Value of Art

Art is subjective. Some would argue it’s entire existence is to evoke an emotion, and nothing more. While some believe it’s all about the personal experience, others believe art is a commodity that is meant to be collected. In reality, there is no answer as to which is true. You could argue both are true, and both are false. It’s a dichotomy that has raged on for as long as art has been purchased. In the end, it makes you question, what is the real value in art?

This industry of trading and purchasing fine art has led to many scandals over the years, each more interesting than its predecessor. Every so often, a scandal will arise that will rock the art community to its core, such as Banksy shredding a piece of art upon its purchase. Before Banksy was creating performative art to comment on the art scene, there was a scandal to the tune of 80 million dollars. The entire story can be found in the Netflix Documentary, Made You Look. It’s a tale of an artist and art dealer who scammed the entire art community. They created excellent fakes of Abstract Expressionist artists, and claimed them to be lost works of art by famous painters such as Jackson Pollock, Rothko, Motherwell, etc. This artist and art dealer continued their scam for close to a decade, and fooled some of the greatest art dealers and experts in the process. Eventually the truth came to light and their enterprise came crashing down, along with one of America’s oldest art houses. It’s a fascinating watch that I recommend anyone who has any interest in documentaries to check it out. During the entire time watching this documentary, I couldn’t help but wonder, how did this even happen? How could such a huge scandal happen right under the noses of the so-called experts? Also, why is art purchased and traded at such a high value? Many of the fake pieces sold for several million dollars; for the normal person, that’s a fortune. Yet so many people are throwing it around for simple works of art thought to be painted by famous artists from the mid 20th century. It left a rotten taste in my mouth and just made me wonder, are they paying for the art or the artist?

A common tale in the art world is about a penniless artist struggling to make ends meet. They will trade, commission, and even throw their art the attempt to get by. Many of them never once saw a dime from their art in their lifetimes. In the end, they died just as penniless and hungry as they were when they started painting. Only a select few over the years, like Jackson Pollock, saw success during their lifetimes. Yet, decades, or even centuries, later we are trading and selling their art for millions of dollars. How does such a single piece of art become so expensive? In the attempt to answer that question, we have to talk about what art is. Art is a broad spectrum of things from books, to films, music, architecture, and so on. There are hundreds of different mediums, each with their own sets of rules and values. Most of them though, do not sell for obscene amounts of money. Sure, houses and buildings can reach into the hundreds of millions, but what you’re paying for is more than just paint on canvas. You are paying for supplies, builders, land, and countless other items. Fine art, on the other hand, appears to only hold an emotional and visual value. It’s entire existence is meant to evoke an emotion, and to decorate a room, is it not? What other value can a painting have? You can’t build a house with it, you can’t film a movie with it, and you can’t write a book with it. That is not to diminish what it is, but it objectively is just a work of art, and nothing more. It may inspire people to do great things, but that can be said of literally anything. So, again, I ask what is the value? You can create millions of copies of Starry Night, and get the same appeal as the original, can you not? So why should we pay millions of dollars for the original? Is it merely so that you can say you own the original? From my perspective, that’s it. You are purchasing a work of art for the sake of saying you own an original work by a famous painter. Otherwise, you could purchase an amazing replica for fifty dollars and get the same effect. It truly is a waste of good money, in my opinion.

The entire industry makes you question whether the art matters or the name matters. Over time, it has become abundantly clear. People were willing to pay millions of dollars for some lost work by Rothko, even though it didn’t vary greatly from his actual works. If they truly cared about the art itself, they could merely find a local gallery in their city selling local artists who paint using techniques from Abstract Expressionism, and could gain something of the same artistic value. Because at the end of the day, the value of the art itself is based solely on how someone reacts to that work of art. You want to purchase it because you like the way it looks or the way it makes you feel. Anything beyond that is merely collecting the name of the artist. That is not to diminish the brilliance of these artists, and that I wish they saw success during their lifetimes, on the contrary. I think many of the greats are absolutely excellent and I truly appreciate their work. I just don’t think we should be paying 10 million dollars for some oil on canvas. A cute 500 hundred dollars would suffice. Which brings me to my last point, supporting local artists.

Real or Fake Rothko?

Real or Fake Rothko?

At the end of the day, you are only paying for a name. Across the board, many generic products work just as well as their name brand counterpart. Many affordable clothing lines like ASOS are just as fashionable and well designed as Chanel or Couch. But you purchase the name brand for the status it can give you. It says you have money, and you have style. Even though time and time again, many experts can’t even always tell the difference between the affordable knockoff and the real things. Wine experts have been fooled by a 20 dollar bottle of wine, thinking it was a several thousand dollar bottle of wine. It goes to show, price doesn’t always equate quality. So, when that money leaves your hand to purchase that work of art, or some other good, all you’re doing is buying yourself something and putting more money into the hand of a millionaire, like those who spend 50 millions dollars at an art auction. Yet, when you spend that 500 dollars dollars buying the work from a local artist, you not only have a personal connection with someone currently in your life or neighborhood, but you are actually helping someone keep the lights on who needs it. At the end of the day, you get the same value from spending less money. It’s the same when you support independent artists like ourselves, or a local restaurant. You win twice by doing so, you get a great product and get to feel good about yourself for helping someone trying to make it in this crazy world. 

Before you whip out that credit card to purchase something overly expensive because you think it holds some intrinsic value because of its name, stop and think about it for a second. Think about what value you truly gain from purchasing the more expensive work of art, instead of supporting a local artist. It’s really that simple. The more we do that, the more artists in this era can succeed unlike those that came before them. Lest many of our artists today die penniless and became famous in a hundred years or so. Let them reap that reward while their heart still beats.

-Jake

To watch our journey from the beginning and see how we have progressed, click here on the episode page.

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