The Great Art Debate

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Go on, I'll bet you a tenner it doesn't go for more than £60million?

Crumpets. jam and tea at Hoylake says it gets £85M

Never going to happen, but ok!

Let's have them while the Ladies' British Open is on so it's win-win.

[Bruce Rioja]

Crumpets. jam and tea at Hoylake says it gets £85M

Never going to happen, but ok!

Let's have them while the Ladies' British Open is on so it's win-win.

OK, let's do that.

BTW - It's impossible to do more than an evening in Oslo. Seriously. It's also the most ridiculously expensive place on earth. £80 a skull in TGI Friday on Karl Johans Gate - no shit! Glad I was on expenses when I've been there!

[William the White]

Here's where I'm about to upset somebody: Why is Munch's Scream great art? A badly drawn figure, on a bridge, hands on ears and mouth wide open (indicating , I suppose, shutting it all out and screaming in protest?) and yet it'll probably sell for millions. So, why is it great art?

You don't think that it encapsulates a persons horror/terror then, Tango? I do. I think it's a masterpiece.

Or perhaps madness, psychosis, extreme alienation. Is it an inner scream? The figure is in a world that makes no literal sense, alone, on a bridge, the sky screaming red, the colour of blood, of anger, of warning, hazy, indistinct figures, neither man nor woman... The idea that the figure is badly drawn is ludicrous.

I have always liked the idea that there are two other figures on the bridge - and they appear NOT to be screaming (inwardly or outwardly) - which has always touched the idea (for me) that in any ordinary street filled with ordinary people going about their ordinary business - SOMEONE will be screaming on the inside...

this doesn't seem to be a terrible external event (it's not a monster out of view) - otherwise they'd all be screaming - it is inner terror - hidden from the world around it - and, as such, isolating and doubly terrifying

Yes, exactly, that's what it does, great art, it prompts us to create our own narrative. We are moved in our own, particular way, as we, together with the artist, create the experience; we feel, therefore we are... alive, but not in the dull way of most of our hours... Well said, thebish...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

So I went to go and see The Scream at Sotheby's last weekend.

Great to see it in person - it's a fantastic picture. In the flesh, it's even more clearly 'only' a pastel sketch though, even if it the colours are probably most vivid of the set of four of them. I couldn't help but wonder whether the TWO airport-style security checks Sotheby's had set up, as well as a special dark room with just the painting lit up was all theatre to drive the price up. I thought this even more when led through to the adjacent rooms in which several magnificent Picassos, Miros, a Bacon and a Dali were not protected at all - anyone really wanting to do £50million of damage to fine art could easily have done so here!

Posting on Facebook about it, I discovered that an acquaintance of mine now works at Sotheby's sourcing pieces to sell. Interesting to get some of the inside track.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

So... The Scream went for $120million last night.

[thebish]

To be fair, he is trying to get £50million for the thing!

It'll go for more than that. £85m I reckon.

it was about £74 million... which is a whacking amount for a pastel!!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I've won the crumpets but would have lost my tenner...

[Bruce Rioja]

Has it gone to a private collector or will we get to see it?

[thebish]

Has it gone to a private collector or will we get to see it?

I think Tango bought it....

[TANGODANCER]

Has it gone to a private collector or will we get to see it?

I think Tango bought it....

I'm no hypocryte. If I saw a print of it in a shop, I wouldn't pay 75p for it.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Has it gone to a private collector or will we get to see it?

Word is that it's a Qatari gallery.

[Dr.Karl]

Seems like the Middle Eastern royalties are protecting their wealth. Didn't one of them buy a version of "The Card Players" recently for an absurd sum. Actually just checked the Qatari family bought it for $250m!

[malcd1]

Has it gone to a private collector or will we get to see it?

I think Tango bought it....

I'm no hypocryte. If I saw a print of it in a shop, I wouldn't pay 75p for it.

I may go up to 75p for the original. No more.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

[William the White]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

I'll play this game - guess I might be the only taker, but who knows?

When I get some space I'll assemble a list of my small but very overwhelming gallery...

I know already that it starts with Velasquez's portrait of Aesop... old, tired man, but still clutching a book... half priest, half sage... bright eyes... beautiful mind... seen everything there is to see, lived long enough to tell the tale... and not yet ready to go...

My guess on price - there isn't one, the Prado would never sell... but, if by some miracle it ended up at Sotheby's - minimum $350 million spent...

And... Note to the southern posters... The Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is just brilliant... Ends 27 May... truly outstanding...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

I'll play this game - guess I might be the only taker, but who knows?

When I get some space I'll assemble a list of my small but very overwhelming gallery...

I know already that it starts with Velasquez's portrait of Aesop... old, tired man, but still clutching a book... half priest, half sage... bright eyes... beautiful mind... seen everything there is to see, lived long enough to tell the tale... and not yet ready to go...

My guess on price - there isn't one, the Prado would never sell... but, if by some miracle it ended up at Sotheby's - minimum $350 million spent...

And... Note to the southern posters... The Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is just brilliant... Ends 27 May... truly outstanding...

Well it's an obviously unfair game. Of course we'd probably have to assume that some things are genuinely priceless. Would the whole £2billion or even five times that amount prise the Mona Lisa from the Louvre? Almost certainly not.

