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Comment by 6stringmerc | Hacker News Reader

Personal opinion as a lifelong artist, so take it with a grain of salt:

What a consummate jackass - not an artist, not an innovator, just a sleazy rip-off gutter dweller. He's essentially a fore-father for the mentality perpetrated by "The Fat Jew" on Twitter, who is, rightfully, being excoriated for making a business model of profit by way of theft. If Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk wanted to achieve something useful in the space race, they'd find a way to grab both those guys, shove them in a rocket on a one way trip to the moon, broadcasting a camera feed back to Earth, and with just enough water to make it there before they have to turn to cannabalism as a last resort before their inevitable, well-deserved end.

By Richard Prince's logic, I should totally be entitled to steal his identity and empty his bank account in the name of performance art. He doesn't believe in copyright? Fine. I don't believe in the illegality of stealing from thieves.

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Art is like comedy... In comedy, you can get away with a lot. As long as you're funny. In art, you can get away with a lot. As long as the art is good. (I'm not talking legally, I'm talking morally/ethically/aesthetically/culturally.)

(Banksy's a good example. I'd really rather not have to see shitty graffiti all over the neighborhood. But when a Banksy piece turns up, I'm okay with it. Because I think his art is interesting and relevant.)

Prince's "New Portraits" series is shitty art. It's somewhere between tone deaf and behind-the-times. It's obvious. He's not adding anything interesting to the photos. He's not saying anything interesting about copyright. Etc.

But having bad art in a gallery is always interesting.

Meh it's been done. Not that interesting anymore IMO

Parody is ageless art form. I would not have canned shit in gallery over and over again. Having different kinds of bad art in gallery is always hilarious.

But I have to admit I'm but of troll. The real treat is art snob fetishising over paint stains.

You can view it as a commentary on the shallowness of the elitist art collector world. Artists like Prince are all playing a game trying to con multi-millionaires into forking over megabucks for crap that everyone in their client's social sphere fawns over as some sort of status symbol.

Yup, that's the sort of dim, obvious commentary I get from the piece. Which is why I consider it shitty art.

There are financial effects of overvalued art: charitable donation valuation for one

Two words: money laundering

http://twentytwowords.com/canvas-painted-blue-with-a-white-l...

How about you actually link a somewhat-credible source claiming that, and not a bunch of commenters? Also, googling "Onement VI money laundering", the first result is StormFront...nice.

A blue painting with a white stripe does not take an ounce of talent. Nor should that painting sell for more than the cost of paint to paint the canvas with. Believing it is a front for money laundering is far easier to believe than a fool spending millions of dollars for a color separated by a stripe of another color.

There's also "Voice of Fire" [0]. Same concept but uh... red and blue instead of blue and white. Really speaks to me ya know?

Don't forget Onement I [1]. The same painting, again, but brown with a yellow stripe! How does he come up with it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Newman#/media/File:New...

I actually quite like those paintings. Maybe not worth $44m (to me, maybe to others), but probably a lot more than paint + canvas.

From afar, it seems that being an artist is actually sort of similar to being a developer/entrepreneur. Let's say you're a technically able artist. You can create anything. But what do you actually deliver? How do you create "value" (i.e. a piece someone, somewhere, loves)

As a comparison: there are plenty of developers who can reverse engineer device drivers. But knowing which driver to actually reverse engineer, that can actually deliver value to someone, that's the tricky part.

My point is things like this are why people "outside the scene looking in" see it as nothing but millionaires losing a bet, money laundering, or some form of joke rich people pull just because they can. "Look how rich I am. I can spend $35m on an unpainted canvas." [0]

I have respect for two things: Things that require such skill that other humans are not able to trivially reproduce it and things that are so damn simple that it is amazing it took us 10s/100s years to figure it out.

I feel there are two schools of thought. Those who "get" modern/contemporary art and those who don't.

Those who do say: "Yeah, you could have done this. But did you?"

Those who don't say: "I don't think I'd get paid $10 million for a 20ft canvas covered in my own feces and I don't think any reasonable person would. So they don't."

