OK, but then where do you draw the line? A couple of quid can pay for vaccinations for Third World kids, saving lives. If you drive a more expensive car than you need, or have a more expensive coat than you need, or buy a $10 mug when there’s a $3 one available, are you basically saying ‘It’s more important to me to look at this thing than to save lives’? Do you deserve all the ridicule anyone can throw at you?
I don’t like the statue, but there’s no denying that art has become a form of currency. It’s perfectly possible that whoever bought this loves it with a passion and plans to spend hours a day gazing at it, but it’s also possible that this is just another way for him to keep $140 million in the bank.
I don’t know exactly where the line is. But I can look at some things and be sure about what side of the line they are on. And very expensive art is one of them.
An important aspect is that it’s not just that they like looking at it. Because they could buy a replica for far less, and that would look the same. It’s pure status, and it’s driven solely by how other people see it. So if we the people started viewing it as a ridiculous waste of money, and instead viewed charitably giving as more impressive, then there rich people would gradually change their behavior, and the world would be better.
I have this vision of producing a counterfeit “lost Warhol” piece of art: Shit On A Plate, which indeed would be a preserved piece of shit on a plate, with Warhol’s forged signature on it; then see how many people would bid thousands or millions for shit on a plate.
I’d become a performance artists. Instead of getting a billionaire to buy a harmless stack of pig iron, I’d get him to build a golf course, marina, luxury hi-rise, stadium, etc that displaces wildlife and affordable housing, squanders natural resources, and sticks the taxpayers with the bill later.
And here’s where it gets artistic: some of those taxpayers, who like to say “haw haw art is stupid, I could shit on a plate and sell it for a million dollars” (how clever. It was done by Piero Manzoni half a century ago and more cleverly) will react by gushing “wow, rich people are wonderful!”
It’s also a reasonably safe assumption that someone who drops $140 mil on a statue has probably also given significantly to charity - if not out of the goodness of their hearts, then at least in the interest of their tax burden. If someone drops $200 million to Doctors without Borders, does he get a pass on spending $100 million on “Man Pointing?”
I have this vision of producing a counterfeit “lost Warhol” piece of art: Shit On A Plate, which indeed would be a preserved piece of shit on a plate, with Warhol’s forged signature on it; then see how many people would bid thousands or millions for shit on a plate.
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From me personally, he doesn’t. I of course have a lot of respect for him, and he has improved the world more than I ever will.
But after the $200 million there are still poor, sick people. And when he chooses to spend the $100 million on a painting he is saying the equivalent of “its more important to me that I have one thing that other people dont have and that other people envy me for it, than to save the lives of tens of thousands of people.”
I respect that he earned the money, and I would prefer that he can spend it as he chooses to a high degree. But if he chooses to spend it on such a useless thing, he will not get a pass from me.
Art is useless for the most part. if it’s not then this sculpture isn’t an exception. It’s as useful as the Mona Lisa. Well it’s in the same ballpark. Without art the poor would not be richer.
