Why Is Art Expensive? | Hacker News Reader

Why Is Art Expensive?

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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.

> 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...

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 :)

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.'

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.

Do you know which parts are Mozart? I'd be interested to hear.

Read somewhere that the entire opening movement (Introitus) is definitely him, and at least the main themes for some of the other parts, such as Lacrymosa and Kyrie.

Ah, thank you. I do love Lacrimosa.

Music and architecture have quite a bit in common. A master in either field, should s/he choose to transfer methodology and technique, can effectively provide a ~deterministic methodology for creating works to disciples. The entire work is Mozart's. The genius in such fields is precisely the act of arriving at such a methodology.

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.

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.

> 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.

I am sympathetic to what you are saying. But i wonder if many of the responsible artists wouldn't have preferred a "throw my poster away and go create your own revolution" message instead of being snapshotted (killed, as it were, as in The Collector) and sapped of all vitality.

But yeah, perhaps i'm misunderstanding the artists' point — it's true that i agree with the statement that worthwhile art widens/challenges your perspective and held beliefs. Perhaps, therefore, being in a museum is a good thing. I suppose it's the least bad option, if you want to look at it that way.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ... ?

> 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...

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. :)

Wineries. Every winery has a story about how their wine is special and blah blah blah.

It all just tastes like wine.

That doesn't sound right. I mean, each artist also has a description of why their work is special, so I think 'artist' and 'winery' are the most direct analogies.

Galleries seem to play a different role. Is it filled by the sommelier? Famous sommeliers? Wine reviewers? Something else? How do people learn to identify the consensus determined expensive brand?

Most of me can't even fathom the inclination to waste that kind of money on something purely aesthetic. But a part of me feels like if you can separate a fool from his money, then you deserve every penny you get.

It's not just something "purely aesthetic". It's something aesthetic that you also hope to be able to sell for a profit in the future.

The article says that cachet is also important. It might be more useful to your status to host a party where you serve $10,000/bottle wine, instead of selling it in the future.

The only reason anybody pays 100k for a bottle of wine is because the are reasonably convinced they can sell it for more than 100k in the not too distant future. Wine at that level is a pure investment instrument.

I'd also ask if there are parallels to caviar, or most other luxury goods. Though caviar might have a demand-supply reason for being so expensive.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.)

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.

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...

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

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

> 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.

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

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

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.

Prestige and money laundering, of course!

I was going to call BS, but money laundering checks out: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/arts/design/art-proves-att...

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

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...). 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...)? 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.

* 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.

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.

That's an interesting insight: startups as a game of the rich, just like expensive art. At least it can explain a few peculiarities in the startup world.

People are not usually interested in reading literature from original exemplar. It was a digital art from beginning.

Price fixing by dealers.

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.

Sounds like a Rothko...

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