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Some people have too much money

I wouldn't have paid a penny over $20,000,000 for that.

AUCTION-articleLarge.jpg

I thinks we paid 1.8M back in the day for this one, and there was much national outrage that the National Gallery of Canada would shell out so much for it. Sounds like a good investment now.
 

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Maybe this story would have created less consternation if the painting had been done by Picasso, or another big name painter. I don't think many people outside of the art world have heard of this guy - I hadn't. And a wiki search reveals that Mr. Newmann is also a big name painter.

Who am I to complain how others spend their disposable income? sibud

And some of our neighbours' tongues might be wagging if we brought home that green frame Ducati that went for $100,000 at the Las Vegas auction recently. I wonder how much a restored R32 would cost? :D
 
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I would have been far more bold and gone diagonally, but not simply corner to corner, a precise 37.5 degree angle from upper right towards lower left. That would have pushed this well over the 100 million mark. But alas, I was not consulted. Their loss.

Here we go...:doh some people are always "looking for an angle":nono
 
I have owned several motorcycles. I have owned several boats. I just got back from 10 days sailing in the BVI's. Flying to Denver at the end of the month. RA Rally in June, BMWST Rally in June, PNW in July. Boundary Waters canoe trip in August. NW Arkansas on the bike in September.

Who am I to complain how others spend their disposable income?

Anyone else here live in a glass house?

+1
 
Sorry guys, but you just don't get it.

This is fine art.
The 'Blue' is particular, as is the 'White'. Simply calling those colours blue and white is a travesty, and an insult to the artist.
Personally I would not have paid that much, I have other priorities; to ridicule the connoisseur who managed to procure the piece does more to point out deficiencies in your characters than it does to show shortfalls in his or hers.

BTW
Sotheby's auctioned this piece.
Barnett Newman was the artist.

Hope that makes you think

That is a lot of MONEY. I would bet that they artist was lucky if he got 10% of the selling price.
 
Art and the discussion thereof is a tricky topic. As a small child when visiting in laws I spied a mag showing splatter dribble painting. Much later in life actually went back and tried comprehend how this, the American breakout of the modern era, happened. It took afew years of reading, looking and many evenings sitting at lectures, to get a handle on "The Triumph of American Painting", (Sandler). In the end it's less about painting, the object itself or whether today we could throw an old can of paint and get rich.

It's more, IMHO, about what promoters/critics of that era said/wrote/hyped about the objects, and the timing of all this frenetic art activity mid twentieth century in America, and now it's position in the long history of humans making objects/art.

Enter, a piece of this activity, a big blue piece, onto the auction scene. and we all know what can happen at an auction. Actually, IMO, it's very exciting to watch. Don't really care, as others have said, how much cash anyone has or what they want to spend it on. Gratitude is the beginning of happiness, others can grapple with envy. Back to art.

I suspect one of the objects of greatest enjoyment for Pollack was his green Olds convertible with its 303 ci v8. did the "great American" abstract painters really knew what they doing, or lived to profit from their work? some did and it, abstraction, can never happen again, and that's what lures fortunes to grab a piece whenever it comes up for sale. It's a piece of an era that catapulted American painting ahead of what previously had been happening on the continent. Two cents only, it's been fun.
 
My wife, Mary, (an arteeest) still shakes her head in disbelief at stuff like this. However, the artist doesn't care as he laughs all the way to the bank. Now, what was it that P.T. Barnum is credited for saying (but didn't actually)?? "there's a sucker born every minute". Give me a painting of a Coke bottle any day. - Bob
 
... did the "great American" abstract painters really knew what they doing, or lived to profit from their work? some did and it, abstraction, can never happen again, and that's what lures fortunes to grab a piece whenever it comes up for sale. It's a piece of an era that catapulted American painting ahead of what previously had been happening on the continent.

Title: Eight Elvises
Sold, 2008; $100,000,000
Warhol-8-Elvises.jpg


Title: 200 One Dollar Bills
Purchase price, 1986, $385,000
Sold, 2009; $43, 800,000
f09scon1warhdollarg.jpg


Big Campbell?s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable)
Sold, 2012; $23,800,000
andy_warhol_soup_can.jpg


You can probably guess the name of the artist.
 
And the problem remains that a piece of art? Cannot be ridden down the road. Go figure? I think, especially today considering what's happening to the value of the American dollar, if one has A ton of cash, collecting stuff, art, muscle cars, really rare bikes, real estate, land/farms, makes more sense than parking dollars in the Caimans. Precious metal also comes to mind. Pop art is another strange place including theory about the nature or meaning of art? Gotta admit it, these guys certainly knew how to hustle, and they hustle where the cash is. Remember what happened to the art when Rome fell? They took the horses, sacked the rest, so to speak. Tongue slightly in cheek.
 
Then there's pro athletes and rock stars.I always thought,what with Bono hob nobbing with heads of state and so on,that he could buy a small African country and feed everyone in it ,rather than resorting to the guilt trip.Maybe a large African country.
 
Multiple examples of six zeroes too many throughout the thread. The OP definitely got the title correct as far as it went. A better title might be some people have too much money and too little brains.
 
File It Under:

If you have to ask, :scratch
you just don't understand. :dunno

The fact of art is that it's subjective. It's meant to evoke emotion...
Can't argue that this piece has certainly succeeded with the MOA crew! :laugh
 
It's not only people who buy art.

Someone just paid $175,000 for a superman comic book. It wasn't even in perfect condition.
 
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