Who makes it out of the twentieth century, say as far as the twenty second? Will it be Basquiat turning hundreds of millions, bound to keep going up and up, right? Is it going to be any in the pantheon of fame and notoriety who currently bust the pre-auction estimates each time out, so we keep reading in the industry’s press? Once the competitive bidding ends, what is it big money’s been pursuing, what pinnacle of achievement resides there on the wall? Strip away the celebrity allure and official acclaim, cover the price tag, and ask yourself what’s worth crossing the street to see?
There’s truth in what you see, but it can be altered by an effort of faith, and sometimes that’s a bad bargain. Faith requires payment in front, the willful realignment of thought for a reward that may not be genuine, how would you know? Art has its share: consider the ‘erased’ DeKooning, a blank piece of paper. This is, admittedly, a paradoxical double-ironic idea, so fascinating, but still a blank piece of paper. How much of modern art is like that? Does the viewer need to invest more in belief than comes back through the eye, and if they do it’s a bad bargain. Here’s a minimalist's solid green panel, four foot square, just like you could see at the museum or in a big bank. You’ll work overtime calling it art and get nada in return, and somehow that’s the point don’t you see? No.
It’s going to be Ed Hopper, cityscapes, street scenes, boats on the water. Fifty years out of fashion, don’t be so sure. Posters and reproductions in waiting rooms, dorm rooms, and living rooms outnumber all the abstractionists, the minimalists, even the celebrity mavens combined, and that’s significant. Even in reproduced form they evoke mood and memory, and many respond. Just a couple of years back people in Paris stood in the rain day and night, the Grand Palais open twenty four hours, to see his originals. If this culture continues another few centuries, another few decades, Picasso and Hopper will survive, but there’s not much hope for current contenders, and art as gold-plated lottery ticket, the indentured signifier of obscene wealth, will seem an unaffordable decadence, a dumb waste of time, to be nice.
There’s truth in what you see, but it can be altered by an effort of faith, and sometimes that’s a bad bargain. Faith requires payment in front, the willful realignment of thought for a reward that may not be genuine, how would you know? Art has its share: consider the ‘erased’ DeKooning, a blank piece of paper. This is, admittedly, a paradoxical double-ironic idea, so fascinating, but still a blank piece of paper. How much of modern art is like that? Does the viewer need to invest more in belief than comes back through the eye, and if they do it’s a bad bargain. Here’s a minimalist's solid green panel, four foot square, just like you could see at the museum or in a big bank. You’ll work overtime calling it art and get nada in return, and somehow that’s the point don’t you see? No.
It’s going to be Ed Hopper, cityscapes, street scenes, boats on the water. Fifty years out of fashion, don’t be so sure. Posters and reproductions in waiting rooms, dorm rooms, and living rooms outnumber all the abstractionists, the minimalists, even the celebrity mavens combined, and that’s significant. Even in reproduced form they evoke mood and memory, and many respond. Just a couple of years back people in Paris stood in the rain day and night, the Grand Palais open twenty four hours, to see his originals. If this culture continues another few centuries, another few decades, Picasso and Hopper will survive, but there’s not much hope for current contenders, and art as gold-plated lottery ticket, the indentured signifier of obscene wealth, will seem an unaffordable decadence, a dumb waste of time, to be nice.
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