
Why Is Art Expensive? - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/why-is-art-expensive/
======
mojuba
Context and exposure matter in art, they matter a lot. Mozart's requiem for
example, is probably the "Mona Lisa" of classical music, everyone knows it's a
famous work, that it's great and that it's Mozart. Except it's not. We know
today that Mozart wrote only the introduction and also only a few lines for
some of the other parts. The rest was secretly completed by Mozart's
disciples, most notably F.X. Süssmayr. Mozart was sick at the time but he was
expecting a payment for the work (freelance, haha), so his disciples helped
him to finish the work and get the money.

The result is that, Mozart's requiem is mostly incredibly boring. Beethoven
even called it "amateurish" without knowing the details. The few beautiful
parts that you can't _not_ like is indeed Mozart, but the rest is not.

It's the context of Mozart's tragic and mysterious death, and the exposure
that makes his requiem one of the "greatest" classical pieces, more so than
the music itself.

~~~
Steko
> The few beautiful parts that you can't not like is indeed Mozart, but the
> rest is not.

This strikes me as a bit too much in the vein of Pritchard's _Understanding
Poetry_ [1]. Sussmyer et al are not in Mozart's league for sure but the notion
(and I'm exaggerating here not trying to straw man you) that near every note
he wrote is false and everthing Mozart touched is gold is also a bit silly
[2].

[1] Featured in a memorable scene in Dead Poets Society, _If the poem 's score
for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is
plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields
the measure of its greatness. A sonnet by Byron might score high on the
vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the
other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a
massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great._

[2] _again and again scholars have rationalized why this or that bit of the
piece was “inferior” and therefore Sussmayr, only for later historical or
analytical information to come to light which proves it had to be Mozart._

[http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2009/04/05/who-wrote-the-
mozar...](http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2009/04/05/who-wrote-the-mozart-
requiem/comment-page-1/)

~~~
mojuba
I uncovered the whole story after hearing Süssmayr on radio accidentally. It
sounded so much like Mozart, but was clearly inferior. I didn't know it was S.
until the host announced who it was. I started googling and found some
research on requiem (though the piece on radio was S's own work). At least for
me it finally explained why I never managed to listen to requiem in its
entirety without getting bored, depending on the performance too, of course.
It's all very subjective, but yes, everything Mozart touched is gold, and the
rest is a matter of taste. Beethoven didn't like it, for example :)

~~~
Steko
I agree it's uneven and not as good as Mozart's other celebrated works. But I
think all the great composers have lots of uneven pieces as it is without
resorting to (often speculative) excuses as to why, they just are.

As for Beethoven, actually his famous reply to learning of the authorship
issue was 'If Mozart did not write the music, then the man who wrote it was a
Mozart.'

~~~
mojuba
Hmmm. That's strange because I remember from one of the books I found that
Beethoven regarded requiem as an amateurish work and even Mozart's worst ever,
in fact without knowing the whole story behind it. A bit extreme of course,
but he was right to an extent.

------
toothbrush
Paying millions for a particular piece of art seems to be antithetical to the
idea of "killing your darlings" (or someone else's, in this instance). I think
that people who themselves are artists, also realise that by capturing that
one moment forever, enshrining that unlikely particular configuration of brush
strokes, runs the risk of completely missing any point the artist might have
had at any point.

On a vaguely related note, it reminds me how i chuckled at seeing a whole
bunch of revolutionary punk and/or feminist works from the 70s and the 80s
hanging in the MoMA, where i had paid an amount for my ticket that would've
made the people who created those posters scoff. It seemed that the invariably
older wealthy crowd walking around intently staring at punk art was the very
polar opposite of what the creators themselves stood for.

Oh well.

~~~
codingdave
I think you misunderstand artists, and possibly the purpose of museums and
many of their visitors as well.

Artists tend to fall into two categories - the ones who just do it for their
own creative expression vs. those who are trying to convey a message. While
some of the first type find success due to excellent craftsmanship of their
works, it is the second type that normally gets in museums because the
messages have cultural and historical significance. Those artists would love
the scenario you described of having old wealthy folks peering at their works,
in an excellent museum. That would be the pinnacle of success. You were
chuckling at one of the great results that come from artistic expression -
expanding the ideas and experiences of people who are different from yourself,
and preserving your ideas for future audiences.

(As a side note, many museums will let you pay whatever you can/want. The
ticket price is often just a suggestion.)

EDIT: I also should point out the old people looking at work from the 70s and
80s are looking at works from their youth. It is quite possible that they
understand exactly where the creators were coming from.

