Wonderful video about a great artist. I love Betye Saar's work. She's wonderful. Her daughters Alison and Lezley are also terrific artists, Her third daughter Tracye is a writer. I've photographed some of Betye's work, including an amazing exhibit of installations at California State University Fullerton. It was almost like an hallucination being in the galleries for hours with installations that connected me with dreams I've had. Textural dreams - I don't even know if that's a category. Sand, glass. That exhibit made me realize we've probably all had dreams about sand. And her most amazing installation is her house which I was able to visit once. (And the Black Art Auctions listings look terrific. )
Have you ever heard of the artist Keith Vaughan? Absolutely love his paintings 😍 Also the Canadian artist Jason Boyd Kinsella. Both would make great videos!
@@christopherwestpresents also George Condo! I don’t think you’ve done a video on him yet! Absolutely love his work! I obviously cannot afford an original Condo but his prints are definitely affordable!
So much better being able to hear you properly - no music! Hirst has always come across, quite explicitly, as a 'jack the lad'. It's not surprising that he plays fast and loose with the truth.
Such an interesting video! The only thing I thought I knew was to not undersell gallery prices when selling on your own. I had no idea that the art market was this corrupt!
The "Gallery" art world has been a scam since quite a while now, no wonder those inflated prices are going down, everyone not part of the scam is getting scammed, these works are not an investment people....
You started by saying: At the center of it all is the artist. I couldnt disagree more. At the center of the Art world is money....unfortunatelly artists are just the means for a lot of people to make money and most of the times that does not include the artist.
Good insights, but there is another factor in the examples you cited that went unmentioned (and perhaps intentionally so): Lewis, Davis and Taku are all black. There was a vogue for black artists in the early 2020s that inflated their market values well beyond what they would otherwise have been. After that vogue wore-off the market corrected, and their work's values returned to approximately the same levels as their non-black peers. So the phenomenon I find more interesting is that their work's values became so highly inflated in the first place, not that they are now seen as being worth in the $10K range. (No, this is NOT in any way a criticism of their work, nor of people who highly value it. It's just an observation of how fads cause spikes in perceived values.) Also, Davis had just died (at age 32) before his painting sold for nearly a million. My sense is that this was some of the FOMO that hits collectors, when they think someone might turn out to be the next Basquiat.
Hype does certainly factor into this. But this has been actually happening for decades. I have another video coming out soon about a similar situation from about 15 years ago.
It's an utterly horrific story. Art theft, especially from museums, is a terrible crime. Granted, there are far worse sins to commit, but the fact that these works were stolen from the public and then potentially destroyed makes my blood boil. I'm currently reading the Finkel book now. It's a great read!
Art, like gold and diamonds, is set as such a high price only if people are willing to pay for it. Once upon a time, diamonds were no more valuable than many other rocks. It was simply advertising and hype that made it into the commodity is it today. Sure, there are some technological uses for minerals and elements, but not enough to inflate diamonds and gold to such a high esteem. I couldn't imagine acquiring art for the sake of hoping its value will increase, but I know people who do. If the world really came down to a nuclear holocaust, what would be the value of gold, diamonds and art then? It's lovely to have some beautiful things in your life, but not all beautiful things can be commoditised.
Hype certainly has a lot to do with it. And I heard De Beers is trying to buy all the lab grown diamonds - and then will dump them on the market rendering them worthless so they can maintain the market for actual diamonds.
How can there be only ONE bidder who wants to pay such a large amount for an estimated $10 000 piece of art? Surely he/she has to be bidding against someone for the price to reach a high target? Unless they are buying it to flush away some cash for some (likely illegal) reason?
Only one wanted it at 200k, another was interested at 180k, and those might have been the only two bidders. So maybe a third was only interested at 30k?
I'm rooting for him. I can't stand these pretentious people who sip their wine and hob nob with each other in a "Gallery" that a normal person can't get in to. But who would want to see these glops of paint smeared on a canvas and some snob declares it a masterpiece.?
@@christopherwestpresents I would have, yes. At least those artists still had some sense of classical training as shown in their compositions etc. Art has degenerated over the last hundred years or so. People seem to think it’s progression and that tins of merd are the inheritors of art from the renaissance!
I’ve seen this happen so many times. It even happens to established artists. I used to work for McKee Gallery who represented artists like Philip Guston , Martin Puryear and Vija Celmins and we were always on the lookout for speculators. Good to see Vito Acconci featured here, he was a teacher of mine at SVA. Thanks for the video, it’s so hard sometimes to explain to people how artists make it and sustain a market, this was clear, concise , and digestible for the general public.
So nice to hear. Thank you for the comment. And yes even the powerhouses you mentioned had slow markets for a time. Glad you like Vito - he’s a fav of mine :)
This kind of conceptual art usually isn’t really my thing, but I was really fascinated with his work. Thanks for sharing. Like you say, sometimes it takes awhile to sort of “get into it”.
Paintings often sell at a discount to the buyer that the public does not see. Further the gallerist may hold onto the painting until the buyer has paid off the purchase. In some cases, both the gallerist and the buyer may speculate on a short term trend and "sell" at an inflated price, with the expectation that they will be able to settle the details in the future. There may be something similar going on even when wee are told that a painting "sold at auction".
There’s some truth here, but the gallerist wouldn’t want to hyper-inflate the price and risk tanking the artist’s market. That just doesn’t make sense.
I have no stake in the art world, and I don’t often care for it, but your videos are really great to watch. A nice niche corner contrary to the vast and fast content YT world.
This video traps the artist quite a bit. We shouldn't be at the mercy of the market. We should make what we want, and sell it to anyone who wants it. If rich people get angry because they did a poor investment looking for money, that's their fault, not the artist. If you're afraid that your career will be over just because someone out there did a poor move with your work, then you might as well never sell anything.
@christopherwestpresents art should be sourced from the artist. In the age of social media, marketing has become overrated, especially when marketing is done by people who do not make art. I've seen galleries do marketing, and they make it specially for rich folk who don't know culture just money (no offense to rich people), which is a problem because that is precisely what has turned art into such a nasty business. Galleries and museums should only be a thing for dead artists who can no longer sell their work. As long as an artist is alive, if someone wants a piece from them they should go straight to them. If I sell my work for 4 grand, and someone buys it and flips it, that's on them. Nobody should think that the price is dictated by anyone but the artist who sells it. That's like me selling toilet paper for 2 dollars, you buying one and selling it for 10,000, and then other people getting mad at me. Like, just buy it for 2 dollars from me and you should be good
Good video but wish you would have highlighted the nuance of pricing and value that black artists experience vs white artists bc that is a big factor into things
the artist is not the center of it all...art market is just rich people controlling prices.The rubells just buy whatever the heck and put it in the gallery regardless of quality/content and pretend they have art taste most important collection no not at all. If Emanuel takus art isnt worth 100k anymore thats a good thing his art is less than mid at best.
@@christopherwestpresents not true just look at rothcos selling for more than rembrandts this art takes 10 minutes to make no skill no talent worth more. there are many more examples of low quality effortless art that sells for absurd prices
