[lbo-talk] Questions from before the Global Minotaur...

[// ravi]

On Nov 24, 2011, at 7:55 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Ravi: " sells implies some sort of market or consumer decision"
> 
> [WS:]  Not necessarily, at least not in the "individualistic" sense.
> The market system encourages competition, which in the intellectual
> commodity business invariably means vying for audience's attention.
> So everyone tries to outbid everyone else by employing more and more
> crass attention grabbing gimmicks - hence the primacy of showmanship
> over craftsmanship.

I don’t disagree with you (FWIW; I am not art critic!). I just wonder what it means to say “sells”. I mean, Thomas Kinkade “sells” :-). But 99% of the populace has no idea who Rothko or Stella are. A much larger number know who Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Picasso are. Audiences for modern art galleries are probably a minuscule percentage of even art consumers, and a good chunk of that audience will pay the entry price to stare befuddled at some alternate splash of paint than Pollock’s (I will admit this is true, at least for me, for the Mona Lisa which left me unmoved). As for the people who buy art for the millions, it’s not clear how discerning they are (rather than taking their cues from modern day Greenbergs and that whole ecosystem that Tom Wolfe IIRC described).

	—ravi