Thanks for exposing a light on the contemporary art world. I'm a fine artist and I wish I would have come up through the ranks in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. I would have liked to hang with Marcel Duchamp and Arshile Gorky and Roberto Matta. Andre Breton was still running around too. It's very sad what the art world became.
Should we buy art because we love the piece or should we buy art based on the gender and race of whom makes the art. Does the seemingly disproportions between male and female and ones of color artist due to there are more male artist than female/color? I always buy art first because I like it. I don't really care who made it, male, female, black, white blue or green. It's up to my taste of what I buy.
As you should! The hope is that one day those lines would be blurred and we can love and buy art simply through taste and or preference, and no other reason!
Ím totally with you. Also interesting how they calculate the average. If you include the top selling artists like anselm Kiefer, Richter etc. then of course you have a huge gap.
I don't think it matters so long as you like the art. The point they seem to be making is that the price should be based on the quality of the art, not the gender, etc. of the artist.
The sacrifice is real for Women that want a Career as a Professional Artist. I always think of Camille Billops, American Visual Artist and Filmmaker who won at Sundance Film Festival for her Documentary, "Finding Christa", the story of Camille abandoning her 4 year old daughter to pursue her art. But it gets worse, Christa found Camille in adulthood and Camille was not happy, in fact, eventually banned her from her life and was angry at her husband, Mr. Hatch, for extending his hand of friendship. It seems that women artist have to define for themselves what success is and what life as a professional artist and mom and wife, and Daughter is for them personally.
Let me begin by telling you that when my brother was just starting school, he rebelled at the rules of spelling. Why did words have to be spelled in a particular way? Why couldn't he spell them as he wanted to spell them? He resented the rules and he resisted the authority of those who made them ! Keep this in mind. I think that Conceptual art originated with people who could not and would not do the difficult work required to become a 'traditional' artist. Can't master the necessary skills ? No knowledge of perspective? Can't draw? Don't want to have to learn color theory? Can't master composition? No knowledge of human anatomy? Can't render tonal values Can’t be bothered ? These are skills that you have to WORK to perfect. It’s difficult. It takes…..effort. You want a fast track to the exalted position of "artist “. Well then, belittle the importance of those skills and debase the notion that they are a prerequisite to creating art. Instead, create an art genre that you CAN do. A new genre. And let's call it Conceptual art. Conceptual artists claim that IDEAS and CONCEPTS are the main feature of their art. They can slap anything together and call it ''conceptual art'' confident that viewers will find SOMETHING to think about it no matter how banal or trivial the artist's concept! There is no way conceptual art pieces can be judged. The promoters of this art have attacked the motives and credibility of authorities and critics who might disparage the work. They have rejected museums and galleries as defining authorities. They reject the idea that art can be judged or criticized . All of this results in a decline in standards. And when you jettison standards, quality suffers. There really IS such a thing as BAD art ! We know this only because we have standards and criteria by which such things can be evaluated. It seems that conceptual art comes down to a basic idea: No one has the right or authority to make any judgements about art ! Art is anything you can get away with ! A whole new language has been created to give the work an air of legitimacy and gravitas. Conceptual art is 'sold' to the unwary public with ....."ArtSpeak". ArtSpeak is a unique assemblage of English words and phrases that the International Art world uses but which are devoid of meaning! Have you ever found yourself confronted by an art gallery’s description of an exhibition which seems completely indecipherable? Or an artist’s statement about their work which left you more confused than enlightened? You’re not alone. Here are examples of ArtSpeak: 'Works that probe the dialectic between innovations that seem to have been forgotten, the ruinous present state of projects once created amid great euphoria, and the present as an era of transitions and new beginnings.'' Or ''The exhibition reactivates his career-long investigation into the social mutations of desire and repression. But his earlier concerns with repression production--in the adolescent or in the family as a whole--give way to the vertiginous retrieval and wayward reinvention of mythical community and sub-cultural traditions.'' This language is meant to convince me that there is real substance to this drivel which is being passed off as art. I don't buy it. But plenty of other people DO buy it. Not because they love the work. They are laying out enormous sums in the belief that their investment will bring them high returns in the future. One Jeff Koons conceptual piece is three basketballs suspended in a fish tank. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Ball_Total_Equilibrium_Tank_by_Jeff_Koons,_Tate_Liverpool.jpg Here is Koons' own ArtSpeak explanation of his floating basketball 'concept' verbatim: “ This is an ultimate state of being. I wanted to play with people’s desires. They desire this equilibrium. They desire pre-birth. I was giving a definition of life and death. This is the eternal. This is what life is like, also, after death. Aspects of the eternal” Rather lofty goals for 3 basketballs suspended in a fish tank!! It sold for $350,000. I wonder what it would have fetched without Koons' name attached to it. Or take the case of Martin Creed's ball of crumpled white copy paper. www.abebooks.com/signed/Work-sheet-paper-crumpled-ball-Creed/7404135374/bd He made almost 700 of them! Some sold for hundreds of dollars. Martin Creed, when asked during an interview how he would respond to those who say the crumpled paper ball isn’t art said : “ I wouldn’t call this art either. Who says, anyway, what’s good and what’s bad?” Interviewer: ''When confronted with conceptual art, we shouldn’t worry whether it’s art or not because no one really knows what art is.'' Is this what art has come to?? _________________________________ Something radical has happened to the art scene in the past 50 years. Cubism slid into non-representational art....what is often called Abstract. Abstract or non-representational art is a legitimate and often profound genre. But to many people, it appeared as if this new style had no structure, principles or standards of evaluation. It’s markings seemed random and arbitrary. Something that anyone could do. Any composition of blotches or scribbles was “Abstract Art”. This was the slippery slope that led to the abandonment of standards in art. Art is what I say it is....and lots of people jumped on the art bandwagon. Anyone can be an artist. Anyone can mount a show. And who is to say if it has value or not ? A tacit agreement has formed among critics, galleries, publications and auction houses to promote and celebrate certain artists and styles. Objects with no artistic merit are touted and praised . Their value increases with every magazine article, every exhibition in a prestigious gallery. And when they come up for auction, sometimes the auction houses will lend vast sums to a bidder so that it appears as if the work of the particular artist is increasing in value. The upward spiral begins and fortunes are made. And many are reluctant to declare that the Emperor is, in fact, naked lest they appear boorish unsophisticated Philistines ! This is what dominates the art market today. The love of money is the root of all evil. It has corrupted politics. It has corrupted sport. It has corrupted healthcare. It has corrupted religion. And now it has corrupted art. But, there is reason to hope. As much of the wisdom of the Greeks and Romans was kept alive through the Middle Ages in small pockets of learning and culture, ateliers have sprung up around the world that are devoted to preserving and handing down the traditional visual arts: drawing, painting and sculpting to each new generation. And when this craze for conceptual art has burned itself out and when visual art is no longer looked on as mere decoration and when schools that have dissolved their art programs want to reestablish them again, the world will find these skills preserved through the atelier movement.
I agree. It’s tainted. I wouldn’t want to be an artist: the shit you’d have to roll in is immeasurable. However so much beauty to be found in art is unfathomable.
Do you think that one of the main reasons why male artists have been so dominant is because the majority of buyers, collectors and investors have been male, maybe?
No, it’s because that male art works are much better than female art works. Look across the board in every field, whether artistic or scientific males are much better. About 5% women can compete at a high level.
So, does the Basquiat estate benefit any kind of way off his work now? Someone explain please, all of this gibberish seems to be middleman speak by lots of non-artists!
It’s odd that many artists shown who are engaged in self employment, express an undertone of entitlement to the money of an art buyer. It definitely rubs me the wrong way as it’s a critical misunderstanding of what being an entrepreneurial artist is. You cant possibly expect other people to hold the same value to your art as you do. Otherwise every artist would start demanding their works fetch millions of dollars.
The social and economic hierarchy is reproduced in all areas. Some football players earn fortunes, but most players earn modest salaries. Some lawyers work on million-dollar cases and earn a lot of money, most handle small cases and earn little. And so on, until we reach the artists who are also divided and hierarchized into distinct categories. The quality of the professional represents almost nothing in this world artificially created to concentrate social and economic value. The best thing to do is to laugh at millionaires and those who live around them, because in the end they too will get sick, suffer and die like everyone else. And no one will visit their graves either.
@@Moconomy It’s hard to compare art pieces with each other especially if they are not from thensamw category. I am sure there are plenty male artists not going beyond 10 mil.
The art market is for rich people to find a place to hide their money and not pay taxes. To take advantage of this, have consistency in your work and it will be seen as a great asset for money investment
Bansky & I Agree . The Artist Is The One That Shall Profit . After Artist Sale Then IT Is Anybodys Game . In Addition The Artist ALWAYS Has Legal Rights Over The Original Image Created . B. Totten
art is in the eye of the beholder, sex colour greed , sould have nothing to do with what is beautiful to the admiring person , buuut , then theres the tax avoidanc and profit side
The art world has nothing to do with art but everything to do with tax avoidance. Politicians should tax the art market properly as it is a money scam. As for the gender gap, that's the market, no? Why should anyone care about these people? Let them whinge and whine.
In digital art you have so many ways to „cheat“. Copying the outline, the color scheme, undo parts or steps easily, rework the whole thing afterwards, you don’t have drying times and so on and so on. I agree 100%
