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Art- emperor's new clothes racket?

Hockney's painting sells for £23m.


https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51458346

I don't think it is very good at all and could have been done by a GCSE art student.

I have felt for years that elements of the art world is just a big racket and it is very much a case of the emperor's  new clothes....question its credibility and the default response is you don't understand it/ too narrow minded etc or some overtly intellectualised response to understand why this very basic painting or lightbulb, tent, butchered cow is a marvel of humanity.

Would really like to understand it because it seems to me once you make it as an artist and have an established brand you could knock a cup of coffee over a canvas and it be hailed a masterpiece if presented by the right artist.

I probably appear very ignorant on this and very much am but instinct (and my eyes) tell me it's all a bit of a self perpetuating hoax with no one who has any credibility or standing in the industry willing to stand up and say come on now that's just not very good at all and certainly not worth the plaudits and valuations attached to it.
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Comments

  • Agreed rodders, it’s shit.
  • If you don't like it, fine. You don't have to.

    Art has always been about opinions and choice.

    Last decades/century radical is this year's establishment.

    Sure, it's a market and the name on the bottom is very important when it comes to price but that's the buyers choice. Prices are only what someone will pay and fluctuate all the time.

    Personally some art (classic and modern) I like, some I don't. That's it.

    As the Splash. It's very 1970s. I like it.


  • It's not about taste or liking it. It's a very mediocre painting that wouldn't get looked at twice had it not been done by a well established and respected artist.

    Had this appeared in the portfolio of an average art college student it wouldn't be held in such high esteem surely. 


  • Prefer Doreen Fletcher. Love her stuff and some of her pieces really take me back, especially the one of Benjy's, Mile End Road - https://www.doreenfletcherartist.com/
  • Does it stand the test of time? If so, how much time?
    (This has the potential to be a great thread btw).
  • It's not about taste or liking it. It's a very mediocre painting that wouldn't get looked at twice had it not been done by a well established and respected artist.

    Had this appeared in the portfolio of an average art college student it wouldn't be held in such high esteem surely. 


    No, that's just your opinion of it.

    Your doing exactly what you are critising the art world of doing. You're judging it by its price.

    And unless you teach art students how do you know?
  • It's not about taste or liking it. It's a very mediocre painting that wouldn't get looked at twice had it not been done by a well established and respected artist.

    Had this appeared in the portfolio of an average art college student it wouldn't be held in such high esteem surely. 


    If you like it, you like it - if you don't you don't. That's art.

    But this didn't appear in an average art college student's portfolio. It is not just the image or the signature at the bottom, it is from the hand and creative mind of David Hockney. That's what makes it different from the work of an average art student.

  • Always thought it was only dead artist's work that would command such prices. 
  • Prefer Doreen Fletcher. Love her stuff and some of her pieces really take me back, especially the one of Benjy's, Mile End Road - https://www.doreenfletcherartist.com/
    Went to see an exhibition of her work in Bow a year or two ago.

    I really like it too
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  • It's not about taste or liking it. It's a very mediocre painting that wouldn't get looked at twice had it not been done by a well established and respected artist.

    Had this appeared in the portfolio of an average art college student it wouldn't be held in such high esteem surely. 


    No, that's just your opinion of it.

    Your doing exactly what you are critising the art world of doing. You're judging it by its price.

    And unless you teach art students how do you know?
    In all likelihood I most likely am.

    Very ignorant on the subject and would like to better understand what makes art like this so revered and valuable and things like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emins stuff.

    Music I suppose is similar with different genres appealing to different folk etc but with some art I really dont get it and am trying to understand why some work is deemed so credible and special when to the uninitiated appear very ordinary.
  • I must admit, I don't 'get' Emin.

    Used to struggle with Henry Moore - can spend hours looking at his work now.
  • edited February 2020
    I really enjoyed the recent film about LS Lowry with Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave.
    It is a side issue, but Redgrave is bedridden, but by golly she used her hand in her acting superbly.
  • Ok music

    You have a signed X 4 Beatles and a signed x 5 Oasis Album.

    Which is worth more?

     You grew up listening to Definitely Maybe, it brings back loads of memories but you've never really liked the Fab Four.

    So to you the Oasis album is more desirable.

    But the dealer says half the Beatles are dead, there are more and richer collectors worldwide of their stuff and it's more likely to hold its value so sorry you love of Oasis is trumped by market.

