Art is like comedy... In comedy, you can get away with a lot. As long as you're funny. In art, you can get away with a lot. As long as the art is good. (I'm not talking legally, I'm talking morally/ethically/aesthetically/culturally.)
(Banksy's a good example. I'd really rather not have to see shitty graffiti all over the neighborhood. But when a Banksy piece turns up, I'm okay with it. Because I think his art is interesting and relevant.)
Prince's "New Portraits" series is shitty art. It's somewhere between tone deaf and behind-the-times. It's obvious. He's not adding anything interesting to the photos. He's not saying anything interesting about copyright. Etc.
You can view it as a commentary on the shallowness of the elitist art collector world. Artists like Prince are all playing a game trying to con multi-millionaires into forking over megabucks for crap that everyone in their client's social sphere fawns over as some sort of status symbol.
> He's not adding anything interesting to the photos.
I like this about it. He adds a banal, trivial, perhaps non-sensical comment that satirizes the emptiness and one-sidedness of communication on today's most popular social platform. And the timing was perfect.
How about you actually link a somewhat-credible source claiming that, and not a bunch of commenters?
Also, googling "Onement VI money laundering", the first result is StormFront...nice.
A blue painting with a white stripe does not take an ounce of talent. Nor should that painting sell for more than the cost of paint to paint the canvas with. Believing it is a front for money laundering is far easier to believe than a fool spending millions of dollars for a color separated by a stripe of another color.
There's also "Voice of Fire" [0]. Same concept but uh... red and blue instead of blue and white. Really speaks to me ya know?
Don't forget Onement I [1]. The same painting, again, but brown with a yellow stripe! How does he come up with it!
I actually quite like those paintings. Maybe not worth $44m (to me, maybe to others), but probably a lot more than paint + canvas.
From afar, it seems that being an artist is actually sort of similar to being a developer/entrepreneur. Let's say you're a technically able artist. You can create anything. But what do you actually deliver? How do you create "value" (i.e. a piece someone, somewhere, loves)
As a comparison: there are plenty of developers who can reverse engineer device drivers. But knowing which driver to actually reverse engineer, that can actually deliver value to someone, that's the tricky part.
My point is things like this are why people "outside the scene looking in" see it as nothing but millionaires losing a bet, money laundering, or some form of joke rich people pull just because they can. "Look how rich I am. I can spend $35m on an unpainted canvas." [0]
I have respect for two things: Things that require such skill that other humans are not able to trivially reproduce it and things that are so damn simple that it is amazing it took us 10s/100s years to figure it out.
I feel there are two schools of thought. Those who "get" modern/contemporary art and those who don't.
Those who do say: "Yeah, you could have done this. But did you?"
Those who don't say: "I don't think I'd get paid $10 million for a 20ft canvas covered in my own feces and I don't think any reasonable person would. So they don't."
Looking back, I should have used a less criminal/more light-hearted example to try or made a better attempt at illustrating where I stand on these things.
[0] At least I hope this hasn't happened and there was at least some paint on them. [1]
[1] But a redditor did hang up 3 blank canvases on their wall out of laziness and others saw "art" in it. So there's that at least. http://i.imgur.com/oTKPb.png
Parody is ageless art form. I would not have canned shit in gallery over and over again. Having different kinds of bad art in gallery is always hilarious.
But I have to admit I'm but of troll. The real treat is art snob fetishising over paint stains.
(Banksy's a good example. I'd really rather not have to see shitty graffiti all over the neighborhood. But when a Banksy piece turns up, I'm okay with it. Because I think his art is interesting and relevant.)
Prince's "New Portraits" series is shitty art. It's somewhere between tone deaf and behind-the-times. It's obvious. He's not adding anything interesting to the photos. He's not saying anything interesting about copyright. Etc.