner because they know that others know it's a "great piece of art" or whatever. Expensive art is like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. It's famous for being famous. What's the word I'm looking for here? It's not a self-fulfillng process. It's a self something proces. Anybody?
If I could sell paintings for $400K a pop, I would quit my job and drink more beer. Lucky fellow in that respect.
It is definitely a matter of having disposable income to burn. I really appreciate art. I really do. I could never justify spending more than a couple hundred bucks on any piece. It just isn't practical. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate it, and I'm glad some have the means and mind to support wacky artists by paying outrageous prices for essentially random objects.
I think maybe I was thinking about self-perpetuating. But then maybe not. It's either that or I'll use the word I was trying to come up with in like three weeks in a totally different context. I hate when that happens.
