/lit/ - Literature

income inequality >>> swelling in ranks of upper class >>> growth of luxury industries and commodities

basically with income inequality there is a correlate rise in services that feed, entertain, house, care for, &c for the rich. it is only "hard times" for some. it's not a question of entire social need, but the desire of particularly wealthy class.

further, i would even push you on this idea of "need." if one accepts death, you don't "need" anything. if you want to continue to live, then only very little is required for bare living. for example one doesn't "need" 2kcal per day, but we eat as much anyway. we don't "need" latest apple iphone, but it is the best selling product anyway. the conclusion i am leading you toward is that market patterns never reflect needs.

>>3147700

these 'hard times' are only hard for regular people

a lot of rich people are doing fine. also, bubbles tend to move around geographically and to different industries.

>>3147700

i imagine its another speculation bubble. say the housing bubble bursts. all the capital that would have been invested in property is now looking for somewhere else 'productive' to be invested. hence wild speculation on art, and another bubble is inflated.

OP again. Surely the buyers don't actually believe they're going to make a profit on these "investments" considering how this is obviously an absurd speculation bubble.

In which case, would this not also reflect that times are in fact not hard at all on this demographic of spenders, but rather that they on a whole have MORE spending power?

I can't believe that many people just decided they LOVE contemporary art...

>>3147778
i'm no art historian, but i would take issue with considering richter as "contemporary"

i realize that wrote definition of contemporary says its from living artists, but richter's importance (including his recent high selling paintings) has been historic. richter is already canon; he is no strange outlier or some controversial, non-respected painter

Billionaires are recession proof. That shit won't stop selling for millions of dollars until lynch mobs start forming at the mansion gates.

what do you guys think of the painting by the way?

I love it. I don't know about 34 million, but it's certainly very very good.

And, here we go. Another completely unrelated art-based thread. This is a literature board, not some board where idiots can brag about indulging to their whims.

>>3147799

It's kind of cool looking I guess...

But really, it's just a status symbol and the actual quality of the painting is arbitrary. It's the emperor's new clothes.

>>3147778

well many of them will be making money if they can get in at the right time and get out before the inevitable burst. also (and someone may have to correct me here), these insane speculative practices are sort of an indicator that there is a lack of investment opportunities in actual productive capital. usually capitalists invest in raw materials/machinery and labour, which are then used to make some useful profit, which is sold on the market for the outlay + a profit. buying and selling art is different, because its basically just trading something through more and more hands and hoping that it 'magically' increases in value forever. no new work is being done on it. this is called 'merchant capital'. it sort of fetishises the commodity itself, rather than a logical evaluation of the work that was actually put into it.

i need to read more to be really confident, but start looking into the marxist theories of 'falling rate of profit' and 'fictitious capital'

>>3147813

btw i think its a cool painting.

>>3147799

The colour philosophy is well thought out for expressing the post-modern condition, and a possible cyberpunk ambiance. The colours are at once swift and rapid, and languid: they express, and contrast to create human at his or her most conflicted, and scared.

>>3147845

>>3147813
>>3147833

me again. thought i'd say there's a documentary about this kind of stuff here;

http://vimeo.com/47336981

i haven't watched it in its entirety yet, but ive seen bits and pieces and it looked good. maybe i'll watch it now and give any relevant critiques here a bit later. there's also an excellent old documentary called 'ways of seeing', episode 3 (iirc) is about how many oil paintings were produced in order to celebrate a man's wealth. not exactly the same as speculation, but again this theme of art as a plaything of the extremely wealthy.

I'd buy that and put it up in my office, right in front of my desk. To look at when I get writer's block.

economics major here,

it's called conspicuous consumption and it's the same reason luxury fashion brands exist. It's not 'insane speculation', that's a stupid fucking term. This piece of art is an asset but it is probably not considered an 'investment' by the buyer. Most likely, it is an area where he can, in essence, demonstrate his spending power. This sort of thing might seem stupid, but remember that this sort of super-rich indulgence in luxury commodities like art is what fueled the great artists of the Renaissance.

>>3147700
>mfw when i thought the sotheby's attendants were a part of the painting and that it was actually interesting
seriously that's an exceptionally lit and composted photograph

>>3147885

Some people do buy this stuff to resell it: it's a great investment, actually, considering how much people spend on this occasional trash.

>>3147885

it is absolutely an investment. a lot of these people who buy paintings merely store them and flip them later on. you really think all these rich people have hundreds of paintings and sculptures displayed prominently in their home?

economics major being completely disconnected from reality? what a surprise ... lol

>>3147885

never heard of an art dealer? fucking moron. throw your economics education in the trash.

>>3147888
so meta

>>3147905
nah seriously i'm finna write a paper on that photograph

>>3147888
I wouldn't call it exceptionally lit or composted but yeah, the picture itself caught my eye more than the painting it was depicting. Just look at the girl compared to the guy, she's so small, and elongated. Look at her face. I'll save this one.

>>3147911
There's a world-within-a-world effect going on there.

>>3147924
I think there's a lot more to it than just that. As a photograph, it's interesting, there's a level of surrealness. The lighting is really complacent and plastic, the people's faces are very expressive, they seem out of context to the actual situation. The ancient-looking backs of the canvases contrast heavily with the the richter, the black background contrasts with the entire foreground, the two people are lit and sized dramatically differently.

>>3147845
So much sophomore art class...

>>3147700
Three minutes with photoshop could've yielded that. Seriously, I've seen better stuff on deviantart

>>3147938
97deep194you

>>3147938
Stuff is plural, so feel free to only post two instances.

>>3147845
>swift and rapid, and languid

Level 80 troll. Good work, my man.

>>3147871

ok this documentary was pretty excellent. didn't pull many punches. i would have liked it to go into more detail about what other pies these investors have their fingers in, if anything.

>>3148027

It was kinda right about the collapse, but looks like things have recovered.

http://galleristny.com/2012/11/christies-postwar-sale-warhol-rothko-million-record-sale/

>>3148031

might be a bull-trap before a real fall. i might look into it more. the art world plus inherent instability of capitalism are two things that interest me greatly.