posted
How much would you think this sculpture is worth, artistically - and what would you be willing to pay?
$6k ?
$15k ?
$30k ?
$100k ?
$500k ?
$2 mil ?
$10 mil ?
$18 mil ?
$24 mil ?
$31 mil ?
Take a guess at which one of these prices this sculpture fold for?
. . . . . . . . . .
Sold for 24 million dollars.
A large-scale metal sculpture by American artist David Smith has become the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction, fetching 23.8 million dollars at Sotheby's in New York.
The 1965 sculpture was finally snapped up by Manhattan dealer Larry Gagosian at nearly twice its high estimate of 12 million dollars.
Experts attributed the record price to the fact that most of Smith's works are in museums or permanent collections and therefore make extremely rare auction appearances.
I personally wouldn't have given $250 dollars for it...I think it stinks artistically. But then again, art is subjective I suppose.
Still, if it fetched so much because it is rare, then my gradeschool crayon projects should be worth a mint - there's not many of them that I have left.
I wonder if put them on eBay with a bunch of artspeak about "the wonderful style of this mid-western artist" if some jackass would give me a few thousand for one? Hmmmmmm...might be worth a shot.
-------------------- Todd Gill Outside The Lines Potterville, MI Posts: 7792 | From: Potterville, MI | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Well, the juxtaposition of the tension between the unharmonious patterns is what makes it so pleasing to the eye. If he had used more neuter or flirtatious masses then the tensions of the massive shapes would have cancelled out the larger elements of mass and it would have had a more empathetic reproachment.... HUH?? DUH!!
-------------------- Jane Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, Il. 61764 815-844-7024 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 4102 | From: Pontiac, IL USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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posted
It seems if you want to get paaaaiiiiddd for your ART you have to die, or be rich to begin with and learn to shmoooze with the snobbies that wouldn't know art if it hit em in the face. I think the main reason people pay that much for something like this is simply for bragging rights..."I paid 24 mil for this sculpture...la ti da...whooptie doo. I might pay 24 bucks for a print but I guess I can't clutter my yard with that.
Like you said though, art is subjective and everyone is entitled to their own opinion...that's just a loooot of money!
-------------------- Kelsey Dum Dum Designs Sherwood, AR 72120 501.765.2166 kelsey@dumdesigns.com Posts: 827 | From: Sherwood, AR | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
The high price tag means the council won't send them a notice for an untidy yard with scrap metal awaiting cartage to the recyclers. They get to keep their junk where they left it when it fell off the truck!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Unfortunately "Art" in general is perceived in the size of its price tag.
A struggling artist I know finally got her first exhibition. Nice work if you like "primitive" art.
She was told to add a zero to all her prices. "But that $240 painting only took a couple of hours ... $2400???"
Word got around the "in" crowd that her works could be a good investment and the exhibition sold out in days. Would that have happened at $240 a painting?
She never looked back, and now adds TWO zeros!
Wonder what the one she gave me early on is worth now !!!!
posted
It does have some scrap metal value, without a doubt. The only thing it makes me ponder is how a committee agreed to pay that kind of coin for a big stack of metal shapes. I've seen some beautiful abstract metal sculptures, but this isn't one of them.
My mind wanders. And that's not a good thing, 'cause it's too small to be out there alone. Posts: 3129 | From: Tooele, UT | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
On a related observation to what Jon mentioned..
A friend was trying to sell his restaurant business for health reasons...After having been listed for 6 months with no serious bites he re-listed with a different agent who upped the asking price to almost double the original listing.
He sold it within 2 weeks at the inflated price.
"Perceived Value"
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
posted
I would pay to see it blown up and carted away. I feel it is an insult to the real artists who are struggling to make a living. Maybe they judge the value by just how ugly they can make it.
-------------------- Bill Riedel Riedel Sign Co., Inc. 15 Warren Street Little Ferry, N.J. 07643 billsr@riedelsignco.com Posts: 2953 | From: Little Ferry, New Jersey, USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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When Gump was 4, he combined Lincoln Logs, Sesame Street blocks, 2 Video tape boxes, a box of Cheerios, scrap 2x4s from the shop and came up with the exact same design! Time to call a lawyer...