    The Beatles album costs more.  You can argue over who was better (well, not really) but that's the market.
  • It's not about taste or liking it. It's a very mediocre painting that wouldn't get looked at twice had it not been done by a well established and respected artist.

    Had this appeared in the portfolio of an average art college student it wouldn't be held in such high esteem surely. 


    No, that's just your opinion of it.

    Your doing exactly what you are critising the art world of doing. You're judging it by its price.

    And unless you teach art students how do you know?
    In all likelihood I most likely am.

    Very ignorant on the subject and would like to better understand what makes art like this so revered and valuable and things like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emins stuff.

    Music I suppose is similar with different genres appealing to different folk etc but with some art I really dont get it and am trying to understand why some work is deemed so credible and special when to the uninitiated appear very ordinary.
    My wife knows nothing about football and cares even less. Gary Lineker scored most his goals from less than 12 yards out and after watching me score from a similar distance for a Sunday League pub team my wife wondered why I wasn’t playing for Barcelona and England.

  • Always thought it was only dead artist's work that would command such prices. 
    Nope, on top of that the artist gets a 4% commission from resold work upto the value of 50k and then 0.25% from any sales that are of a higher value.. so that's a nice 62k in his pocket from that sale on. 
  • Mametz said:
    It's not about taste or liking it. It's a very mediocre painting that wouldn't get looked at twice had it not been done by a well established and respected artist.

    Had this appeared in the portfolio of an average art college student it wouldn't be held in such high esteem surely. 


    No, that's just your opinion of it.

    Your doing exactly what you are critising the art world of doing. You're judging it by its price.

    And unless you teach art students how do you know?
    In all likelihood I most likely am.

    Very ignorant on the subject and would like to better understand what makes art like this so revered and valuable and things like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emins stuff.

    Music I suppose is similar with different genres appealing to different folk etc but with some art I really dont get it and am trying to understand why some work is deemed so credible and special when to the uninitiated appear very ordinary.
    My wife knows nothing about football and cares even less. Gary Lineker scored most his goals from less than 12 yards out and after watching me score from a similar distance for a Sunday League pub team my wife wondered why I wasn’t playing for Barcelona and England.

    Yours was an own goal though A.
  • Ok music

    You have a signed X 4 Beatles and a signed x 5 Oasis Album.

    Which is worth more?

     You grew up listening to Definitely Maybe, it brings back loads of memories but you've never really liked the Fab Four.

    So to you the Oasis album is more desirable.

    But the dealer says half the Beatles are dead, there are more and richer collectors worldwide of their stuff and it's more likely to hold its value so sorry you love of Oasis is trumped by market.

    The Beatles album costs more.  You can argue over who was better (well, not really) but that's the market.
    I reckon Napa has a better house analogy 
  • Addickted said:
    Mametz said:
    It's not about taste or liking it. It's a very mediocre painting that wouldn't get looked at twice had it not been done by a well established and respected artist.

    Had this appeared in the portfolio of an average art college student it wouldn't be held in such high esteem surely. 


    No, that's just your opinion of it.

    Your doing exactly what you are critising the art world of doing. You're judging it by its price.

    And unless you teach art students how do you know?
    In all likelihood I most likely am.

    Very ignorant on the subject and would like to better understand what makes art like this so revered and valuable and things like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emins stuff.

    Music I suppose is similar with different genres appealing to different folk etc but with some art I really dont get it and am trying to understand why some work is deemed so credible and special when to the uninitiated appear very ordinary.
    My wife knows nothing about football and cares even less. Gary Lineker scored most his goals from less than 12 yards out and after watching me score from a similar distance for a Sunday League pub team my wife wondered why I wasn’t playing for Barcelona and England.

    Yours was an own goal though A.
    She probably wouldn’t have known the difference!
  • I think art, like music, is purely subjective. 

