Art ‘doesn’t give a shit’ abo
The Price of Everything is an engaging behind-the-scenes look at the contemporary art world that features the artists, buyers, auctioneers, dealers and curators. But be careful not to let the title of Academy award nominee Nathaniel Kahn’s documentary mislead you.
The film does not tell the viewer why contemporary art is expensive, choosing instead to invite viewers to ask themselves what the relationship between taste, price, demand and value is.
But Kahn’s film does make one strong assertion: contemporary art provides those who have large amounts of money with a dignified outlet. As seasoned contemporary art collector Stefan Edlis notes: “There’s a lot of money floating around and not many places to put it.”
In attempts to show how the contemporary art market was created, Kahn’s film follows Robert C Scull, a New York businessman who hosted a large-scale,
highlights the significant influence that Africans and their diaspora continue to have on the direction of the sartorial world.
But the film fails to fully question the criminal act on which the Lo-Life collective was built. In addition to this, highly publicised auction of contemporary art in 1973. Scull’s auction turned collecting contemporary art from a quiet, modest pursuit into a profitable, publicity-driven event, first for dealers and then for the artists.
The Price of Everything establishes the spectacle and expense of contemporary art, but one still wonders why people bother to buy art in the first place. Is it a favour to the artist? Is it an investment in their career? Is buying art a way to fuel one’s own passions? Or is it simply a luxurious décor choice? The film argues that people buy art for all these reasons, and more still.
Aside from those who buy art because they can afford it, there are those who buy art because they find pleasure and joy in spotting the next big thing. Those in the know keep their eyes on industry news, and seek out not only the trendy artists but also those who they believe will be in demand or popular in the future. These industry forecasters find something new and intriguing that no one has it ignores consequences, such as debt, which can come with buying into the habit of owning an excess of brandname possessions.
Seeing that Horse Power was released earlier this year as a response to Polo Sport releasing the ’92 Stadium Series and Snow Beach Collections popularised by the Lo-Lifes in the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps the inclusion of such factors would have shifted the focus. discovered yet, buy it, watch its value increase, and then decide whether to keep it or sell it. There’s a strange reverence for this obscure process, and for people who have the “eye”.
The Price of Everything doesn’t pretend to know what makes good or bad art. Instead, it focuses on the artists’ motives for making art and how they feel about selling it. For many of them, it’s not important whether any of it can objectively be classified as “good” or “bad”.
Larry Poons, the abstract painter whose wild, colourful canvases have left many observers simultaneously confused and awestruck, doesn’t believe in that classification, choosing instead to separate art and artists from the market and its culture of evaluation. He sums it up in one statement: “Art doesn’t give a shit. It never has.”
Photographer and painter Marilyn Minter, who rose to prominence in the 1970s, talks of “white heat”: the pressure of the market, which causes artists to ask over and over