~~~
varjag
> While some of the first type find success due to excellent craftsmanship of
> their works, it is the second type that normally gets in museums because the
> messages have cultural and historical significance.

This is a postmodern phenomenon, and art museums well predate it.

~~~
coldtea
Only if you just count political messages.

Artists have been celebrated for their social, philosophical, metaphysical,
poetic etc messages for millenia.

Even renaissance artists (an era that can be extremely tacky with technique)
weren't celebrated for their mere technique showcase (photorealistic skills
and such BS), but for their artistic qualities (expression). Even more so
later years.

El Greco, Goya, etc are not celebrated because of their "excellent
craftsmanship" in the conventional sense, but for the sensibilities they
capture.

~~~
varjag
Well I'm going to tread cautiously here, as it's too easy to end up sounding
like a snob layperson not seeing beyond the brushstroke. But.

Let's not confuse the message with expression. There's an appreciable
difference in how the postmodern works are evaluated compared to the
predecessors. While the latter could carry _some_ context, a message if you
will, they were and are largely celebrated for their visual, cognitive,
artistic impact alone: save perhaps for occasional historic value. I'm not
just talking about classic Dutch painters and alike. The modernists in fact
had it sorted out, and commenced the shift from technique to expression. Yes,
some of them did sometimes promote a message with their artwork, but let's
face it we don't commemorate Picasso for his Communist views: he simply was
that good.

Now Postmodern is entirely another story. When you walk into a room at
Guggenheim full of empty Kodak Carousel projectors clicking at the walls, it's
quite different from the classic curated museum work of old. There's zero
technique, very marginal expression, and the message which you either make up
for yourself or read in the artistic statement.

------
dalke
Are there parallels to wine? Why are wines expensive?

I mean, neither art nor wine, in general, are expensive. Only a few - to use
the language of this article - curated 'brands' of wine are in the
$15,000/bottle range, and some have sold for more than $100K/bottle.

~~~
fein
Oh sure there are, and it's all people with more money than sense, or a strong
dose of apathy with more money than sense.

I'm sure I'll get some fine art and wine aficionados in here telling me why
I'm wrong, but there is nothing good that really comes out of paying 100k for
a bottle of wine, or millions of dollars for a painting (barring charity
events).

That cash could be put to much better use than extreme vanity items like that.

~~~
dalke
I know nothing of the wine world beyond $10/bottle. If there is a parallel,
what is the equivalent for wine of the art gallery? Quoting from this article,
"art galleries exercise a level of control over prices that, as economist
Allison Schrager writes in Quartz, “would be illegal in most industries.”"

For wine this would be ... ?

~~~
toothbrush
> I know nothing of the wine world beyond $10/bottle. If there is a parallel,
> what is the equivalent for wine of the art gallery?

IKEA posters, i would guess?

[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/dec...](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/decoration/10787/)

~~~
dalke
I mean the other way around; expensive art is to galleries as expensive wine
is to ___ ?

I'm not interested in the art equivalent to "Two Buck Chuck" \- I bought
several of those pieces of art myself. :)

------
Gravityloss
Have you had some interiors being rebuilt? Perhaps a kitchen or bathroom
renovation? You develop a sense about how much human labor it takes to
construct something on location by hand, and how much that roughly costs to
the person ordering it. It's quite a lot.

After such an experience I went to a large art sale exhibition. (Called
teosvälitys over here.) It was a large old industrial space.

The art didn't seem expensive at all actually, even when just looking at the
labor input. Especially the very well made sculptures and ceramics.

The million euro stuff is then another thing that's not really about art
anymore.

We've been spoiled by cheap mass production. Not to mean it in a demeaning
way, but literally, it has changed our expectations.

------
pjbrunet
It seems the author has little appreciation for art. Fine. Either you
appreciate art or you don't. Go to Walmart and get yourself a $5 Dali poster.
Or just admire your blank walls and call it zen minimalism. Personally, I love
non-objective abstraction and think it's undervalued due to lack of education.
Today it's STEM, tomorrow it's STEAM.

