More evidence (not that we needed any) that modern "fine-art" has jumped the shark

[Mabouya]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/a...smid=url-share

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/a...smid=url-share

After a flurry of more than 180 bids in the final hour, a JPG file made by Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, was sold on Thursday by Christie’s in an online auction for $69.3 million with fees. The price was a new high for an artwork that exists only digitally, beating auction records for physical paintings by museum-valorized greats like J.M.W. Turner, Georges Seurat and Francisco Goya. Bidding at the two-week Beeple sale, consisting of just one lot, began at $100.

The artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, has just sold an NFT at a record-breaking $69.3 million, the third-highest price achieved by a living artist. The sale, at Christie’s, for the purely digital work was the strongest indication yet that NFTs, or “nonfungible tokens,” have taken the art market by storm, making the leap from specialist websites to premier auction houses. Beeple, a newcomer to the fine-art world who first heard about NFTs five months ago, is the most high-profile artist to profit off the huge boom in sales of these much hyped but poorly understood commodities.

[vertical_doug]

I think you misinterpret this as fine art jumped the shark. It actually hasn't and the concept is fairly clever for NFTs. If you think about the problem of digital media, its the ability to copy anything. With NFT, at least you have a block chain showing you own the 'original', but more importantly, I think you can then easily control the rights to the image. I can see the value of the NFT for any digital work.

I think what you do think has jumped the shark is 'price'. Although the price is quoted in dollars $69mm, that price was not actually paid. What was paid was the digital equivalent of $69mm USD in eretheum. Now how easily you can convert the eretheum into a hard currency (USD, YEN, EURO) is a different matter.

SO what you do have is a instrument, digital cryptocurrencies, which sole purpose is to speculate. Now you give the cryptocurrencies digital things to speculate in, and well, its not hard to guess where this is going.

[Mark Kelly]

Doug that is absolute gold. I just quoted your whole post aloud to my wife who hooted with laughter.

As to modern art jumping the shark: I opined a couple of years ago to the wife of a colleague that it was possible that Damien Hirst was not actually a person, he was an experiment being run by a university psychology department to investigate the depths of human gullibility but they hadn't been able to find the bottom.

I then found out she was an art teacher. Fortunately she laughed.

[j44ke]

Says a group of people known to spend $8-12,000 on a bicycle...

[spopepro]

I think you misinterpret this as fine art jumped the shark. It actually hasn't and the concept is fairly clever for NFTs. If you think about the problem of digital media, its the ability to copy anything. With NFT, at least you have a block chain showing you own the 'original', but more importantly, I think you can then easily control the rights to the image. I can see the value of the NFT for any digital work.

I think what you do think has jumped the shark is 'price'. Although the price is quoted in dollars $69mm, that price was not actually paid. What was paid was the digital equivalent of $69mm USD in eretheum. Now how easily you can convert the eretheum into a hard currency (USD, YEN, EURO) is a different matter.

SO what you do have is a instrument, digital cryptocurrencies, which sole purpose is to speculate. Now you give the cryptocurrencies digital things to speculate in, and well, its not hard to guess where this is going.

All 100% true. It’s hard to stress how much this isn’t about art. One big problem is the issues with ownership and control. As NFT bids get out of control speculative there’s squatters tokenizing anything they can get their hash on. In response, many digital artists are now pulling back from posting because rather than being a tool to retain rights (theory) its being used as a tool for the technically skilled and unscrupulous to steal rights (practice).

The more blockchain is used as a speculative investment instrument, the more I worry about the adoption of some really useful applications taking root.

I should also recognize that using bogus art sales to launder money is an idea that predates NFTs, blockchain, and the internet.

[dashDustin]

can you wash digital currency?

[spopepro]

can you wash digital currency?

Depends. Different coins have different levels of traceability. The technical differences in how different coins work are vast, and as someone who is interested in the programming and math, but not at all trusting of the “investment” nature of the coins, I don’t track all the details. IIRC ETH here isn’t anonymous.

[vertical_doug]

can you wash digital currency?

Digital Currency is the wash...

It was the original application which drove adoption. Chinese Nationals, Indian Nationals, Turks, trying to avoid capital controls on foreign currencies is a form of washing.

[jmgorman]

Most NFT's don't carry rights, just a license. Artists can mint as many of them as they like. This is nothing but beanie babies that burn rainforests for GME millionaires.

[kdawg]

Says a group of people known to spend $8-12,000 on a bicycle...

Can't ride a painting...

[davids]

I used to feel the same about Sol LeWitt's work.

Now I love Sol LeWitt's work.

[Will Neide]

Can't ride a painting...

Pegoretti?

