The six-year-old would duct tape the banana to the wall crookedly.
In principle no one has the right to complain simply because someone wants to waste money on frivolity, but it’s the wealth stratification that makes it so offensive. There are so many important causes that the $6 million could have significantly helped with that spending it on a duct-taped banana is nothing short of obscene.
That’s quite true, but art is also personal and subjective. And personally, I have no use for art that doesn’t beautify, even in some subtle way. I stress that I definitely don’t mean that art should be “decorative”, although many think of it in those terms; I mean things like evoking some unidentifiable positive emotion or admiration for the artist’s skill.
One thing I object to is when governments or large institutions commission some artsy-fartsy type – some resident “artiste” – to either create or select a work of art like a sculpture for permanent public display, like outside a large building, and the thing that is produced looks like it might be the result of a serious car crash or a meteorite impact on a municipal dump. Maybe shit like that has a place in some avant-garde museum, but it shouldn’t be foisted off on an innocent public that was probably forced to pay for it, too.
I do appreciate art for art’s sake, but TBH I probably appreciate good functional product design even more (“product” in the broadest sense of any useful object, from can-openers to buildings and bridges). The principle of “form follows function” is a very powerful one. A product designed with the idea “it would look cool if we made it like this” usually results in ugliness and sometimes chintzy pretentiousness (e.g.- giant tail fins on some 1950s-era American cars); a product designed with the idea “it would be more functional if we made it like this” often results in beauty (e.g.- some design elements of Mercedes cars).
This is another whole conversation, I feel. If I had (an extra) $6M, I would definitely try to use it for good. But at what point is it an individuals obligation to help society at large?
At the point where they’ve constructively contributed at least 100x that much to alleviate the suffering of their needy fellow creatures, both human and non-human. Until then they’re being immoral selfish jerks. But you’re right, this is a whole other conversation. It was just a point I wanted to make in passing because it irks me so much.
Yea, that was my first thought. Or a zero-sums game for publicity sake: the buyer and seller worked out an agreement that the seller would repay the buyer afterwards, behind-the-scenes.
I joked once that whoever sponsored Da Vinci bragged to all his friends “I’ve got Da Vinci”
In this case, the artist didn’t get the millions. The artist sold three “copies” of the original piece for around $120,000 each. It was the original buyer that resold the piece that will receive the bulk of the millions with the auction house getting a cut. Artist receives none of the resell profit (they do in other countries, but not the US).
A previous “shit on a plate” debate about art:
I just feel I should point out that this is very, very common with conceptual art.
For example, Lawrence Weiner:
Many of his pieces are just an intricate description of how to recreate them in a new location.
There are a lot of other artists who do the same thing:
and
People interested in this thread may want to read Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See, by Bianca Bosker.
Too bad there’s been no replacement in the popular media for Robert Hughes’ cantankerous art (“aht”) criticism.
You might not like it but when I’m in an airport, train station or public plaza, I appreciate seeing some piece of sculpture or visual art; it helps the time to pass more pleasantly. Mobiles or interactive art can be especially fun.
And “form follows function” is how you end up with some examples of boring modern architecture or even worse, Brutalist architecture.
Of course! That is its entire purpose. But it should have positive aesthetic qualities. What I’m saying is that it fails in that purpose when it’s ugly, and looks like a garbage dump or some unfortunate fatal accident.
“Form follows function” is a very broad principle that doesn’t tell you how to design pleasingly aesthetic art. It’s just a very important general principle that often results in natural beauty, even when it wasn’t specifically intended.
For example, the elegant swept-back wings of jet airliners were enhanced even further by the beautiful bird-like wings of the Boeing 787 – that design, just like the design of birds themselves, being 100% based on function and nothing else. Even the things that look like silvery trim rings at the engine nacelles have a purpose – they are unpainted because they contain heating elements to prevent icing. It’s just amazing how often “form follows function” leads to elegant design.
Probably should be it’s own thread, but - Art doesn’t need to be “pretty.”
A good art piece is supposed to evoke an emotion, or start a conversation, or inspire a thought. It’s not just supposed to look nice.
For a moment, put aside the guy who spent the money; to me, the interesting question is: what about the guy who got the money?
If he uses it to advance a good cause, then what’s the appropriate take on the situation as a whole — including banana-art rights changing hands, in the process of the money going where you’d like for it to go — and what’s the take if not?
One can only speculate, but speculation can include the application of common sense to the likely motivations of seller and buyer. The seller may be a scammer, or a well-established artist seeking a creative way to make some quick bux, or any number of other discreditable things. But the buyer of this crap has to be someone with more money than brains, more money to throw away than most of us can hope to ever possess in our lifetime. Both buyer and seller may well be assholes, but it’s the buyer with more money than brains that is the particular target of my disdain.
In which case, my question is: is a Robin Hood seller who preys on such a buyer to be devoutly wished?
No, my point is that the buyer of such frivolity is to be devoutly condemned, the sort who has the means to help his fellow citizens, the sort who has the means to help support homeless families, the means to support children going to school hungry and malnourished, but who prefers to spend his millions on a duct-taped banana.
But the money is still there; he didn’t set it on fire, he just handed it to someone else, who could now support the homeless and/or schoolkids, et cetera.
Does this mean that if I were to duct tape a banana to a wall in my house and call it “Comedian” I could be charged with art forgery because I didn’t pay $6 million for a piece of paper?