Rapid
-------------------- Ray Rheaume Rapidfire Design 543 Brushwood Road North Haverhill, NH 03774 rapidfiredesign@hotmail.com 603-787-6803
I like my paint shaken, not stirred. Posts: 5648 | From: North Haverhill, New Hampshire | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by George Perkins: I've never figured out the "art" deal either. I watched the film Pollack and his stuff looked like my work table at my old shop.
Pollack's problem...and it isn't really his problem, cause he's dead...is that he used Benjamin Moore house paint, and all of his paintings are peeling off of the canvases now. The last laugh is on him.
posted
Go the "buying a Mac" thread and you will understand a little about perceived value. It must be worth it if they are asking, right?
To boot, when you end up buying over priced merchandise, you defend them to the ends of the earth for charging that much. Otherwise you have to admit you are a sucker.
-------------------- Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Posts: 2785 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
Looks like someone walked into a machine shop, saw a bunch of aluminum billets laying around, or maybe bought them at a military surplus auction, tigged them together and called it "art". I guessed $30K. Boy my art just took a price hike!!! Todd Gill you are one sick puppy!!
-------------------- Ricky Jackson Signs Now 614 Russell Parkway Warner Robins, GA (478) 923-7722 signpimp50@hotmail.com
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Issac Newton Posts: 3528 | From: Warner Robins, GA | Registered: Oct 2004
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""Good judgment comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" - Will Rogers Posts: 3487 | From: Beautiful Newaygo, Michigan | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Heheheheee....I remember about 30 years ago, a sign shop had a couple of sheets of 4x8 masonite tacked up on the wall. They used them to ckean their brushes and rollers.
They also has an Interior Decorator who would call them with a size and color combination he was looking for. They then cut out the appropriate section, framed it and sold it to him!
-------------------- Si Allen #562 La Mirada, CA. USA
(714) 521-4810
si.allen on Skype
siallen@dslextreme.com
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Brushasaurus on Chat Posts: 8831 | From: La Mirada, CA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
The first sign painter I worked for used to keep a piece of masonite on the wall by the bench to stroke out his brushes. The resulting design (usually a nude) would inevitably be purchased by a fascinated customer. Art is definately subjective, probably the most successful and popular artist now is Thomas Kincade and I can't stand his stuff.
posted
that sculpture sure has no appeal to me, what a bunch of junk. fools & their money
quote:I've never figured out the "art" deal either. I watched the film Pollack and his stuff looked like my work table at my old shop.
I have a piece in my shop thta once hung in an art show. It is the carefully disassembled bottom panel of a normal galvinized aluminum garbage can. It is very weathered & dented from the years. I struggled to un-crimp the joint between the sides & the bottom to achieve a nice aged & ragged edge, rather then cut it free.
The best part of its asthetic appeal is rooted in the fact that I paid $25,000.00 for it. At that time it was a complete garbage can & it came complete with a fully functioning sign & screen printing business at no extra charge.
Years of 1-shot enamels & Naz-Dar screen inks were disposed of through that can in the form of messy clean-up rags, wads of "skin" off the top of cans, & other waste left over from color mixing. The bottom of the can was quite thick with the conglomeration of debris bonded through the natural adhesion of wet paints & inks. When I retired this can from daily service & converted it to art... I peeled of the last inch of filthy looking debris, & in the process broke the skin of the earliest years of ink residue revealing an intrestingly random array of freshly exposed (& still slightly wet) original bright hues interspersed by the texture & juxtaposed beauty of aged metal & a slight dusting of genuine trash particals.
OK.. maybe you have to see it to appreciate it, but the final punchline to this story is the rest of the can. It also hung in the art exhibit. It was splayed out into a nice arch, 3 ft. wide, 2 ft. tall, & leaning back slightly on some old recycled flat bar from my shop. I completed the piece by screwing a perfectly drippy old 1-shot can down in the lower left corner, put a well used multi-colored brush handle & stir-stick in the can, & hung (with a concealed screw)an ancient(& dirty)paint roller handle up on the top right corner.. along with a genuinely used old paint rag.
That piece was bought by an art gallery for their front display!
posted
I may be whack, but I like it!!! It exhibits an overall balance w/irregular forms, yes! I like it.......have to go w/Sam on this one...
