"Child damages $56M Rothko painting at Netherlands museum".
Click on the link to see what an example of a $56 million work of modern art looks like.
Restoration experts are currently working to determine the best course of action to repair the Rothko painting before it can be displayed again.
Well, here are a few suggestions:
1) Turn it upside down; this will double the value, far outstripping the cost of any repair.. Why? You wouldn't understand, peasant!
2) Paint over the whole thing; maybe a tasteful portrait of Elvis on a velour background.
3) Burn it and collect the full insured amount.
I guess I understand the idea of artwork as an investment, but doesn't that depend on their being other people who think the piece of art you have is worth more than you paid for it?
ReplyDeleteAnd you paid $56 million for an enormous paint chip?
As you may have guessed, my proofreader is on vacation.
DeleteAnd I couldn't be bothered.
Duck tape a banana to it.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. Follow me for more art tips.
PT Barham was right, there's a sucker born every minute.
ReplyDeleteWe need the late Robert Hughes to explain what they saw in Rothko, but all those guys are dead and gone. Something about the 'space age' and mechanistic modernity. But that's gone too. 'Space Odyssey' with Ligeti's discordant music was the epitome of 'the future' once too. Now it all just seems odd.
ReplyDeleteA sad side-note is how some black jazz musicians made records of squeaks and squarks and bashing pianos in the 1950s/60s and called it 'music of the future' because that was what they were told it was. We were all duped.
We were also told that Henry Miller's books he wrote in the 1930s (Tropic of Cancer, Nexus, Sexus, Plexus...) were the epitome of modern prose. I opened one recently, the prose was like verbal diarrhea. 'This guy's on drugs' I thought. Sure enough, amphetamines came into common use in the 1930s and Miller made use of them to write. They were all on drugs to 'enhance their creativity' from the 1930s onwards. It was modern progress, they believed.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Burroughs was on drugs, which is obvious if you ever read anything he wrote.
DeleteOn the other hand, so was Philip K. Dick, which surprised me because while he could be pretty out there, he also wrote pretty grounded characters.
The kid obviously took one look at that 'art' and said 'I'll finish it.' Thinking this would be a good deed, like a friend's sister who at eight years old covered the kitchen floor in Vegemite.
ReplyDeleteNow I think about it, that would have passed for a modern art masterpiece too.
"I covered the the kitchen floor in Vegemite. I call it 'Man's Inhumanity to Man'".
ReplyDeleteYou're just riffing off Win T Shoppers Peanut Butter Floor...
ReplyDeleteThere's sure to be an arts research grant for someone who wants to explore the connection between bread spreads and walking surfaces.
DeleteWim T Shipper's
ReplyDeleteThat's why I'll never be Elite!.
ReplyDeleteIf someone told me they'd spent $56mil on that I'd burst out laughing. "Good one!"
My coworker just noted that $56mil painting looks like a candy corn.
ReplyDeleteIt sure does!
DeleteWhen I was a kid, maybe eleven or twelve, my parents took me to the Dallas Museum of Art, and all I can remember is this giant wall-sized canvas covered in colored squares, each square framed by what looked like brown paper tape. It was by some famous artist (Matisse?). My dad’s reaction to it was typical dad (not pretty), and I remember thinking I could do that. I’ve never liked what passes for modern art since.
ReplyDeleteI went down to the National Gallery of Modern Art with my daughter and said the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI figure if a no talent hack like Hunter Biden can ask large money for it, then it really is nonsense.