------
sharonna
Art began as a way of communication (from the caves) to capturing our lives
(before photographs & Instagram) to self-expression. Some art is expensive
because the purchasers like to discuss how much their art is worth more than
entrepreneurs like to mention the valuation of their company. However, art can
be inexpensive, and even personalised. Check out dreame.me where you can
commission your very own art work and co-sign it with your own name next to
the artist's name. The artist gains inspiration and the commissioner gains a
new anf affordable work of art.

------
acomjean
or if you are a famous graffiti artist, you can set up a booth outside the met
museum in NYC and sell your art for 60$ a pop.. Cheap! and see how many you
sell.

(edit the answer because the video is down is 4, and someone bought 2 at a
discount)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20131128220030/http://www.banksy...](https://web.archive.org/web/20131128220030/http://www.banksy.co.uk/2013/10/13/central-
park)

At the sometime people's who's buildings get the honor of this street art
being applied, do everything they can to remove and sell it.

the art world is odd.

If you have an open studios near by, I suggest visiting and if you see
something that makes you happy buy it. I have some really nice pieces.
(disclaimer, I do work for an open studios organization.)

------
pessimizer
Art is extremely unique, and experts are available to authenticate it and
check its provenance. Wealthy people use it as a moderately liquid store of
value. It can also be loaned to museums for tax purposes.

The content of the art is irrelevant; the only thing that's important is its
authenticity.

Pretty great article.

------
tikhonj
Here's an analogy: a chunk of the Berlin wall is a lot more interesting than a
chunk of concrete with some graffiti, even if you couldn't tell the
difference. A lot of art, especially modern and conceptual art, makes more
sense this light: the original is not necessarily interesting because of the
_skill_ or _craft_ that went into it but because it had a profound effect on
art history and artists that came after it.

Does this mean that art is ultimately a popularity game? I think so, or at
least popularity among the _right_ people. (It's cliquey.) Anything deeper
comes from social forces making deeper things popular and, I don't know about
you, but I don't put much faith in those forces.

Modern art is controversial, and I think both extremes of the debate are off.
The people arguing "my child could do that" are wrong in two ways: they
underestimate the structure (conscious or subconscious) that goes into even
the most minimal of pieces and, of course, something made by your child will
not have historical significance.

But the other side, the ones that great value into art and completely rebuff
criticisms of the first kind go too far in the opposite direction. They put
too much stock in _post hoc_ rationalizations ("narratives") of why a piece or
artists became influential, not accounting for the massive amount of noise
that goes into determining what gets popular. (Even among self-selected,
educated circles!) The exact things which get big, or not, are more functions
of social networks[1] than any innate qualities of the things in question.

Now, I'm not saying that all successful fine art is bad, rather that not all
of it—perhaps even not _much_ —is good. Any my own evaluations of art are no
doubt wonky: I think a black square[2] is brilliant and liberates art from the
tyranny of representation while a shark in a tank[3] is a shark in a tank and
a testament to a salesman or conman more than an artist. Even if you try to
dress it up with analysis. (Which could, just as easily, be more
rationalization…)

And I'm sure most reasonable people have similar judgements of their own. I'm
not making general statements about it one way or another; instead, I just
want to point out that _popularity is a bad proxy for quality_ , and that
applies as well to the world of fine art as to anything else. (Striking closer
to home, it explains a lot about programming language design!)

[1]: [http://nautil.us/issue/5/fame/homo-narrativus-and-the-
troubl...](http://nautil.us/issue/5/fame/homo-narrativus-and-the-trouble-with-
fame)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Square_%28painting%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Square_%28painting%29)