[9tubes]

I'm not too familiar with the high-end art world. I had understood that the difference between owning an original Monet and a very high-quality photograph of the same Monet is that with an original you can see the brushwork, the subtlety of the strokes and the way the color of the strokes combine in a unique way. Plus there is the "I own it and nobody else does" factor.

This makes me confused about this new digital art. If the original is identical to my copy, then all that's left is the "I own it and nobody else does" factor. I suppose that has some value, but $69,000,000?

I'm not convinced by the comparison to, say, a Pegoretti. Owning a Pegoretti is owning and appreciating the original. Whatever mojo Dario imparted to his frames, whether the tubing selection, the quality of the welding/brazing, or alignment, or angles, or paint, most experienced riders would say that there is a difference between a Peg and other bikes. Not to say that Peg is the best bike (that's personal preference) but that it is different in the objective sense. Someone could create a bike that looks like a Peg but would it ride like a Peg? Also, there is the reality that the frame cost is merely a portion of the whole. A copy of a $10,000 Pegoretti might cost $8000. Many of us feel that for the difference we will take the original, thank you.

[72gmc]

I'd much prefer an original from Van Gogh's olive tree series, on my wall.

[colker]

The speculation in the art market has very little to do w/ value of art which is very, very subjective. Contemporary art deals w/ many issues other than price. It´s main buyer are institutions which comission work from artists. Contemporary art is performance, installation, video.. hardly what you see at auctions.

[bcm119]

I'm not too familiar with the high-end art world. I had understood that the difference between owning an original Monet and a very high-quality photograph of the same Monet is that with an original you can see the brushwork, the subtlety of the strokes and the way the color of the strokes combine in a unique way. Plus there is the "I own it and nobody else does" factor.

This makes me confused about this new digital art. If the original is identical to my copy, then all that's left is the "I own it and nobody else does" factor. I suppose that has some value, but $69,000,000?

I'm not convinced by the comparison to, say, a Pegoretti. Owning a Pegoretti is owning and appreciating the original. Whatever mojo Dario imparted to his frames, whether the tubing selection, the quality of the welding/brazing, or alignment, or angles, or paint, most experienced riders would say that there is a difference between a Peg and other bikes. Not to say that Peg is the best bike (that's personal preference) but that it is different in the objective sense. Someone could create a bike that looks like a Peg but would it ride like a Peg? Also, there is the reality that the frame cost is merely a portion of the whole. A copy of a $10,000 Pegoretti might cost $8000. Many of us feel that for the difference we will take the original, thank you.

Agree with this.

It's almost like a social experiment on the theory of personal ownership. That said, there must be some value to applying this blockchain technology to digital rights management of creative content, but I can't wrap my head around how exactly it would work in the real world.

[colker]

Can't ride a painting...

I can´t eat a bike. How many hamburgers i could buy w/ 12k? Comparisons are usefull.

[colker]

I'm not too familiar with the high-end art world. I had understood that the difference between owning an original Monet and a very high-quality photograph of the same Monet is that with an original you can see the brushwork, the subtlety of the strokes and the way the color of the strokes combine in a unique way. Plus there is the "I own it and nobody else does" factor.

This makes me confused about this new digital art. If the original is identical to my copy, then all that's left is the "I own it and nobody else does" factor. I suppose that has some value, but $69,000,000?

I'm not convinced by the comparison to, say, a Pegoretti. Owning a Pegoretti is owning and appreciating the original. Whatever mojo Dario imparted to his frames, whether the tubing selection, the quality of the welding/brazing, or alignment, or angles, or paint, most experienced riders would say that there is a difference between a Peg and other bikes. Not to say that Peg is the best bike (that's personal preference) but that it is different in the objective sense. Someone could create a bike that looks like a Peg but would it ride like a Peg? Also, there is the reality that the frame cost is merely a portion of the whole. A copy of a $10,000 Pegoretti might cost $8000. Many of us feel that for the difference we will take the original, thank you.

Comparing art works w/ a bicycle is as enlightening as comparing a Pegoretti w/ a pizza. A pizzza is also one of a kind , hand made and much cheaper. Plus i can´t eat a Pegoretti when i am hungry.
Collecting art is more than owning something that nobody else has it, one of a kind. Rennaisance painting was done many times by studios w7 many artisas doing tha artist work. Sometimes you will have two, three versions of the same commission.

[Tom]

I never figured out what art was. I just know what affects me.

[j44ke]

Buying and selling art is a business. Don't get confused and try to make the price of a work of art a statement of its value or quality as creative work.

What this shindig should tell you is that someone has a lot of money (or simulacra of money) and needs to put it somewhere.

Saying that modern fine art is in some way rotten because of this transaction is getting suckered by a shell game.

Who has $69.3 million to spend on this? Who set up this deal? What's really going on here?

It isn't art that is rotten.