# Is modern art easy money or hard earned cash? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535 "2010-09-21T13:56:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/81 "2010-09-23T17:17:29Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > So, yeah, hard con baby. Squirm if you like, but I think Wolfe got it cold. And I think Wolfe was so full of shit his eyes were brown. If you want to believe a con artist calling something else a con, be my guest. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/82 "2010-09-23T17:24:03Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > > [@mhendo](#): > > > > Sorry. That’s just another roundabout way of saying that _you_ like some stuff better than other stuff. > > > > You’re welcome to your preferences, of course; the silly part is pretending that your subjective preferences constitute objective criteria. > > They’re not my preferences. You can objectively judge art by how closely it resembles what it purports to depict. That’s simply fact. By that logic, the best art is a photograph. That’s cool - I like and respect photography, too. But it isn’t the only art, and it isn’t necessarily the ‘best’ art. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/83 "2010-09-23T17:30:32Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > This might be an interesting point to mention the play “[Portrait of an Unidentified Man](http://www.sleepingdog.ca/portrait.html)”, which deals with the interesting life of the forger [Elmyr de Hory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory). The Orson Welles biography F is for Fake is also a good bio on the guy. The thing is though is that’s he’s a lousy painter. Most forgers are. They prey upon exactly what you see on this thread, people who simply want a name as a status/investment piece but who otherwise believe creating an aesthetically pleasing painting or sculpture can be done by anyone. Take a look at one of the Vermeers he did: > **[Art Forgeries](https://sniggle.net/artforg.php)** > > Historical and contemporary art forgeries and art forgers and then look at real Vermeers: > **[Johannes Vermeer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Vermeer)** > > Johannes Vermeer (/vərˈmɪər, vərˈmɛər/ vər-MEER, vər-MAIR, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Dutch: \[joːˈɦɑnəs fərˈmeːr\]; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dut... Absolutely no comparison. Ditto for his Modiglianis and the rest of his output. Might I suggest to all those who think it’s so easy to “con” people into buying crap that they give it a go themselves and then report back with the results? After all, Warhol made a pretty decent living while he was alive and it certainly sounds like it might be a lot more fun than a 9 to 5 widget making job. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/84 "2010-09-23T17:43:32Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > You can objectively judge art by how closely it resembles what it purports to depict. That’s simply fact. And you can objectively judge a roller coaster by how tall it is. But that doesn’t tell you if its a good ride or not. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/85 "2010-09-23T18:08:05Z")
> [@valleyofthedolls](#): > > Take a look at one of the Vermeers he did: > > [Art Forgeries](http://sniggle.net/artforg.php) Looks pretty close to a lot of “serious” modern representational painting to me, actually. > [@](#): > > Might I suggest to all those who think it’s so easy to “con” people into buying crap that they give it a go themselves and then report back with the results? After all, Warhol made a pretty decent living while he was alive and it certainly sounds like it might be a lot more fun than a 9 to 5 widget making job. As I more succinctly put it at the thread’s beginning, it’s difficult to acquire and use the political and personal skills to make bad art a success. That said, Warhol isn’t all downside because he influenced New Wave music, which took Warhol’s attitude and actually did something good with it. But there are plenty of examples of the influenced surpassing their influencors in art. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/86 "2010-09-23T18:38:28Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Looks pretty close to a lot of “serious” modern representational painting to me, actually. I don’t know of any modern painters whose schtick is to paint bad copies of Dutch Baroque art. Any examples? > [@](#): > > LudovicAs I more succinctly put it at the thread’s beginning, it’s difficult to acquire and use the political and personal skills to make bad art a success That’s your opinion and the onus is on you to prove the emperor has no clothes. Again, put on a white fright wig and show everybody just how easy it is. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/87 "2010-09-23T18:52:36Z")
> [@valleyofthedolls](#): > > That’s your opinion and the onus is on you to prove the emperor has no clothes. Again, put on a white fright wig and show everybody just how easy it is. One, there should be a rule that in CS, every post should be assumed to end with “IMO”. Of course my opinion is that most modern art is bad. It’s your opinion it is good. Unless you’re of the opinion that success is the only determining factor of artistic merit, then that means we simply have two different views of what’s good. I think we can assume that we’re both mature enough that we are not proclaming artistic merit from on high simply because we get tired of scare-quoting our opinions all the time. Two, I was saying that it is the exact opposite of easy to attain success as a modern artist. But you knew that already. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/88 "2010-09-23T19:04:13Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > They’re not my preferences. You can objectively judge art by how closely it resembles what it purports to depict. That’s simply fact. Which means that _The Last Supper_ is objectively a bad painting, because it makes Jesus look like a white guy. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/89 "2010-09-23T19:08:20Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > > [@valleyofthedolls](#): > > > > That’s your opinion and the onus is on you to prove the emperor has no clothes. Again, put on a white fright wig and show everybody just how easy it is. > > One, there should be a rule that in CS, every post should be assumed to end with “IMO”. Of course my opinion is that most modern art is bad. It’s your opinion it is good. Unless you’re of the opinion that success is the only determining factor of artistic merit, then that means we simply have two different views of what’s good. I think we can assume that we’re both mature enough that we are not proclaming artistic merit from on high simply because we get tired of scare-quoting our opinions all the time. I have trouble reconciling this with your earlier statement: > [@](#): > > As I more succinctly put it at the thread’s beginning, it’s difficult to acquire and use the political and personal skills to make bad art a success. The earlier statement seems to indicate that you don’t think the popularity of what you consider to be bad art is due to a difference in subjective value criteria, but rather, that fans of bad art have been duped by a wily huckster. Which is pretty close to “proclaiming artistic merit from on high.” ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/90 "2010-09-23T19:18:39Z")
I’m reminded of a trip I took during my honeymoon layover in Boston on my way to the Azores… my wife and I were taking a boat ride in the harbor and the Capn of the boat was going on about the New Modern Art Museum of Boston, that was itself a work of Art… as we floated past it, asked him “If it’s modern art, how do they know when they’re finished building it?” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/91 "2010-09-23T19:28:28Z")
That doesn’t really make any sense. Just for starters, at least according to your story, the captain didn’t say it was _modern_ art, just that it was art. Secondly, it would be the design that was the “art,” not the building. They know when they’re done building it because it matches the blueprints created by the designer. Thirdly, a great deal of modern art is meticulously planned. The gallery where _Guernica_ hangs is full of sketches and paintings Picasso did in preparation for the large canvas. Lastly, the comment could be just as applicable to classical art as it would be to modern art. How did Rembrandt know he was done painting _The Night Watch_? Because it looked the way he wanted it to look. How did Mondrian know he was done painting _Composition 10_? Same answer. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/92 "2010-09-23T19:37:06Z")
[Teri Horton](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/03/60minutes/main2758110.shtml)is a retired truckdriver who many years ago bought what she thought was a horribly ugly painting in a thrift store for a few dollars; the only reason she bought it was because it’s huge and she wanted it as a gag housewarming gift for a friend who’d just moved into a tiny travel trailer. When she’d had her fun she put it storage for several years. Later it was seen by others including someone who had some art knowledge and since then it’s been examined by experts. Some believe it’s an unsigned Jackson Pollock and some believe it isn’t, just an unknown who painted in Pollock’s style. If it is a Pollock then it’s worth, conceivably, tens of millions of dollars; if it’s not then it would make a nice gag gift for a friend moving into a travel trailer. Horton actually (stupidly stupidly stupidly, in my opinion) turned down $2 million for the painting by somebody who was willing to take the risk and spend the money to have it authenticated or not. (Horton’s argument was that if real he’d sell it for $50 million but she’d only have $2 million; my argument is "you paid $5 for it and if it’s not a Pollock you’ll be doing well to get a few thousand for it.) Anyway, it’s interesting how the artwork’s value is completely tied into who painted it and not in the least tied to its aesthetic appeal. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/93 "2010-09-23T19:45:52Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > > [@Ludovic](#): > > > > One, there should be a rule that in CS, every post should be assumed to end with “IMO”. Of course my opinion is that most modern art is bad. It’s your opinion it is good. Unless you’re of the opinion that success is the only determining factor of artistic merit, then that means we simply have two different views of what’s good. I think we can assume that we’re both mature enough that we are not proclaming artistic merit from on high simply because we get tired of scare-quoting our opinions all the time. > > I have trouble reconciling this with your earlier statement: > > > [@](#): > > > > As I more succinctly put it at the thread’s beginning, it’s difficult to acquire and use the political and personal skills to make bad art a success. > > The earlier statement seems to indicate that you don’t think the popularity of what you consider to be bad art is due to a difference in subjective value criteria, but rather, that fans of bad art have been duped by a wily huckster. Which is pretty close to “proclaiming artistic merit from on high.” Sure, it’s my opinion that fans of bad art have been duped by a wily huckster. It’s their opinion they’re not. I don’t have to respect someone who makes what I consider bad art, even if they’re successful at convincing other people that it’s good art. I’ll even give that some modern art is difficult to create, although a lot of it is not. I can take any household object and proclaim it to be a piece of modern art, which is the simplest art creation process imaginable. Convincing everyone that it’s worthwhile is difficult, but doesn’t magically increase the merit of the art. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/94 "2010-09-23T19:47:36Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > [Teri Horton](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/03/60minutes/main2758110.shtml)is a retired truckdriver who many years ago bought what she thought was a horribly ugly painting in a thrift store for a few dollars; the only reason she bought it was because it’s huge and she wanted it as a gag housewarming gift for a friend who’d just moved into a tiny travel trailer. When she’d had her fun she put it storage for several years. > > Later it was seen by others including someone who had some art knowledge and since then it’s been examined by experts. Some believe it’s an unsigned Jackson Pollock and some believe it isn’t, just an unknown who painted in Pollock’s style. If it is a Pollock then it’s worth, conceivably, tens of millions of dollars; if it’s not then it would make a nice gag gift for a friend moving into a travel trailer. I don’t know if it’s a genuine Pollock or not; I personally would guess not, looking at bigger versions of the painting on the web. It just seems haphazard and unbalanced compared with the work of his I love. If it is a Pollock, it’s not a particularly good one, but, yes, it’s value isn’t based completely on aesthetic value. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/95 "2010-09-23T20:02:37Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t know if it’s a genuine Pollock or not; I personally would guess not, looking at bigger versions of the painting on the web. It just seems haphazard and unbalanced compared with the work of his I love. If it is a Pollock, it’s not a particularly good one, but, yes, it’s value isn’t based completely on aesthetic value. I agree. Here’s [an image](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DQHx0XoAYCU/SDYdObMJtYI/AAAAAAAAAZo/OmyqJPsT2Ts/s1600-h/pollock_comparisons.jpg) that puts it side by side with a real Pollack. Even at this tiny resolution, the difference is like night and day. For example, look at the two big swoops of white on the painting on the left that intersect like two back-to-back C’s. That’s just really, really awkward. Regardless of whatever else is going on in the painting at a finer detail, the interplay between those two lines really destroys the composition. The painting on the left feels haphazard and visually flat, lacking the depth and complexity of the real Pollack on the right. I’d hang the painting on the right on my wall. I wouldn’t hang the painting on the left. There’s something there besides just the cachet of the artist’s name that distinguishes the two. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/96 "2010-09-23T20:26:36Z")
Every decade the Minneapolis Institute of Arts does a Foot In The Door show. We went last time because my mother in law had a piece in the show. [MIA - Foot in the Door 4](http://www.artsmia.org/foot-in-the-door-4) The pieces are displayed without comment, the artists are not (usually) famous. Submit a piece that meets the requirements (fits in a 12x12x12 space), while they still have gallery space and you are in. Many of the works were incredible. Some took a lot of effort. Some didn’t, but still spoke. Someone submitted a digital alarm clock. Which lead my kids into a discussion on “what is art.” And while we didn’t decide it wasn’t art, we also thought hanging an alarm clock on a wall and calling it art fell - at this point - into the “been there done that” school of modern art. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/97 "2010-09-23T22:06:01Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Sure, it’s my opinion that fans of bad art have been duped by a wily huckster. It’s their opinion they’re not. I don’t have to respect someone who makes what I consider bad art, even if they’re successful at convincing other people that it’s good art. Okay\*, but how is that different from “proclaiming artistic merit from on high?” You’re taking the position that this art is objectively bad - that it’s not possible for anyone else to find actual merit in the work, and that those who claim that they do are, in fact, simply too stupid to recognize crap when they see it. That’s not simply a matter of two different ideas of what’s good, that’s saying that there’s only one standard for quality, and that anyone who strays from it is a fool and a dupe. [sub]\*Actually, that’s not okay. In fact, it’s terribly insulting, but let’s set that aside for right now.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/98 "2010-09-23T22:46:23Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] ]One, there should be a rule that in CS, every post should be assumed to end with “IMO”. Of course my opinion is that most modern art is bad. It’s your opinion it is good. Unless you’re of the opinion that success is the only determining factor of artistic merit, then that means we simply have two different views of what’s good. I think we can assume that we’re both mature enough that we are not proclaming artistic merit from on high simply because we get tired of scare-quoting our opinions all the time. [/QUOTE] Meh. You’re backtracking now. You think that anyone who appreciates modern art is a sucker. If people are, as you say, that easily fooled, it should be easy enough to prove. So rather than hiding behind a computer screen, go out there and show everyone how it’s done otherwise you’ve got nothing. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/99 "2010-09-23T22:57:43Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > > [@jordanr2](#): > > > > There was no argument in that post to refute. I’d like to see **Evil Captor** ’s argument if he has one. > > Wikipedia puts things fairly clearly in summmarizing Wolfe’s works: > > Wolfe’s thesis in The Painted Word was that by the 1970s modern art had moved away from being a visual experience, and more often was an illustration of art critics’ theories. Wolfe criticized avant-garde art, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. The main target of Wolfe’s book, however, was not so much the artists as the critics. In particular, Wolfe criticized three prominent art critics whom he dubbed the kings of “Cultureburg”: Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg and Leo Steinberg. Wolfe argued that these three men were dominating the world of art with their theories and that, unlike the world of literature in which anyone can buy a book, the art world was controlled by an insular circle of rich collectors, museums and critics with out-sized influence.[1] > > Wolfe provides his own history of what he sees as the devolution to modern art. He summarized that history: “In the beginning we got rid of nineteenth-century storybook realism. Then we got rid of representational objects. Then we got rid of the third dimension altogether and got really flat (Abstract Expressionism). Then we got rid of airiness, brushstrokes, most of the paint, and the last viruses of drawing and complicated designs”. After providing examples of other techniques and the schools that abandoned them, Wolfe concluded with conceptual art: “…there, at last, it was! No more realism, no more representation objects, no more lines, colors, forms, and contours, no more pigments, no more brushstrokes. … Art made its final flight, climbed higher and higher in an ever-decreasing tighter-turning spiral until…it disappeared up its own fundamental aperture…and came out the other side as Art Theory!…Art Theory pure and simple, words on a page, literature undefiled by vision…late twentieth-century Modern Art was about to fulfill its destiny, which was: to become nothing less than Literature pure and simple”.[4] > > source:[The Painted Word - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Word) > > In what I regard as one of the more telling examples of his book, Wolfe described how the Cultureberg critics began turning out phrases along the lines of, “the integrity of the canvas” and “respecting the purity of planes” (I’m not sure of the EXACT phrasing, but I’m close) and the leading modern artists of the time dutifully began turning out these huge canvases that were nothing more than colored squares or sometimes even a single line across the canvas, with thin paints that allowed the canvas beneath it to be seen, cause that way you had your integrity of the canvas made visible, along with your pure planes. I found the argument particularly striking because I had visited an art museum a few months before I read the book (long after it had been published) and they were doing a retrospective of some of the very artists mentioned, and I stared at these huge canvases showing a few squares, and wondered what the hell they were thinking about, or trying to get the audience to think about. After I read “The Painted Word” I knew … I was out of the loop … the paintings were merely somewhat pedestrian illustrations of the theories of some “important” art critics, who would see that the artist understood things in the same deep and important way they did, and thus praise their work, leading important collectors and museums to buy their work, making them rich and famous. Easy as pie. There was no “there” there for me to look at and be enriched by. > > So, yeah, hard con baby. Squirm if you like, but I think Wolfe got it cold. Who said anyone’s squirming? If you’d like to make arguments about specific contemporary works, or explain why you think Wolfe’s arguments from 1975 apply to _contemporary_ art (hint: not Mondrian, Malevich, Guston, Rothko, etc.), feel free to do so. What you’ve done here is pretty much the equivalent of saying “go read the Bible” and tossing out a few verses from Genesis in a discussion of why evil exists in the world. Tangentially, I think it’s interesting that people making dramatic sweeping statements, like “modern art is a con,” never have anything to cite beyond a couple of paintings they’ve glimpsed, or a handful or popular critiques - certainly never anything academic or of a nuanced critical nature. Are all academics and serious art critics duped by the artists, or is it possible that they understand more than the truculently ignorant by dint of having extensively studied art? Just a question. ---
**Author:** ![Kurt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kurt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kurt)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535/100 "2010-09-23T23:30:19Z")
To the “‘modern’ art is nothing but a con”/“anyone could do that”/“it’s a cult of personality”/“it’s a rich-man’s circle jerk” brigade: If you’re asking what make’s Duchamp’s bicycle “valuable” or important to warrant gallery space/custodianship; you might as well ask why anyone would pay sixty-two-thousand US dollars for a [Telecaster](http://www.nymphusa.com/tele/ece.asp), when anyone can walk down to the store and buy a Fender for a few hundred bucks (I can guarantee the tone wouldn’t be too different). Or why someone would pay over one-hundred-thousand Australian dollars for a [sheet of paper](http://www.theage.com.au/national/regret-at-auction-of-wwii-surrender-papers-20090801-e591.html), when anyone can buy a ream of A4 for a few bucks. Surely you can understand that something might have cultural or historic significance beyond the mere utilitarian or aesthetic. Right? Right? I’m scratching my head as to why this is hard to understand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-modern-art-easy-money-or-hard-earned-cash/554535.md?page=6)