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Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 9:26 am
by Dubious
mtmynd1 wrote:Dub, you're merely voicing an opinion that has as much value as a reader would like to place upon it.
...which is true for just about any opinion by anyone whether right or wrong! Nothing new here.
mtmynd1 wrote:The closer truth lies in the fact that paintings that command huge amounts of money will in all likelihood survive the pillage of time. Values place admiration on objects assuring future generations will be able to enjoy.
Your simplicity is astounding if not laughable! Consider "Merda d'artista" by Piero Manzoni an Italian "artist" who canned his own poop as an art object!
A tin was sold for €124,000 at Sotheby's on May 23, 2007; in October 2008 tin 083 was offered for sale at Sotheby's with an estimate of £50–70,000. It sold for £97,250. The cans were originally to be valued according to their equivalent weight in gold – $37 each in 1961 – with the price fluctuating according to the market.
I especially like the part "The cans were originally to be valued according to their equivalent weight in gold". Based on what's discussed that statement is priceless!

Amounts like that would buy a hell of a lot of groceries. According to your philosophy, the amounts paid for poop should preserve it's artistic value in the future!

We live in a time where "masterpieces" can be created in hours or even minutes and sold for amounts that supply the needs for a few lifetimes.

If Picasso were in a restaurant happy with the service and ready to give the waiter a tip not with money but a doodle on a napkin that didn't take more than 30 seconds to sketch it would have been worth more than the waiter could have made in half a lifetime. Had some no-name done the same it would rightfully have been considered an insult. So again, the value is dependent on the brand.

mtmynd1 wrote:
Dubious wrote:Would I buy a total piece of shit for 50 million$ that I wouldn't mount over a toilet bowl if I was reasonably certain I could resell it for 10 million more in a year or so?
The key phrase (highlighted) is paramount to your foolish question. For you to purchase anything for $50M would require you having a tremendous amount of money available to you to even consider a purchase of that magnitude. If you're going to play the "assumption game", begin with the reality of where your wealth comes from? If your personal "value" so great to those you serve that spending that amount of money on an artwork is merely an investment for you? How much are you willing to spend on the security of such a piece, (think vaulting, humidity factors, long term security concerns, etc. which would account for the value of the future sale).
I wish my "foolish question" would have that problem! Unfortunately I'm a few bucks shy of 50 million! I'll need a few more Wednesdays of cheap whoppers to make up for the difference!

Is it necessary to mention it was only an example based on the momentum of increasing investment value in the art world? Obviously mere multi millionaires cannot afford these excessive art prices but the multi billionaires can and do. Also, why would the cost of storage, etc, be of concern to someone who can make these kind of purchases and what pray does this have to do with the reality of where your wealth comes from?

Contextually your statement does not in the least apply to what I said so why would you even mention this?
mtmynd1 wrote:
Dubious wrote:There's a huge number of people who don't love Picasso and his art is not what's driving the prices up. That part is due completely to it's investment value based on the brand of what is merely perceived to be art.
Ridiculous assumption, Dub, especially your last sentence. Art is art, period. Whether you as Joe Public enjoy an art piece is strictly on your own perception in what you are looking at - how does it make you feel?
There are too many definitions by too many people, even among experts to define what constitutes art. If it's based on one's "perception" then art is only that which is "perceived to be art" as stated. "Art is art" tells one nothing.
mtmynd1 wrote:True one would certainly enjoy making some level of profit off an investment, but that is unrealistic.
Unrealistic to you but absolutely real as far as the "art industry" is concerned which ironically has little to do with art. Did you miss this part of how Richter described it? From the article:
No one who had bought his works in recent years, he said, had ever contacted him to show an interest in him or his work, implying that they were only interested in the work’s investment value. He confirmed that often his works were among those bought as safe, tax-free capital investments and stored in art bunkers in east Asia or Switzerland.
It's all business independent of merit. If the value added endorsement of a brand name is missing it is worth virtually nothing no matter how great the skill it took to create it.
mtmynd1 wrote:Think of the investment one makes in a home or an automobile... how about a musical instrument... do you fancy the object over the "future profit"?
...and you call me ridiculous! I live in a home; I drive a car to wherever I need to go; I may or may not play a musical instrument. The first two are necessities. The 3rd is a luxury. What does that have to do with future profit? Can I live, drive or play a painting or sculpture or only look at it with the option of eventually reselling it at a huge profit based on what was paid which in turn is based on the brand?

The actual merit of a work in the context of business has ZERO function and conclude as follows from the article next to Gerhard Richter one:
And of course, this philistine assumption that the only really interesting thing about art is its financial value is totally correct. For it is shared by the most powerful people in the art world, on a scale that makes a mockery of any belief in art as a road to revelation, an instrument of social progress or any of the other fragile ideals that dreamers attach to it.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 11:22 am
by Hobbes' Choice
Thanks Dubious: someone who has bothered to stop and consider the point.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 11:48 pm
by mtmynd1
Thank you, Hobbes and Dub for your opinions, I have my own that obviously differ with the both of you and there the all the talk ends. It is useless to continue this piss-off. I'm sure you both agree.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:56 am
by Obvious Leo
mtmynd1 wrote:Thank you, Hobbes and Dub for your opinions, I have my own that obviously differ with the both of you and there the all the talk ends. It is useless to continue this piss-off. I'm sure you both agree.
Don't forget the fence-sitters who reckon that all parties to this argument have made some relevant points. It is simply absurd to suggest that the artistic merit of any work of art can be measured in terms of its commercial value. The only property of any work of art which can be measured in this way is the desirability of owning it. That's the way it works in the brutal world of commerce and it applies just as much to art as it does to any other transactable commodity.