Looking back, I should have used a less criminal/more light-hearted example to try or made a better attempt at illustrating where I stand on these things.

[0] At least I hope this hasn't happened and there was at least some paint on them. [1]

[1] But a redditor did hang up 3 blank canvases on their wall out of laziness and others saw "art" in it. So there's that at least. http://i.imgur.com/oTKPb.png

I don't have a stormfront link with this search, but it is probably a tailored result for your profile.

When I open a private browsing window in Firefox, Stormfront is the first result for that search.

> He's not adding anything interesting to the photos.

I like this about it. He adds a banal, trivial, perhaps non-sensical comment that satirizes the emptiness and one-sidedness of communication on today's most popular social platform. And the timing was perfect.

Why all this moral outrage? Isn't a lot of art basically bullshit? Just take a look at modern art paintings and how much they sell for.

Probably everybody would be laughing about this guy if he wasn't making big bucks. The problem is in the art market where millions can be made by just selling overhyped garbage.

Can anyone seriously make the point that a picture of a smiling woman is worth 1 billion?

Show me where Jackson Pollack or Mark Rothko stole their art from somebody else and I'd be just as morally indignant. Do I think their art is worth millions? Nope. Can I appreciate their works as individual expressions in spite of not sharing the perceived value? Yep. "Creating" unauthorized, uncredited, compensation-free derivative works, in this case in particular, is what fuels the hostility.

And yes, many people can seriously make the point that the original, 1 of 1 version of the Mona Lisa is worth $1 billion because of the amassed cultural value and exlcusivity of the original, in that the demand for that one original painting far exceeds the available supply. Pretty simple, actually.

Curious about your opinion on Andy Warhol?

Not really a fan, but his framing of his techniques as social commentary are, to me, quite functional and a verifiable artistic endeavor; as in, he may have used and somewhat appropriated pop-culture reference points, but with genuine thought and constructive 'addition' in the nature of art.

Just to add on to your point, I tend to think of relative value in terms of my relationship to a cheeseburger and a vegan's relationship to same cheeseburger. I might spend $10, maybe even $20 on a good cheeseburger. The vegan would spend money to not have to eat a cheeseburger. Does that change the cheeseburger at all? Not one whit. Does that make either consumer better than the other? Well, only the vegan thinks so, but that's a different issue entirely.

Considering you felt the need to get this anti-vegan dig in when you could have used literally any other example, it seems like you might think so as well.

>Show me where Jackson Pollack or Mark Rothk

Those guys aren't collage artists. This guy isn't doing anything different than most collage artists. I'm sure you've heard of Warhol and Liechtenstein (sp?).

Long story short, this is free speech and clearly his buyers think his work has monetary value. The same way other works do - via market forces. The Mona Lisa's importance can't be quantified with a "cultural value" detector.

>Do I think their art is worth millions? Nope.

You don't get to make that assessment. The art market does.

It's free speech until it starts infringing on the rights of others insofar as there are laws on the books against what he's doing - which he proudly admits to not care about. Should there finally be a court (civil?) case that tests the applicability of fair use in his Instagram method, he very well could be found no better than a person who sits in a movie theater and records the film on a camcorder and says because they coughed every once and a while or farted or rustled a bag of popcorn that they've "added" something to the art. By implication, the buyers will have implicity supported an unauthorized work - they'd be no better than pirates buying bootleg DVDs on the street.

And, for the record, yes, I do get to make the assessment that I, as an individual, do not believe Rothko's art is worth millions, and the art market can not force me to believing otherwise as a person. Am I allowed to pay what I believe it is worth? No, the art market does indeed set that value. Trying to split "market forces" from "cultural value" is, to me, a short-sighted proposition when in the context of art, which, by its inherent existence, doesn't have intrinsic monetary value (unless it's made from precious metals or stones or whatnot, which is a tangential notion of value).

>which he proudly admits to not care about.

