Artsy Fartsy

The art culture is seemingly quintessential to the London lifestyle. Prior to moving to London, my own interest and exposure to art was limited to the teenage mutant ninja turtles (yes, Leonardo et. al.). I now know slightly more than what Nickelodeon was able to teach me and have been fortunate enough to view a few galleries in London with a good friend who is a educated in the field. While viewing the works in many of these galleries a lot of different thoughts passed through my mind that essentially boils down to questioning the value of art.

As I walked through the Saatchi Gallery a few weeks ago, viewing pieces of contemporary art, I saw a lot of things that I found to be extremely aesthetically pleasing, and an equal number of items that simply looked like trash. Among the pieces that were actually interesting to look at, the common trend was definitely that there was a unique and creative way of presenting an idea that was easy to connect with. A simple example is a collage that when viewed from afar looks like three women in veils and when you look at it up close, it is all pornographic photos making the collage. The simplicity in the theme and brilliance in its presentation made me appreciate that particular work. On the other hand there was also a bed that had a pile of inflatable mattresses that were partially melted. I saw this and asked around for an explanation and no one could give one. That was when I thought to myself that this was legitimately rubbish. However, someone paid a good deal of money for that to have been made and someone thought it was good enough to show at the Saatchi Gallery!

I can't complain that some pieces are better than others, that is the nature of anything in this world. However, what was important to me was the amount of money being spent on the art, both bad and good. Upon asking my friends how artists find funding and what kinds of prices art can fetch, I was pretty surprised to say the least. Not only do patrons pay a lot of money to sponsor the arts, but rich people pay a lot of money for something as simple as a painting. A lot of art apparently is sold in the region of 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars. To me those prices don't make economical sense! I can't fathom how someone can expect to get the amount of value from the art that is probably just hanging on a wall in their study.

It may sound like I don't appreciate fine art, but the issue to me is simply one of money not well spent. I honestly believe that there are many other fields that could benefit far more and produce more if given the money. For example, anthropology and sociology are legitimately important, but I've never heard of an anthropologist being paid enormous sums of money for producing work that helps us understand humankind better. I suspect the only reasonable explanation is that of a luxury good, where people want to pay more money for it because of the perception, and unfortunately, perceptions are in fact reality. This is why Damien Hirst will get paid unnecessary sums of money for putting a cow in formaldehyde.