Mona Lisa by Da Vinci, La Reve by Picasso, The scream by Edvard Munch and many more. Most of the people heard about these renown masterpieces before, but how many know the stunning and unimaginable prices of these paintings? How expensive are they? We're talking about millions of dollars as BBC Culture publishes details in
"Why is art so expensive?"
The story reports that art market is uncorrelated with the economy; even if the economy staggers, art market still prospers. However, only the first-class market, offering well-known artists' work, is making skyrocketed sales, bidding among billionaires, and nouveau riches, while the lower-market has little chance for such demand.
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| Picasso’s La Rêve (The Dream) |
Modern art, which nowadays is minimalist and abstract, leaves a lot of controversy as it is considerably more subjective and far less sophisticated than renaissance's or other past era's. To illustrate this, I will compare Voice of Fire by Barnett Newman and Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. Voice of Fire is undeniably one of the most controversial masterpieces due to its obvious simplicity containing solely three stripes on a canvas. Canadian government, however, bought the painting for approximately USD 1.8 million which was extremely extravagant that a lot of people critiqued whether it's a reasonable idea to do so. Mona lisa, on the other hand, undoubtedly is one of the invaluable realistic masterpiece that is approximately valued at USD 720 million and highly guarded at the Lourve. The latter is, by far, more complicated and beautiful to most of people around the world. However, to be fair with the Voice of Fire, I should compare it with other abstract art, let's say a Picasso's which is shown on above. The abstract piece portrays the idea that it is a woman. The artist surely requires artistic skills, unlike the Voice of Fire, which makes me think further that anyone can do that, and that any piece of paintings can be called an art? Concerning this, there's no clear boundary for that, it could be that I stick to the complicated and detailed portraits and paintings in previous era's art. The
Red Ball Project by Kurt Perschke is another interesting piece. The idea is the that the big red ball is moved to community places in many countries. Sometimes I couldn't help to feel the giant ball doesn't fit European's classic beauty, it looks more like a huge red ball has lost its way to those places. I may sound conflicted, but the video on the that page is quite entertaining and the idea is pretty creative. By the way, my favorite modern art is the floating cloud, actually it is the forming of many types of gases and looks like the actual cloud, by Berndnaut Smilde. The artwork interests me because not only is the piece a phenomenon combination of art and science, but also innovative and unique.
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| The voice of fire by Barnett Newman |
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| The floating cloud by Berndnaut Smilde |
The fact that medicine has the average profit margin of 300%. The figure looks appalling. I remember when I first knew it, I felt cheated by the drugstores and manufacturers. However, on second thoughts, there are other costs they have to cover, but still that percentage is high. Now let's take a look at Artwork's, suppose all the equipments' costs add up to USD 600, if the piece can be sold at USD 10,000, that would be 1,567%. The figure is absolutely more intimidating and intriguing. Now I don't dare to calculate Mona Lisa's. Perhaps we should create an abstract artwork and let's see if it can sell on e-bay or in the market? Unfortunately, not everyone has that wonderful opportunity. I quite agree with Georgina Adam that most of the time the market only needs paintings from the late and top artists, and leave little room for lesser-known artists to shine. I think the new artists need to show that in the future he has the possibility to join the top panel because the art collectors buy artwork for speculation. I had a chance to talk with a mother of a 9-year-old Thai boy several years ago and his story is really interesting. The boy loved to paint with Picasso's abstract styles. His parents had the idea of putting his paintings on e-bay and it was phenomenon. A lot of collectors from the US bought his artworks to arbitrage. According to his mother, these people thought that the boy could be one of the world's most famous artists, so they bought a lot of his work just in case. By the way, the boy was a genius one as he could play violin professionally, excelled in mathematics that he was sent to join older students, spoke English fluently by self-study. Therefore, in order to be a distinct artist, one should have something that stands out from the crowd.
When it comes to a product whether it is expensive or not, many people perceive that if it has many digits or a lot of zeros following, it's expensive. However, considering from economic point of view whether a product is expensive or not, a buyer or an investor needs to calculate the future value it can provide, that is, if the product can generate more value in the future, then it's not expensive. Imagine you have to buy a studio room in a nice condominium for THB 4,500,000. It may seem quite a lot at first, but considering future value the it can generate, you may think otherwise. Suppose that you buy this room for other people to rent and it gives you THB 30,000 a month. That's add up to THB 360,000 a year. After a year, you decide to sell it, and suppose this condominium is nearby sky train, the value is higher to THB 4,600,000 as people still want a place that is easy to travel. The total figure add up to THB 4,960,000, then it's not expensive after all as you have THB 460,000 profit. In my opinion, a product is expensive or not depends on whether it can generate more value in the future. If you're a billionaire, of course, arbitraging on the artworks doesn't hurt your wallet, and still a good investment.
