Posted on 05/21/2017 10:37:49 AM PDT by Timpanagos1
Seasoned art collectors know it’s usually wise to go into an auction with a set budget; otherwise one can get carried away by the adrenaline. It helps when that budget is about $100 million.
Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese e-commerce billionaire, hewed to what appears to be his annual $100 million high-profile spring auction season spend, with his purchase of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982) at Thursday night’s Contemporary Art evening sale at Sotheby’s. The canvas was hammered down at $98 million after a dramatic 10-minute bidding war, coming to $110.4 million with the buyer’s premium. It marks the highest auction price ever for an American artist—unseating Andy Warhol, whose $105 million auction record was set by Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963) at Sotheby’s New York in November 2013—and the second-highest price for any contemporary work.
Maezawa purchased $98 million of art at last year’s spring auctions, in a spending binge that included a $57.3 million Basquiat, then a record for the artist.
Bidding began at $57 million, a sum that sounded a little cheeky at first, and drew murmurs from the crowd. The murmurs morphed into gasps as that figure, and with it Basquiat’s record, receded into history and the bidding soared. Sotheby’s specialist Yuki Terase, on the phone with Maezawa, used incongruously slight gestures—a delicate wiggle of a finger—to indicate she was ramping up the price by another million.
(Excerpt) Read more at artsy.net ...
“Art is NOT necessarily beautiful.”
MODERN art is not necessarily beautiful. I’m not sure Picasso’s style of “art” is art. Yes, yes, I know so many art critics will whine at that, and I even know what he did took some skill, but it’s still crap.
correct in your appraisal of the beauty of free market capitalism. I therefore agree wholeheartedly that TODAY the painting is worth $110 million.
However, as to its future worth We might disagree
Beautiful. Nice thing about it is, you could hang it on its side or upside down and it would still be a glorious addition to any room. Or lobby
Or junkyard
May I suggest Post-Impressionism or just plain madness of the crowds. I have a theory that most Impressionists needed a good optometrist. I see an Impressionist world without my glasses, I do not see the insane world that Biscuit Basket Tisket Tasket or whatever his name was saw. Thank God !
$110 million of that "dumb money" was smart enough to make a run for it.
I’ve heard a theory that Impressionism was a response to photography. If you wanted a perfect black and white reproduction you just took a picture, leaving the Impressionists only color. Once color photographs and printing were common artists just gave up.
Sorry, the Emperor has no clue....Basquiat was/is garbage.
As I’ve said before, “Art, today, can be a booger with a hair in it!”
There is a pertinent discussion of realism in art at:
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/Philosophy/ArtScam/artscam.php
At some point money just becomes a meaningless number to some people.
That said, I’ve spent $600 on a knife...and I’d pitch that knife against that painting any day of the week...see who wins that one...
Wow! What a piece of s—t.
Looks like something I did in my Kindergarten art class.
>Looks like something I did in my Kindergarten art class.
Modern art is about increasing social status by embracing art that most common people view as garbage. It puts you above the commoners.
I have a very simple definition of what constitutes art.....If I can do it, it ain’t art.
>I have a very simple definition of what constitutes art.....If I can do it, it ain’t art.
Personally I view it this way: if it’s beautiful then it’s art. If it’s not then it’s garbage.
I have a similar view of accounting, but there are authorities upon this matter who will weigh in, just as there are in the art world. Maybe there's more going on than you've been taught to appreciate. I know that's the case with my tax returns, lol.
“Looks like something I did in my Kindergarten art class.”
Too bad your mom tossed that one in the trash.
You missed out on $100 million.
At least for $110M, they’ll be able to afford to patch the hole in the side of the subway car they cut it from.
Much of the graffiti you see on train cars actually seems to have more skill and talent behind it than this thing, in terms of composition, use of space, color, depth, you name it.
I suppose it's possible that the guy painted, for some reason, exactly the crazy thing he wanted, and that if you asked him to paint a realistic picture of your cat, he would do that with great skill. In that case, I would cut him some slack. But this looks to me like the guy was all personality and little skill; even his early-career graffiti work looks amateurish by today's measure.
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