    If enough super rich people like your stuff more than they do 300 year old more technical pieces, good luck to you. (not aimed at Hockney at all)


    It reminds me a little bit of trained and highly skilled furniture designers / builders,

    vrs Ikea etc.,

    vrs "creaters" who screw 4 hairpin table legs to a scaffold board, chuck a load of Danish Oil on it and stick it on their Etsy site for £300 

    Good luck to them all


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  • Prefer Doreen Fletcher. Love her stuff and some of her pieces really take me back, especially the one of Benjy's, Mile End Road - https://www.doreenfletcherartist.com/
    Wasn't aware of her - just had a look and I like it. Part of that is the subject matter - I used to live in a squat in Limehouse in the 80s so recognise a lot of the places. 
    Love the CAFC grafitti on one of the pics (Massala Grill). And the general theme of how an area has changed. 
    Will look out for her. 
    Don't feel like I'm an expert on art, and had never even been to see any until I met my first girlfriend, but will now make time to go to see things. 
    I'm more comfortable talking about music, which is kind of parallel. The thing with music (and it applies to art as well), is it does loads of different things: the music you grow up with is evocative and keeps your memories alive. There's music you associate with particular times or people in your life or events. Some of it is intimate, some of it is on a grand scale. 
    The skill it is executed by can be judged in a neutral way, but your reaction to it is subjective - like I can see how a musician is playing well but it doesn't make that emotional connection to me. 
  • rananegra said:
    Prefer Doreen Fletcher. Love her stuff and some of her pieces really take me back, especially the one of Benjy's, Mile End Road - https://www.doreenfletcherartist.com/
    Wasn't aware of her - just had a look and I like it. Part of that is the subject matter - I used to live in a squat in Limehouse in the 80s so recognise a lot of the places. 
    Love the CAFC grafitti on one of the pics (Massala Grill). And the general theme of how an area has changed. 
    Will look out for her. 
    Don't feel like I'm an expert on art, and had never even been to see any until I met my first girlfriend, but will now make time to go to see things. 
    I'm more comfortable talking about music, which is kind of parallel. The thing with music (and it applies to art as well), is it does loads of different things: the music you grow up with is evocative and keeps your memories alive. There's music you associate with particular times or people in your life or events. Some of it is intimate, some of it is on a grand scale. 
    The skill it is executed by can be judged in a neutral way, but your reaction to it is subjective - like I can see how a musician is playing well but it doesn't make that emotional connection to me. 
    Scrollig through her work, apart from loving the style, I'll find a painting and actually recognise the view and know roughly where she's sitting to paint it. I think that's quite special 
  • Hockney's painting sells for £23m.


    https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51458346

    I don't think it is very good at all and could have been done by a GCSE art student.

    I have felt for years that elements of the art world is just a big racket and it is very much a case of the emperor's  new clothes....question its credibility and the default response is you don't understand it/ too narrow minded etc or some overtly intellectualised response to understand why this very basic painting or lightbulb, tent, butchered cow is a marvel of humanity.

    Would really like to understand it because it seems to me once you make it as an artist and have an established brand you could knock a cup of coffee over a canvas and it be hailed a masterpiece if presented by the right artist.

    I probably appear very ignorant on this and very much am but instinct (and my eyes) tell me it's all a bit of a self perpetuating hoax with no one who has any credibility or standing in the industry willing to stand up and say come on now that's just not very good at all and certainly not worth the plaudits and valuations attached to it.
    That looks no better than an image from the clip art of Microsoft PowerPoint 2000.
  • So the comment about the execution of the piece is the first thing that intrigued me. Sure - maybe a GCSE level art student could do something like The Splash. Maybe someone could do "better" art.

    But what could be "better" about it? That's a genuine question. What would make this - if done by a GCSE student - better? And is it the execution, the colour palette, or something else that you might object to? (As someone else has already mentioned, Hockney could certainly paint differently, or recreate the Mona Lisa if he wanted to. He chooses differently, though.)

    Something that wouldn't happen, though, is the idea and thought process behind Hockney's choice. Why has he chosen to paint like this? Why this image, and instant?

    As for either being branded ignorant or intellectual - they're not the only two options. Art, and our interpretations of it, lies on a spectrum. (See what Henry Irving and I have said to each other previously!)

    ---------------

    What makes something "worth it", though? Art has always been about controversy. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, with its pioneering exploration of bitonality, was so disturbing and arresting that the audience near rioted at its premiere in Paris in 1913. People thought it was shit! But now, we might regard it as genius for what it is.

    And as for value - well, it's sold for an eight-figure sum. Barnett Newman's Black Fire I sold for $85m in 2014. That could be viewed as even more simplistic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Fire_I 

    Value... another interesting concept. What does the value stem from? A great deal of it, I would say, stems from a painting's history, and the web of associations within which it fits.

