Damien Hirst is minted.

swears

preppy-kei
Wow.
I saw him on the South Bank show last night, and he had sold that giant atonomy model thing for a million quid. Then he said he'd bought back some of his early work for £6 million from Saatchi, after making "£25-30 million" from a single show! I knew he was well-off, but I had know idea the art racket was so lucrative, I always assumed artists got ripped off like muscians do. Jeff Koons was on it as well, he's probably rolling in it too. Ever read that essay by Robert Hughes in the late 80s Art & Money? Well, it's ten times worse now, it seems. It's a shame because I do like Koons and Hirst's stuff a lot, as eye candy, if nothing else.
 

tht

akstavrh
thought it was funny reading about feldman (the composer) who bought something off rauschenberg for whatever loose cash he was carrying on that day ($17 if i recall) and sold it in the 80s

also slightly amused that the most expensive painting in the world is owned by a mexican

always a funny subject cos of the confluence of fine art, charlatans, insecure hedgefund managers and the occasional rasputin figure like saatchi

not sure about damien hirst, sometimes witty and diverting enough, sometimes shit but i haven't seen enough (same for chapmans)

robert hughes is just a cunt
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
one of my friends who is Cuban used to paint in Koons' assembly line or whatever. his workers would do all of the actual work, work off models or instructions Koons gave them, and Koons would rake in the $cashmoney$. so my friend would make nothing, keep getting evicted, and Koons would be getting all the credit. he eventually quit, but now even having worked for Koons isn't exactly getting the backers and investors lined up single file to make his career. the art world is way more fucking cutthroat than the music industry. art = a luxury commodity. there's so much at stake. it's a few lucky art dealers who are great hustlers who end up determining who the next "great" artists are.
 

swears

preppy-kei
Yeah, but people are paying for Koons ideas (whether you think they are any good or not) not his labour. Isn't it a bit like expecting an architect to build a house brick by brick?
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
i don't think there's anything wrong with it, swears. i just think it's funny how it works.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
haha... remember stories a buddy tells me of organizing art shows in the 80s in an abandoned building when he and a bunch of art-college drop-outs were living the life - squatting in the condemned old library in London - and one of the kids that showed there was a drunk little bull-dog of a man -- tells me of one incident where he was yelling and verbally bludgening the giant security guard they had hired over some dispute or other, the poor giant helplessly backed into a corner - damian hurst.
 

mms

sometimes
one of my friends who is Cuban used to paint in Koons' assembly line or whatever. his workers would do all of the actual work, work off models or instructions Koons gave them, and Koons would rake in the $cashmoney$. so my friend would make nothing, keep getting evicted, and Koons would be getting all the credit. he eventually quit, but now even having worked for Koons isn't exactly getting the backers and investors lined up single file to make his career. the art world is way more fucking cutthroat than the music industry. art = a luxury commodity. there's so much at stake. it's a few lucky art dealers who are great hustlers who end up determining who the next "great" artists are.

a pal of mine works for hurst, he gets danger money for using formaldahyde and making those pictures out of flies, apparently they stink. hurst is alright according to him.
The art world is pretty mad i think, from a few people i know who have been involved. utterly self serving in alot of ways, and an utterly locked down system. The whole arts council grants thing is mental in the uk too.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
hehe! the YBAs are interesting to me, but i can never tell if i *like* them. i wrote a paper about liam gillick once, while i was studying contemporary artists with the curator of the "utopia" station at the venice biennale in 2004.

anecdote: this professor/curator decided to have a big panel discussion where most of the utopia station artists came to my campus. one of the events was a rirkrit tiravanjia performance--he cooked curry for everyone to eat. no kidding. while we ate one of my friends was sitting next to liam gillick, who appeared coked up. someone finally asked why he wasn't really eating, to which he replied nastily "rirkrit isn't exactly famous for washing his hands..."

that cracked me up. the artists all seemed to hate one another, especially the british ones.
 

mms

sometimes
hehe! the YBAs are interesting to me, but i can never tell if i *like* them. i wrote a paper about liam gillick once, while i was studying contemporary artists with the curator of the "utopia" station at the venice biennale in 2004.

anecdote: this professor/curator decided to have a big panel discussion where most of the utopia station artists came to my campus. one of the events was a rirkrit tiravanjia performance--he cooked curry for everyone to eat. no kidding. while we ate one of my friends was sitting next to liam gillick, who appeared coked up. someone finally asked why he wasn't really eating, to which he replied nastily "rirkrit isn't exactly famous for washing his hands..."

that cracked me up. the artists all seemed to hate one another, especially the british ones.

are the yba's still part of the make up of modern art and the extention of culture anymore?
That was a massive 90's thing, when artists were stars. i only vaguely know who the young artists of this decade are, there isn't that cultural thing, which fitted tidily into the britpop thing too. my gf has a terrible book of rankins shit dazed and confused photos from the 90's and models are next to artists are next to pop stars are next to pop stars girlfriends.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
hmm the YBAs were big in the US around 2000. i guess they're still around in some form, but no, they're not as big of a deal...
 

swears

preppy-kei
High Art Lite by Julian Stallabrass is a good book on the YBAs, although of course mostly damning of them. I think the Chapmans have a very engaging creepy style and Damien Hirst has done the odd good piece, yet Stallabrass seems to be very opposed to visual pleasure for the sake of it, but I think there's a place for that. One interesting point he makes is how the "Britishness" of the YBAs is undermined by the fact they were so heavily influenced by American artists like Jeff Koons, Bruce Nauman, Mike Kelley, all the "neo-geo" stars of the late 80s.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"one of my friends who is Cuban used to paint in Koons' assembly line or whatever. his workers would do all of the actual work, work off models or instructions Koons gave them, and Koons would rake in the $cashmoney$."
That's always how it's been, Rodin used to make miniatures and get his pupils to scale it up.

"thought it was funny reading about feldman (the composer) who bought something off rauschenberg for whatever loose cash he was carrying on that day ($17 if i recall) and sold it in the 80s"
Who is that doctor or dentist or whatever who is one of the major collectors of the YBAs simply because he used to see them in return for art before they were famous? Anyway, I'm still hoping to make something from the Gavin Turk "piece" I bought at this

http://www.sanderswood.com/viewer.cgi/press/press_images/20040516.observer.jpg.html

It's a polystyrene cup with some coins in and a crap design drawn on it. I was desperate for money and (contrary to the "spirit of the event") I listed it on ebay with a starting bid of £1,200. I got really excited when somebody contacted me on the final day to ask if I would accept a banker's draught but in the end there were no bids - surprise surprise. If I'd listed it with a reserve instead of a high opening bid then at least I would have got some idea of what people were prepared to pay but unfortunately a reserve listing is a lot more expensive.
 
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