twenty eight million dollar popeye -- too much spinach

It’s ugly. It was human once you know. Started out as a caricature of a stereotype and then became it’s own stereotype, misshapen and distorted with a sad chaotic life, idiotic and predictable enough for longterm residence at the back of the daily paper. It was made into a plastic figure to be sold as a toy with requisite royalties paid no doubt, and then copied much larger by technicians somewhere and presented as art, signed by Jeff Koons, and royalties paid probably not. (see below) Recently it sold at auction for more than anybody’s lifetime income I’ve ever met. Was it worth it? 

What is it might be the first question. It does have the distinction of being an almost temple-ready embodiment of the grease-trap leavings of industrial commercialism. It isn’t where I’d like to dwell or spend any time at all but that isn’t the point. This unlovely thing’s job is to sit somewhere and declare to all the tired hungry people of the world I’d rather piss away twenty eight million dollars on this than help you -- worth every penny. This isn’t a discussion of art, is it? Economics, politics, unbridled porcine avarice perhaps, but not much art to identify with for the less-than-idle less-than-rich. There’s no bottom rung on that ladder and that’s the beauty of it, don’t you see?

Fine with me. It doesn’t seem interesting. Trying to emulate that elevated sensibility here in the provinces would be like a sad ‘cargo cult’ waiting for a caravan of wealthy sophisticates to come through town loading limos with grad-school imitations of what’s in all the magazines. Attempting to appeal to the aesthetic tastes of a class of people who by every purchase, in every activity, and with every breath are trying to shed their common connection with the rest of humanity sounds too much like work. Well Jeff Koons and his customers can sit in sand-boxes filled with money, but we have better things to do with our time. Making pictures, looking at them, hanging them on the wall and recognizing ones you haven’t seen before is a completely different gig, and something you can do in your hometown. 

http://igaming.org/casino/news/steve-wynn-buys-28-million-popeye-statue/