who really pays -- real art thieves

A new generation of prosecutors promises pursue the tax manipulation going on in major art transactions, such as art bought at a bogus auction for an absurd price, and then donated to a museum for a write-off right away, black ties and limos. These are essentially thefts by very wealthy people from those who contribute to their opulent lifestyles with actual sweat, occupational stress, and physical effort, and the brandname artworks they use for collateral mean no more to them than squares of colored cloth. That’s awful and needs to be fixed, but there’s a more insidious crime going down. They also stole the art.

It’s up for debate -- are common folk too dumb to appreciate art, or are they too smart to pretend to like something they don’t? It’s going to be difficult to argue that rich people are more intelligent when you look at their art. The emotional charge of a color field painting made by an artist weeping into their whiskey is undeniable, until you consider there might be a thousand of them out there, maybe more, no one knows. Present these paintings any way you like, but in the end any one looks like all the others.

People who earn their livings forty hours at a time don’t dream of acquiring such rarified markers of genius, they’re too smart. Working people aren’t charmed by the notion that an afternoon of clever and audacious paint application can be worth more than their lifetime total income, and tend to find themselves unmoved when they see the results. Oddly enough, the one thing that’s out of bounds for serious art these days is any possible appeal to common taste. This dictum exists so rich people can feel smart and it makes the market manageable, but what happened to the art that used to hang in homes, and where are the artists who made it?

Turns out it’s one of art’s first lessons, learned when any particular person shakes themselves free of the mythology of modern art, its celebrity movements and sensational breakthroughs, and just starts looking at art for themselves. Art is about self-discovery first of all, and sooner or later realizing the ultimate decision about what you like is yours to make.