On the other hand there is a such a thing as true artistic worth which goes a lot deeper than merely a question of personal taste. As an absolute amateur when it comes to the visual arts I'm willing to accept that those who devote their lives to studying such things are likely to know a shitload more about these things than I do without stripping me of my right to pick and choose what I like or don't like. What they help me to do is to learn how to look at pictures in such a way that I can appreciate them more fully. Great literature is no different in that we have to learn how to read it in order to get the most out of it.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:39 am
by Hobbes' Choice
Obvious Leo wrote:
mtmynd1 wrote:Thank you, Hobbes and Dub for your opinions, I have my own that obviously differ with the both of you and there the all the talk ends. It is useless to continue this piss-off. I'm sure you both agree.
Don't forget the fence-sitters who reckon that all parties to this argument have made some relevant points. It is simply absurd to suggest that the artistic merit of any work of art can be measured in terms of its commercial value. The only property of any work of art which can be measured in this way is the desirability of owning it. That's the way it works in the brutal world of commerce and it applies just as much to art as it does to any other transactable commodity.

On the other hand there is a such a thing as true artistic worth which goes a lot deeper than merely a question of personal taste. As an absolute amateur when it comes to the visual arts I'm willing to accept that those who devote their lives to studying such things are likely to know a shitload more about these things than I do without stripping me of my right to pick and choose what I like or don't like. What they help me to do is to learn how to look at pictures in such a way that I can appreciate them more fully. Great literature is no different in that we have to learn how to read it in order to get the most out of it.
But those experts are as likely wrong as right, and as easy to succumb to the lure of the dollar.
Whilst I can applaud Picasso for his great skill, I cannot like the woman in the hat, though I still like some of his other abstractions. And the notion that he was taking the piss will not leave me.

Since the modern art movement has largely rejected skill, and has demanded that it is all about the expression of an idea only. Then they are capable of pretending that the dealer's idea of the object, and the buyer's idea of the object is of greater value than that of the 'untutored' opinion. Since those ideas are hermetic then the potential for dishonesty and embellishment is rife.
The only remedy for this is to eject all 'objective' criteria for art and make each's opinion equal.
"I know what I like" is the only standard.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:15 pm
by Pluto
Hobbes can only look at a Picasso, his thinking on one is pure garbage.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 12:13 pm
by vegetariantaxidermy
Pluto wrote:Hobbes can only look at a Picasso, his thinking on one is pure garbage.
He's not really thinking about it at all, and his comprehension skills here are nonexistent.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 5:41 am
by Dalek Prime
Pluto wrote:Hobbes can only look at a Picasso, his thinking on one is pure garbage.
Spoken like a true art snob. What a prissy, pretentious load of shit. The difference between an art snob and anyone else is twofold; too much ego, and a greater consumption of wine and cheese.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:17 am
by vegetariantaxidermy
Dalek Prime wrote:
Pluto wrote:Hobbes can only look at a Picasso, his thinking on one is pure garbage.
Spoken like a true art snob. What a prissy, pretentious load of shit. The difference between an art snob and anyone else is twofold; too much ego, and a greater consumption of wine and cheese.
Yes, there are those, but they can't dictate to people what to pay for someone's work. Enough people love Picasso's work to push up the price. If he played noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper and signed it, it would be worth a fortune.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:23 am
by Dalek Prime
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote:
Pluto wrote:Hobbes can only look at a Picasso, his thinking on one is pure garbage.
Spoken like a true art snob. What a prissy, pretentious load of shit. The difference between an art snob and anyone else is twofold; too much ego, and a greater consumption of wine and cheese.
Yes, there are those, but they can't dictate to people what to pay for someone's work. Enough people love Picasso's work to push up the price. If he played noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper and signed it, it would be worth a fortune.
The only two people who can impact the value are the buyer and seller, at least in theory. In practice, there are a shitload of 'art experts', prissy little snobs they are, that will try to influence the price, by telling others just how superb bozo the chimp's fingerprintings are... over wine and cheese, of course.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:40 am
by vegetariantaxidermy
That's going to make no difference for shit.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:45 am
by Dalek Prime
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:That's going to make no difference for shit.
Define shit in art, because I've seen pricey shit.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:45 am
by mtmynd1
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Enough people love Picasso's work to push up the price. If he played noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper and signed it, it would be worth a fortune.
The large prices we are so used to hearing about are from auction houses that begin bids at a predetermined sum and the price rises as the collectors/investors interest rises. Not so sure why so many here see that demand as bullshit or worse and should consider the winner of the auction reasoning is. They really don't care what these people on this board think nor should they. Complain, whine, bitch, scoff, chuckle... no matter how we feel the art is in the hands of somebody who others can feel reasonably certain the artwork will be around far longer than you or I or even the collector/investor in the long run.

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:49 am
by Dubious
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Enough people love Picasso's work to push up the price. If he played noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper and signed it, it would be worth a fortune.
...proving once again it depends purely on the name and not on the art itself. When Picasso wiped his ass - assuming he did - he could have sold the used toilet paper for the price of a King's outhouse!

Re: Picasso: genius taking the piss?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:53 am
by Dalek Prime
mtmynd1 wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Enough people love Picasso's work to push up the price. If he played noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper and signed it, it would be worth a fortune.
The large prices we are so used to hearing about are from auction houses that begin bids at a predetermined sum and the price rises as the collectors/investors interest rises. Not so sure why so many here see that demand as bullshit or worse and should consider the winner of the auction reasoning is. They really don't care what these people on this board think nor should they. Complain, whine, bitch, scoff, chuckle... no matter how we feel the art is in the hands of somebody who others can feel reasonably certain the artwork will be around far longer than you or I or even the collector/investor in the long run.
Yeah, until the next fire. Or until mold gets to it. Who cares if it survives me? So will my final poop on my deathbed.