So I usually listen to NPR while driving to and from work. tonight, while driving home, the BBC had some program on about Art as Investiture (or some other made-up-British word). Something the commentator said has stuck in my head and I've been thinking about it for a while now. I thought I'd share.
Andy Warhol, at some point during his career, made numerous paintings and screenprints of a single dollar sign:
Apparently, one of these paintings is now worth $3milllion. The BBC World Serivce went so far as so speculate on its origins. (I'm paraphrasing here.. has anyone ever tried to navigate their transcripts site?? eugh!!) Anyway, he might have painted a single dollar wondering how many dollars it would be worth. This is irony at it's most ironical.
What a crap blog, today guys. Sorry. But it really got me thinking about art for arts sake and whether or not artists think about value/worth in a business sense or in a sense (also explained by a interview during the BBC show) of owning a unique snapshot... a poem.
Well just to throw and wrench in the works and make this the single most incoherent piece of writing ever concieved, take this quote from, yet another BBC interview of Andy Warhol himself:
Warhol claimed that the commercialism he appeared to mock was also a form
of art. "Making money is art," he wrote, "and working is art, and good business
is the best art".
"But it really got me thinking about art for arts sake and whether or not artists think about value/worth in a business sense or in a sense (also explained by a interview during the BBC show) of owning a unique snapshot... a poem"
ReplyDeleteIt depends upon the artist and it depends upon how you define success. If success to you is making a lot of money than a talented artist can do that but making a lot of money in art usually means commissioned work and that may not be the most satisfying. More and more art schools are geared towards commercialism. I digress.
If success to you is doing what you love and having the freedom to do what you want then I guess you should hope that everyone wants your paintings on their living room walls. An artist I talked to recently does both commission work and her own stuff, but her visions are what is really fabulous. Skeletons in tuxes depicted with female-like trees flying through a starry sky in a bath tub with rags as sails. And flying eyeballs. Lots of flying eyeballs. If I had $2,000...
Anyway. Even a gangstas gotta eat.
See, thats the problem though. Now, flying eye balls are worth $2000. WTF? Not that I don't appreciate an aerial ocular every once in a while, but who decides that eyeballs are in and melting clocks are out?
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