[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_Mind_of_Someone_Living)

~~~
douche
> Now, I'm not saying that all successful fine art is bad, rather that not all
> of it—perhaps even not much—is good. Any my own evaluations of art are no
> doubt wonky: I think a black square[2] is brilliant and liberates art from
> the tyranny of representation while a shark in a tank[3] is a shark in a
> tank and a testament to a salesman or conman more than an artist. Even if
> you try to dress it up with analysis. (Which could, just as easily, be more
> rationalization…)

And I'd say a well-done seascape with a lighthouse in it that you can pick up
in any seaside town's souvenir shop is better than either. I like
representational art, haha.

What drives me nuts about fine art (and I've dated a couple artists, almost
married one), is how _up its own ass_ it mostly is. I've known some artists
that are self-aware enough to have functioning bullshit-o-meters and recognize
the absurdity of the art world, but that's not the common case.

------
Shahabbado
I chalk up expensive art the same way I do with money laundering amongst the
elite.

------
platz
The values that the art community and the tech community are somewhat
antithetical to each other. The art world does not hold programmers highly amd
vice versa

------
werber
I get how the art market is manipulated, and I've always worried it was just a
pretty microcosm of the financial markets I don't understand.

------
pnut
Prestige and money laundering, of course!

~~~
civilian
I was going to call BS, but money laundering checks out:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/arts/design/art-proves-
att...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/arts/design/art-proves-attractive-
refuge-for-money-launderers.html)

I wonder if wine would also be a good money-laundering medium then?

------
Jun8
Some thoughts on this interesting subject:

* There's a parallel between these high prices and high valuations for some tech startups. The first example in the article (the paintings didn't change even though now we know a Chinese guy paints them in his garage, so why the exponential decrease in price) could be asked in that domain, e.g. what changed in Webvan (to use the most known example) so that it went from ~$6B evaluation to epsilon in less than two years ([http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2010/12/13/the...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2010/12/13/the-biggest-ipo-flops/)). The answer in this case is that it didn't have that value to start with (forged painting, startup with no clear biz plan).

* However, one cannot say the above for all paintings. Does Monet's six paintings really are worth ~$100M ([http://www.wsj.com/articles/sothebys-to-auction-6-more-monet...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/sothebys-to-auction-6-more-monet-paintings-1428014193))? Now, one wants to say they have _a lot_ of value, because Monet is beautiful but how much is that? What is its intrinsic value?

* One can try to define intrinsic value for an object of art thus: It is the value you place on it even if it's found that it was created by an unknown. This works for in other domains (i.e. you don't place more value on git because Torvalds worked on it or less value on a Go library because the guy who wrote it is unknown). How much value would you put on _Mona Lisa_ if today it was found that a certain Cosma di Pietro Mellini had painted it instead of Leonardo? Probably a lot but not as much perhaps as, say, Raphael's ceiling frescos from the Stanza della Segnatura [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Rooms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Rooms).

* Now to me it seems like the huge discrepancies in prices in objects are inherent to art (painting and sculpture mostly) and much less of an issue in literature. As an example: How much would _Hamlet_ depreciate if it was found today that it was written by Thomas Middleton? If you think the drop would be huge than try to explain why a similar situation does not hold, say, for Homer's works.

* The highly inflated prices are unique to art because the buyers, although we may view them as idiotic nouveau riche, _do_ get a lot of value through prestige, which is hard to quantify. This, I think, would be the main difference between the art market and inflated stock prices: If you had shares for Webvan, etc. you _were_ duped, you get no extra gain, prestige or otherwise, from holding the share other than its value.

* A similar situation exists in wines and high-end restaurants, where the prestige element also applies.

~~~
imareaver
I'd disagree with you on the literature point. Sure, Hamlet's value wouldn't
depreciate if it was found to have been written by someone else, but I suspect
the value of the Mona Lisa wouldn't drop too much if we found out da Vinci
didn't paint it either. Both works derive more value from their own fame than
from that of their creators. However, I would also expect a lesser-known
Shakespeare play (and there are many) to fall off the map if it turned out he
didn't write it, in the same way a less-famous Rembrandt (for example) is only
significant because it's a Rembrandt.

------
yarrel
Price fixing by dealers.

~~~
ctdonath
Effective price fixing requires willing buyers. We're not talking life-or-
death "I'll pay anything just give it to me" products/services, we're talking
paint on canvas et al. There are plenty of art and artists out there; why do
some pieces _actually_ go for so much? Prime example is a tall canvas in the
Royal Gallery in Ottawa, consisting of three equally sized stripes in two
colors, about 14 feet tall - and costing the gallery some C$14M ... that's not
"price fixing", that's insanity.

~~~
douche
Sounds like a Rothko...