Reference
Adam, G. (2013, May 2). Why is art so expensive?.
BBC Culture. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130417-why-is-art-so-expensive
Geddes, J. (2010, January 21). Voice of Fire: Are we over yet?. Maclean's art. Retrieved from
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/21/are-we-over-this-yet/
Medina, S. (2013, June 18). Watch 6 Wondrous Clouds Float Inside Museum Walls. Co.Design. Retrieved from
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672814/watch-6-wondrous-clouds-float-inside-museum-walls#1
PP's post reminds me again of how we value things. I especially like her different examples of art.
ReplyDeleteBut I wonder: is a perfect copy, a forgery, of a Picasso worth as much as a Picasso by Picasso? Would a perfect copy of Newman's Voice of Fire, which looks easy enough to copy perfectly, worth as much as the original? If the value of a forgery or other copy is not the same as the value of the original work of art, why is it less? And now that I think of it, could a copy be better and therefore more valuable than an original?
And I'm sure others found different points of interest to respond to in PP's response post.
Actually, I had another question about both Voice of Fire and the artificially created clouds by Smilde. I'm hoping someone else asks it and responds.
DeleteI don't think that forgeries are valued as much as the original ones. The reason why the originals are invaluable because they are extremely rare, and remarkably different from the forgeries - the colors, painting techniques, and so on - the most important thing is the copies are not painted by the artists themselves. If there are plenty of duplicated products in the market, people will pay less attention, and therefore the price will be reduced. For instance, a Ferrari and a Toyota, they both are cars, but the number of these two and their functions are significantly different. Ferrari has very limited numbers of cars while Toyota doesn't. Art, however, is more extreme as there is only one.
DeleteFurthermore, art collectors are the group that take it seriously than any other people as they have to bid for million of dollars. If they are not so rare, the prices can't reach this high. Normal people may value the art differently from the collectors though as they have distinct purposes, they may not likely to see the painting details thoroughly as the collectors do. Also, the constraint budget of each person also plays the role here. It's more like the market of the forgeries is for people with lower budgets, whereas the original market is for billionaires, institutions, museums, or other parties that can afford the high prices.
Personally I think the Voice of Fire is so easy to paint, anyone can do that, so the price shouldn't reach as high as millions of dollars. For the cloud, it needs experts in science and art working together to create that artificial floating smoke in a room.
DeleteI'm a big fan of coffee, an addict to its drugs in fact, drinking at least two large cups every day. As I was sitting down to enjoy my second dose just now, I also skimmed through PP's post again, and another point caught my interest.
ReplyDeleteIn her fifth paragraph, PP writes "generate more value", and I'm wondering what this means. Does it simply mean "increase in price" as PP seems to suggest in her following sentences? Or does value mean something different to "price"? In fact, I thought that PP might also have been suggesting a different definition of the noun (it's also a verb, but a noun in this context) value in her excellent example of the condo. that is resold a little later at a healthy profit.
What do you think? What does value really mean? Is the noun price a synonym or not?
And my thanks to PP for giving me some stimulating ideas to work on as I'm enjoying my second hit of coffee. Have you had your daily coffee quota yet? I recommend a quick response comment with your coffee, and I'm sure it goes equally well with tea or whatever you prefer for your breaks.
In my context, I use the term "value" in economic point of view - present value and future value. When investors buy a bond, for example, they can use this logic to calculate whether or not the future value has less or more value than it is today. Interest rate needs to be in the formulas though, which I will leave all the calculations. If the result is that future value is more than the present one, it's a good investment.
DeleteThe story of the boy you mentioned reminds me of the movie called "My Kid Could Paint That". It is a documentary film about talented 4-year-old girl, Marla Olmstead, who paint excellent abstract artworks, exhibit them and sell them for thousands of dollars. The movie raised some question whether the works are made purely by her or with the help of their parents. Anyway, I'm more curious about where she is now. Is she still doing art? Does she lost her gift when she grown up?
ReplyDeleteHis name is Dhanat and now he's 10. You can google for him to keep track. He is so versatile that he can play violin, paint, and study at bachelor's and master degree level. Even Chulalongkorn University asked him to join a project team. That is something. Actually, I found some clips of him, but they are in Thai. Hope Peter is ok here as you would like to know more of him and most of them are in Thai.
DeleteHis interview with Sorayut - one of the most famous news reporters in Thailand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrjEb1UkV5Q
His violin performance when he was 7:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s-b9k5XPWk