Hacker News Reader

Comment by drcode | Hacker News Reader

I feel like modern art market is primarily a way for a subsegment of rich people to buy certain intangible goods: These are people that feel lonely, and have low self esteem... They really would like to socialize with cool and charismatic people, and the "modern art scene" is basically a very pricey matchmaking service for them to make friends and go to parties with people that fit this description (i.e. the artists)

View on HN

100+ years ago a urinal would neither be considered art nor valuable as an artistic expression. Art used to require skill until avant-garde and deconstructionism mounted what has turned out to be a successful attack on artistic competence.

Why it was successful is an interesting question. The wealthy has always been important patrons of the arts, and people seem to use the cost of a piece to signify value of the art itself. Imagined or otherwise.

A few documentaries [1 - can't find the main one I was thinking about] [2 - a good video summary on it] and books have exposed that tax deductions on art donations is an incentive to game the system, because it easy to collude with art brokers you know to collect cheap crap art and then donate it. To find a way to collect art you truly adore and then part with it for a tax deduction is much harder.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9878520/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZz2PhTQJCA

What a weird and condescending take.

Why? It’s not strange to think that an old man in leveraged buyouts would be willing to spend some money to be catered to by a group of young, talented, attractive people... and if he’s rich enough or lucky enough, maybe even fuck a few of them.

Young, sure. Talented, maybe. But attractive is probably not what you're optimizing for if you're hanging out in the art scene. Might have better luck in the fashion world

Not everyone is attracted to the same thing. Personally I don't know much about the "art scene" but many of the people I find attractive have turned out to be artists and musicians.

Sounds like owning a winery around these parts.

Sure. Is there any data that shows that modern art is primarily bought by lonely people?

It's not an insane idea, but it's also totally unfounded to assume that people who buy art are primarily "lonely" with "low self-esteem".

As well as naive. It's all about the 'market', not about the 'friends'.

Modern art (or just art), it's more a money laundry, tax evasion, asset management scheme than anything else.

I think those play a smaller role, for the following reason: If modern art was primarily about the social aspects, you'd expect most modern art to be stuff like a perfectly blank canvas or a urinal, because those are direct signals of the "coolness" of the artist (who else but a charismatic person can sell a blank canvas?)

If art was more about tax evasion, etc, then modern art would probably be more photorealistic or otherwise difficult to create (since this would make it easier for outsiders to assess the scarcity of an asset)

But I agree that the modern art market is multifactorial in nature and that there are elements of both involved.

But most modern art is not much better than blank canvas, etc.

That's exactly what I'm saying: The more ludicrous the art, the more likely it is that the product is not the art itself, but the artist.

The tax evasion argument doesn't seem to follow. It's not the scarcity that you want hard to measure it's the value. Scarcity in modern art is always assured by one of a kind or limited runs. If it's photorealistic it's much easier to judge the value than an abstract composition. How much should a shark in formaldehyde be worth? If it's in a natural history museum, then the price of the shark, the tank and the formaldehyde and any labor to prepare it. If it's in an art museum, who knows? Whatever someone paid for it.

It's also a way for rich people to involve themselves comfortably in some non-profit sector (go look at a board for a major art museum), and to become 'tastemakers.'

The desire to be an influencer is very natural, and this is the easiest path for you if you've got a lot of cash to burn.

I'd say being an "influencer" and socializing with interesting people are very similar and hard to tease apart as separate concepts.

you are framing it as a one way street. The “lonely people with low self esteem” want to socialize with the “cool and charismatic people”...maybe the other side of the coin is the “cool and charismatic people” are nothing more than well designed marketing of idealized principles who actually are quick to sell out because they worship money over their own art.

I've been in and around the art scene in New York City and I would not describe the buyers as "people that feel lonely, and have low self esteem." Maybe a few, but certainly not most. Many of them have the opposite problem, an extreme self-confidence that comes across as arrogant. As with all things relating to the cutting edge of culture, one needs great confidence to survive, on both the buying and selling side of things.

I have a few art pieces that I'm proud to have at my apartment. Some people think they are ugly, but they are an expression of my tastes, and therefore they are a useful shorthand for communicating those tastes to others, when they visit my apartment. I suspect that a lot of art buyers have the same motivation as myself, they are looking for symbols that can work as a shorthand way of communicating a lot about oneself.

I guess the question is whether arrogance arises from high self esteem or as a compensation for low self esteem... My experience is usually it's the latter.

>>Many of them have the opposite problem, an extreme self-confidence that comes across as arrogant.

Too many people that seem very self-confident and arrogant are actually highly insecure people.

> These are people that feel lonely, and have low self esteem.

Slightly related:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6777961/Billionaire...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com