Why is this a problem. If another artist cuts out stuff from a bunch of different magazines and makes a collage, does he owe money to every magazine? That would be absurd. Why should these photos be different?

>Isn't a lot of art basically bullshit? Just take a look at modern art paintings

No.

>and how much they sell for.

Perhaps. I guess it depends on the perspective you're approaching it from. As a use of capital resources in a world of crushing and grinding poverty, I say yes.

As a potential investment: if the someone is willing to pay more in the future then it's not bullshit.

> Isn't a lot of art basically bullshit?

Yes. Murial Gray (scottish broadcaster) has some amazing stuff about this. She had a TV show (Art is Dead, Long Live TV (1991, thus hard to find info about)).

http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/archive/readArticle/677

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Gray

>Can anyone seriously make the point that a picture of a smiling woman is worth 1 billion?

Just as easily as i can make the point that a 100 dollar bill is worth 100 dollars

Because other people believe that to be its value.

"Art" != "expensive stuff hanging in galleries."

It's music, TV shows, movies, posters, novels, games, that amazing dinner you had the other night, expensive stuff hanging in galleries, that goofy widget sitting on your desk, etc.

Art is awesome.

The problem is shitty artists who exploit the talent of others, but otherwise don't contribute much.

There are artists who are born to craft art. They wake up and want to paint, no matter what, they have a drive to refine their craft. They better the world through pure visual joy.

There are artists who are born to scheme. The art is the vessel, the craft is the thought. The concept is king and and to be successful is to create tight, conceptually sound pieces. To craft relevant and provoking statements out of abstract language. They better the world through debate and response.

Many successful artists combine the two but it's not a necessity.

I don't think you should dismiss somebody because they provoked you with their work. Your statement, your imagery of blasting him into space, is ultimately the execution of his piece. He built a frame and your comment filled it in.

Therefor, my review of Richard Prince and 6stringmerc's collaboration...

3 out of 5. Deductions made due to the cruelty of your "well-deserved end" bit. Maybe next time consider a scenario in which they are trapped and punished but are given an opportunity to redeem themselves through an exercise of traditional craft. Also a smaller deduction due to your trite invocation of Musk and Bezos. Even the most casual HN comment readers have explored their entrepreneurial motif enough.

> I don't think you should dismiss somebody because they provoked you with their work. Your statement, your imagery of blasting him into space, is ultimately the execution of his piece. He built a frame and your comment filled it in.

Which, according to logic, makes people who successfully provoke others already artists half way. Not a very good definition of art in my opinion...

While I can see the humor in your taking a stance as an arbiter and unquestionable authority on all things artistic and therefore leveling criticism at my personal opinion as conveyed using over-the-top creative writing for effect, I kindly decline the relevance, necessity, or functional benefit of your review, and believe it should be shot into space, where it will meet its well deserved audience.

But it's not like it's an interesting reaction, it's so obvious. It's like when kids say "Hey look at that over there" and then "Made you look" when you look. You don't have a reason not to look, it's maybe funny the first time because it's so stupid but after it's been done over and over (and appropriation has) then there's nothing left. Or like an older brother who maneuvers his siblings hands and then says "Stop hitting yourself". These produce exactly the same reaction as the provocateur is intending but it's not an interesting reaction at all.

Personally, I think the only reason that this guy is famous is because some very wealthy people chose him specifically because he can generate an endless stream of his art so that they can buy and trade them to make more money. The art is an investment for them and has no aesthetic value.

Nicely put; also for relevant context, recently there was publicity around a 'comedian' by the name of Nicole Arbor who put together some incendiary, willfully offensive "Dear ____ People" videos, none of which I'll link. Basically, when called out for being highly offensive, she doubled down on the comedy and art being offensive is part of tradition but side-stepped acknowledging a lot of people found her material, well, just not funny. So it failed the artistic merit test by consensus. Thus, it wasn't really art, just bad rhetoric. Not all things claiming to be art are actually art.

Have you ever torrented files you didn't legally own? Say, pirated a movie and watched with family and friends?

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