Uhoh - where's Appleyard? The flaneur had better step in, if he can stir his dozing brain into some kind of action. I've been thinking about the ludicrous prices being fetched by certain 'modern' artists lately - a train of thought encouraged by spectacularly overexcited reports from Sothebys New York auction rooms yesterday on the BBC (Godfrey Barker - I think it was he - seemed on the point of passing out). In the event, this happened - things hadn't gone quite as mad as predicted. But what is this all about? And why is it only certain 20th century painters and certain Impressionists that fetch these absurd prices? They most certainly aren't the easiest on the eye - Bacon, De Kooning, Pollock... Is it just that there's too much money swishing around looking for a sure thing, and, as ever, too little taste?
The Victorians had their moments - consider this - but you can somehow see the sense in the Babylonian Marriage Market and even the Monarch of the Glen. (Here's an image). A person could live with this kind of thing, just about - not so the Bacon, which belongs only in a museum and emits such ferocious bleakness that no one could possibly live with it. In the end, I suppose, it must be all about money, working away independently of the feeling human realm. The painting in itself barely matters...
Thursday, February 07, 2008
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I'm here, but there was some red wine....
ReplyDeleteTut tut. How often have I warned you against that Algerian Red Infuriator?
ReplyDeleteI could certainly live with Bacon's, I just couldn't afford it. I'm not sure I'd want the Long though - I'm not one for crowds (and it's such a small house).
ReplyDeleteMoney, yes, but more importantly buying more modern and 'challenging' works signals that they are not just dull and boring money-makers - they are - but they are modern and challenging themselves. Oh yeah, they're so hip with the zeitgeist.
ReplyDelete(Now I must just go and buy some of those underpriced Italian Old Masters and 18thC 'Brown Furniture'.
I think the programme had the answer: a few years back top price for Bacon was £3million, now it is £25m. A good return over five years by any standards including gold or property. I suspect the mature Bacon (who sold the odd painting to pay his gambling debts)knew he was turning out high class decorative art since the large areas of unprimed/monochrome painted canvas easily blend in with walls.....maybe this is too cynical, or envious, since I could cope with the odd image of a man cutting his throat if it was by him....as you know I like trickles of blood (big clue there Bryan)
ReplyDeleteCrikey, Bryan, I thought we finished the red wine on Saturday night?
ReplyDeleteI strolled into Christie's South Ken on Tuesday afternoon and had a squizz at the modern "art" on offer. Surreal? No, just UNreal: a huge and almost uniformly hideous collection of complete tosh and twaddle. I cannot believe the Cy Twombley scribbles went for well over £3 million. From a distance, I mistook it for an Emin, but close up, I admit, it was marginally more amusing. The Bacon triptych was plain disturbing. I know, I know, probably they said much the same about Rembrandt and Blake and Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh and Matisse, but then again why am I left with the abiding impression that some of these Saatchist/Spartist painters are just taking the michaelangelo?
Good point that, Captain B - and of course it means less painting time, more time getting pissed at Gaston's etc. Cynicism is entirely appropriate in such cases. And so true, Recusant, about the old masters and the furniture - if we're to take these top end vaules seriously, almost everything worth looking at is hugely underpriced just now.
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