-------------------- Frank Magoo, Magoo's-Las Vegas; fmagoo@netzero.com "the only easy day was yesterday" Posts: 2365 | From: Las Vegas, Nv. | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
A local artist was commisioned by the city to create a series of columns that were supposed to represent various stages of the County's history, to be erected in a new park. Not knowing anything about the project, I saw the columns being erected as I drove by the park one morning. After a few days of seeing no further progress, I asked a friend of mine "When are they going to put a roof on the new picnic shelter?" After he stopped laughing, he enlightened me. $100,000.00 of "art".
-------------------- Tim Whitcher Adrian, MI Posts: 1546 | From: Adrian, MI | Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
This has nothing to do with OP's pic being here . . . but everytime I hear that thing about 'percieved value' mentioned with regard to something like this kind of 'art' I always think of that story: 'The Emporers New Clothes' . . . . .
Ok MrMc & Sam, so you like it. That's fine, I mean appearantly someone else liked it enough to have it sitting there . . . . but was it really WORTH 24 mil?? Did somebody get ripped off??
I wonder, if bids were taken, what would all the different prices & designs be?
By the way, is is supposed to rust with time?? Because to me, that is the only way it could possibley become interesting . . .
It's kind'a funny, but had I not known the price, or if the price would have been . . .mabey like $10,000, I still would'nt necessarily want it on my place, but I would've had a lot more appreciation for it as an abstract.
Funny how that 'perceived value' thing means something is supposed to automatically be worth more than it is simply because it has a huge price tag, and not for what it actually is . . .
lol 'percieve' . . . what? Is that like ESP? To me, you ought to pay exactly what something should really be worth . . . so I 'percieve' the value of this peice was over-priced for what it is. Knowing the bottom dollar made it of less value to me. Not more.
I'm not fooled. The emporer is butt nekid.
-------------------- Signs Sweet Home Alabama
oneshot on chat
"Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, work like a dog" Posts: 5758 | From: "Sweet Home" Alabama | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
ARTISTS,,, I think most of you are missing the point . I didnt say I liked or disliked the sculpture, WHAT I SAID WAS IF SOMEONE GAVE YOU 25,000,ooo $ for a piece of your art would you take it , or tell them its only worth 250 $ YOSEMITE SAM
-------------------- Sam Radoff yosemite sam's auto art 3623 springer 519-652-6956 yosemite@execulnk.com Posts: 52 | From: Delaware, Ont. | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Who missed the point? Most of us replied about the value of the peice.Obviously, if a person does'nt like the thing they might consider paying what it'd bring in scrap metal . . .
I said I think someone should pay what something is really worth, so I'm saying I would NOT have charged 24 mil for this peice, (and I would'nt own it at any price.) If they insisted I receive 24 mil for it, well . . . I have a lot of favorite causes most of that would go to.
posted
Personally, I love this kind of sculpture. But that one pictured in the original post appears to be David Smith's CUBI XXVII , and the piece that sold for 23.8 mil is this one, CUBI XXVIII :
If the price went that high at auction, it means at least two very wealthy people thought it was worth nearly 24 mil. If I had crazy money like that...there's no telling what I'd spend it on.
I wanted to quickly add a link to my favorite large scale metal sculptor: John Henry, Sculptor Take a look...it's cool stuff.
[ November 14, 2005, 11:38 PM: Message edited by: Joe Endicott ]
-------------------- Joe Endicott NEXCOM (Navy Exchange Service Command) Signing Programs Specialist Virginia Beach, VA jeendicott@msn.com
"I want to be Stereotyped....I want to be Classified." Posts: 681 | From: Virginia Beach, VA USA | Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Butterworth: Unfortunately "Art" in general is perceived in the size of its price tag.
A struggling artist I know finally got her first exhibition. Nice work if you like "primitive" art.
She was told to add a zero to all her prices. "But that $240 painting only took a couple of hours ... $2400???"
Word got around the "in" crowd that her works could be a good investment and the exhibition sold out in days. Would that have happened at $240 a painting?
She never looked back, and now adds TWO zeros!
Wonder what the one she gave me early on is worth now !!!!
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