    Is that wrong; is that bad? I don't think so. And if you think so - why?
  • Jessie said:
    Hockney's painting sells for £23m.


    https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51458346

    I don't think it is very good at all and could have been done by a GCSE art student.

    I have felt for years that elements of the art world is just a big racket and it is very much a case of the emperor's  new clothes....question its credibility and the default response is you don't understand it/ too narrow minded etc or some overtly intellectualised response to understand why this very basic painting or lightbulb, tent, butchered cow is a marvel of humanity.

    Would really like to understand it because it seems to me once you make it as an artist and have an established brand you could knock a cup of coffee over a canvas and it be hailed a masterpiece if presented by the right artist.

    I probably appear very ignorant on this and very much am but instinct (and my eyes) tell me it's all a bit of a self perpetuating hoax with no one who has any credibility or standing in the industry willing to stand up and say come on now that's just not very good at all and certainly not worth the plaudits and valuations attached to it.
    That looks no better than an image from the clip art of Microsoft PowerPoint 2000.
    To you maybe and your entitled to your view

    But you're seeing a tiny photo not the actual work itself in full size.

    There was no clip art and no microsoft in 1967 when it was painted.

    Maybe Hockney influenced the clip art?  


     Certainly the style was new at the time and has been copied to death.

    Personally I like that painting, if I had £1bn would I pay £23m for it, no. I don’t want to own it that much. 

    Someone does though, whether as art appreciation or investment who knows. 
  • Jessie said:
    Hockney's painting sells for £23m.


    https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51458346

    I don't think it is very good at all and could have been done by a GCSE art student.

    I have felt for years that elements of the art world is just a big racket and it is very much a case of the emperor's  new clothes....question its credibility and the default response is you don't understand it/ too narrow minded etc or some overtly intellectualised response to understand why this very basic painting or lightbulb, tent, butchered cow is a marvel of humanity.

    Would really like to understand it because it seems to me once you make it as an artist and have an established brand you could knock a cup of coffee over a canvas and it be hailed a masterpiece if presented by the right artist.

    I probably appear very ignorant on this and very much am but instinct (and my eyes) tell me it's all a bit of a self perpetuating hoax with no one who has any credibility or standing in the industry willing to stand up and say come on now that's just not very good at all and certainly not worth the plaudits and valuations attached to it.
    That looks no better than an image from the clip art of Microsoft PowerPoint 2000.
    To you maybe and your entitled to your view

    But you're seeing a tiny photo not the actual work itself in full size.

    There was no clip art and no microsoft in 1967 when it was painted.

    Maybe Hockney influenced the clip art?  


    Well, obviously I didn't know it was a painting from the 60's. I knew nothing about the artist either. I just thought it was unbelievable to be sold for £23m. If you ask anyone randomly on the street where I live how they think of it being sold for that price without telling them it's a painting by a 'famous' artist, many will say they're surprised. Reading this thread I suppose maybe people in London are very much into "art" but I'm sure 99% of people around me would think it's more like an art college student's homework. 

    But art is subjective. I'm with RodneyCharltonTrotta in that I think it's the emperor's new clothes. But of course it's just our opinion (which doesn't matter anyway).
  • If someone gave it to me, I'd have it scanned and reprinted. 
    I'd be about £23m better off and have an iconic piece of art (although a copy).
    Its no Constable or  Vermeer and would have very little interest to me value wise but would cover an empty wall I suppose.

    As someone wrote up the thread, he could probably paint a copy of a master piece. I visited the the Salvador Dalí museum in St Petersburg, an absolute fascinating tour, his works were explained and his styles throughout his life. It helps when you are Philistine like me . He could paint a multitude of different styles but most people only remember him for his dripping clocks and lobster telephone.
  • It's all absolutely subjective and about opinions. If someone has paid that much for it, then that is exactly what it's worth - to them.

    Personally I wouldn't give you a tenner for it. Actually that's not true, I would, then I'd sell it for £23m. 

    There is plenty of art out there though that I like, personally I quite like a good medieval portrait or battle (not that i'd ever be able to afford one). But I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think that they're not very good, or boring.

    Each to their own, it's worth what it's worth and if they're willing to pay for something like the above mentioned Newman's works that look like they took about 5 minutes to make then fair enough.
  • Bet thats looking nice in the middle of the Boardroom wall at The Valley...👍
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