I would say - _especially_ in art. People will mostly pay at most a couple grand for a painting based solely on its esthetic value (and I'm guessing most of the market is below $1k). For higher numbers, the purpose of the purchase is investment and obviously investing in an unknown arist is a terrible strategy.
However, in defense of modern art, it isn’t about what’s on the canvas as much as it’s about context. Klein’s blue canvases essentially demolished the status quo of the time. It was like a musical note sounding discordant against the melody of what “art” meant. Brilliant actually.. not unlike how Mappelthorpe’s photos where exactly the images that captured the zeitgeist of the AIDS crisis. Disgusting in many opinions, but brilliant when seen in the context of the time. Same idea with Warhol’s soup cans and Brillo paintings.
And speaking of music, listen to Klein's “Monotone-Sikence” — it will blow your mind that the dude got away with that.
Some have said that Klein was the last of the great French artists. I’m inclined to agree even though he is famous for an f’ing blue canvas and a one note “symphony.”
That couldn't be further from the truth.
The way you are talking of the value of art in money terms is.. well... People who love art don't talk like that. Do you speak of love, life, health etc in similar terms?
Oh anyway. It's pretty amazing to me to hear such views in person. I mean, scary, horrific, chilling. It only happened to me once in my life before this thread.
I think...you have been brainwashed to think that all value is (or can be put) in terms of money. Is it possible to be happy while thinking like that? ..There are a thousand things I could say to that, not sure where to start. (Unfortunately I've learnt quickly in my brief time here that discussion on HN with those of different views is very counterproductive. It has been so far anyway.)
There are two kinds of people that criticize them:
- First kind, the ones that criticize and challenge their ideas. Not the process, not the method, not the work itself. Examples - David Sylvester and Michael Peppiatt who criticized Francis Bacon [0]. Those were constructive, extremely interesting encounters that challenge artist's notions and provide different perspectives. They vehemently opposed the artist [1], but thoughtfully to incite and open new conversations around their ideas. They also understand the historical time frame and overall art history, especially the turn of the 20th century.
- The second kind, criticize materialistic, physical and methodical manifestations of art. Such as trying to judge how relatively easy/hard was it to paint; "Any one can do that"; paintings are trash because I personally do not resonate with it visually; no revolutionary methods or interesting ways of physically making the art, etc. They also try to find deeper meaning where there isn't and make up far fetched meanings to justify their understanding of something that is not meant to be literally understood. There are also people on the other end of the spectrum such as people working in the galleries that try to bullshit you with their sales pitch which often contains non-sense and wordplay.
The second kind do not understand art.
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFMH_D6xLk [1]https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...
Pollock's paintings at least have a sense of dynamism and there are interesting interactions in the paint. DeKooning has a sense of dynamism, but so did most classical artists with a bunch of other benefits to boot. Frankenthaler/Kline/Twombly all had one move they repeated for decades. Rauschenberg and Johns predicted a lot of modern graphic design, but you'll find more interesting visuals in an issue of Lucky Peach. Diebenkorn made an attempt to add the rudiments of representation.
Modern art is endlessly interesting. There are personal dramas, changes in cultural norms, and financial stories that are much more compelling than anything on the canvas. AbEx stuff is fine, but you'll find equally compelling designs on bedding at Target.
If you can get that kind of feeling looking at the bedding designs at Target, that's great, you've saved yourself a lot of trouble. I had to go on a decades long odyssey to learn how to appreciate any painting as much as I appreciate the work of Rothko.
I mean he's arguably the best painter of all time, because while everyone else was trying to win the game of showing off how good they were at painting, he was just trying to make something that looked good on people's walls.
Like pretty much everything in life, it all comes back to marketing. In order for people to want a specific artist's art they have to know the artist exists and they have to be familiar with his work. The more people that know, the more people will want the art, and the more valuable it will be.
For example, a Rothko is worth millions, but if I paint a large fuzzy colored rectangle it's worth practically nothing. People know about Rothko, what he was doing, and why. His art has a well-known, proven track record of being a good investment and buyers already know this.
Even in art, it doesn't matter how good the product is if nobody knows about it.