I have no idea where I'd start... it'd probably have to be a theme showing some kind of evolution over time or putting a few important works in the context of what came before and after and what made them important. In that sense I can imagine putting my own 'The Scream' exhibition together with some contemporary paintings to show why it was revolutionary and others to show what it foretold.

Anyway, many thanks again for the heads-up you gave me on the dwindling tickets for Freud. I went on Saturday evening, sadly only having an hour for the whole exhibition, but actually it was an exhilarating exhibition that lent itself to a first viewing at that pace. I wish I could go back to spend more time on a second viewing.

I read obituaries hailing him as the greatest figurative painter last year without having a clue why he was so important... I don't think many would leave this exhibition still wondering why he's up there. I don't think I've ever seen portraits that leave such a heavy sense of atmosphere between the sitter and the painter. That's a crap, pretty wanky way of explaining what I mean, but it'll have to do.

The fact that the work shown is mainly penetrating autobiographical adds to the fascination. The word 'penetrating' is instructive actually.. It's amazing how many of the paintings seem to make it so obvious that the subject is a lover of some sort (woman or man). That in itself is an interesting subject - so many of these artists seem to lead or have lead lives that are far far outside society's 'normal' expectations of sexual morality. Are Freud and others feted and surrounded by sycophants in spite of this behaviour that the same sycophants would likely find repellent in their GPs, or because of it? What does it tell us about our value systems and where we place artistic people within them?

Another compelling exhibition anyway. What an amazing 12 months it's been to be in England and developing an enthusiasm/obsession for visual art.

[TANGODANCER]

Well it's an obviously unfair game. Of course we'd probably have to assume that some things are genuinely priceless. Would the whole £2billion or even five times that amount prise the Mona Lisa from the Louvre? Almost certainly not.

A serious question: If the Mona Lisa is that valuable, is its value an antique one? The reason being, technology has made it so that copies of it can be purchaded cheaply enough, yet how many buy them or would want them in their homes if veiwing it is the criteria? I can well understand the desire to see the unique original in a museum, painted by a renowned artist like Da Vinci, but does the ridiculous cost of owning it actually come from, a desire to see it, or a desire to own it that has little to do with it as an art work? Great art or great value as an object? Take the question in the spirit it was asked.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Well it's an obviously unfair game. Of course we'd probably have to assume that some things are genuinely priceless. Would the whole £2billion or even five times that amount prise the Mona Lisa from the Louvre? Almost certainly not.

A serious question: If the Mona Lisa is that valuable, is its value an antique one? The reason being, technology has made it so that copies of it can be purchaded cheaply enough, yet how many buy them or would want them in their homes if veiwing it is the criteria? I can well understand the desire to see the unique original in a museum, painted by a renowned artist like Da Vinci, but does the ridiculous cost of owning it actually come from, a desire to see it, or a desire to own it that has little to do with it as an art work? Great art or great value as an object? Take the question in the spirit it was asked.

Yes, when art changes hands for very large amounts it's almost always about the instinct to own, rather than merely to see. There are some exceptions when galleries spend large amounts to hang things for the public, but there's a big slice of the vanity of possession even in that.

However, I think I'm saying something different on the Mona Lisa, which is not that owning it would come at a 'ridiculous' cost, but rather that it's just one of those things that really is not for sale. In the world of Damien Hirst, that's actually quite a comforting thought.

The reason 'The Scream' was so interesting is because it's pretty near this boundary of things that are regarded as inappropriate for sale in the auction room.

[William the White]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

I'll play this game - guess I might be the only taker, but who knows?

When I get some space I'll assemble a list of my small but very overwhelming gallery...

I know already that it starts with Velasquez's portrait of Aesop... old, tired man, but still clutching a book... half priest, half sage... bright eyes... beautiful mind... seen everything there is to see, lived long enough to tell the tale... and not yet ready to go...

My guess on price - there isn't one, the Prado would never sell... but, if by some miracle it ended up at Sotheby's - minimum $350 million spent...

And... Note to the southern posters... The Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is just brilliant... Ends 27 May... truly outstanding...

Since a Picasso masterwork has to be in my gallery - and neither Guernica nor Les demoiselles d'avignon are available even with a two billion budget... I wonder if I could buy 'The old guitarist' from his blue period... achingly hungry, sad, beautiful painting... I've no change from 500 million is my guess...

I'll be thinking less ambitiously for the other walls of my living room...

[Bruce Rioja]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

I'll play this game - guess I might be the only taker, but who knows?

When I get some space I'll assemble a list of my small but very overwhelming gallery...

I know already that it starts with Velasquez's portrait of Aesop... old, tired man, but still clutching a book... half priest, half sage... bright eyes... beautiful mind... seen everything there is to see, lived long enough to tell the tale... and not yet ready to go...

My guess on price - there isn't one, the Prado would never sell... but, if by some miracle it ended up at Sotheby's - minimum $350 million spent...

And... Note to the southern posters... The Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is just brilliant... Ends 27 May... truly outstanding...

Since a Picasso masterwork has to be in my gallery - and neither Guernica nor Les demoiselles d'avignon are available even with a two billion budget... I wonder if I could buy 'The old guitarist' from his blue period... achingly hungry, sad, beautiful painting... I've no change from 500 million is my guess...

I'll be thinking less ambitiously for the other walls of my living room...

You should also get that one of that woman with a blue jug. You'd pick it up for next to nowt and wouldn't have to disappear up your own arse in doing so!