The Art World’s Patron Satan | Hacker News Reader

The Art World’s Patron Satan

nytimes.com

TLDR:

Players in an extremely intricate and extremely lucrative social game are upset about someone who's gaming the system without regard for its unspoken rules.

thank you.

I think it's kind of awesome. Art prices are so made up and abstract that if someone can game the system then good for them. And this article feeds into that plan perfectly. If he gets someone's $500,000 hospital bill taken care of in exchange for two large paintings well I'd call that a hell of a deal for the artist.

At the moment fine art is perhaps the most bubbly asset on the planet. The wealthy are clamoring for exotic plays to invest their cash in.

A acquaintance of mine who is an art-handler tells me much of the art they move is stored in warehouses in New Jersey solely in the hope that it can be resold at a vastly inflated price in the future.

>...I'd call that a hell of a deal for the artist.

And I'd call that a hell of a deal for the hospital.

If you find this guy interesting, you should read the $12 Million Stuffed Shark: http://www.amazon.com/The-Million-Stuffed-Shark-Contemporary...

I read the article. I honestly do not understand what this guy is doing that is so problematic.

He's a symptom, not a cause.

(Although possibly not a very original symptom.)

But a symptom of what, exactly?

It sounds like what he's doing is providing material support for artists (many of whom would not otherwise be able to pursue art full time) as well as connections to collectors. In exchange he buys up the art for very cheap.

I think they're making an argument that he's creating a lot of hype around these artists and that this creates a bubble for their work which bursts after a few years. Maybe that's a reasonable criticism, but it's not clear to me why someone whose work was very popular for a few years couldn't then parlay the connections that they've made and the lessons that they've learned into a reasonably successful career, even if the value of the work declines dramatically from the peak. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable deal to make, especially when you consider how incredibly hard it is for artists to get any kind of attention in the first place.

I'll admit that I really don't understand how the art world works, despite the fact that my Mom is a professional artist.

Sounds like YCombinator to me.

A symptom of a business where a large part of the monetary value is assigned to a small number of star producers, and this assigning is heavily influenced by a class of middlemen who are busily pretending, through social conventions and traditions, that the money is not important, since they profit greatly from the consumers' belief that the non-monetary aspects are the most important ones.

Simchowitz is basically a "munchkin middleman" who blithely ignores said conventions and traditions and addresses a different class of consumers.

edited in reaction to reply

Based on this article's description, I wouldn't say he's disintermediating it so much as differently intermediating it. It sounds like he's building up an interesting web of social and business conventions to position people as art-stars, cultivate investors in said art-stars' careers and works, cultivate "appreciators" who key on status signals he's inflecting certain artists with, etc. It's still ultimately a lot of a status and positioning game, trying to build someone up as a "major artist" in a way that a critical mass of critics and investors buy, while setting yourself up as the intermediary who controls access to this corner of the art world.

I'm certainly no art high roller, but my understanding is that the art world has a long history of patrons like this, who have eclectic tastes, large networks of trusting collectors, and an eye for the new. Everyone hates them, until eventually they build the Guggenheim museum and then everyone thinks they were awesome.

I definitely agree that this is a symptom of larger things. Although I'm not so sure about the munchkin remark.

Yeah, as you imply it's basically a symptom of how artificially constructed the price of much art is perhaps due to how artists and art pieces are assigned value --somewhat arbitrarily but with some relation to perceived relevance in art history. In other words much of its value not not so much intrinsic as manufactured.

One only needs to look at Rhine II [1]

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein_II

The article is a little annoying in its portrayal of artist being completely unaware. A really good discussion broke out on Paddy Johnson's (artfcity) fb page where Simchowitz chimed in. I'm glad to see it on hn though ~ I think there are many analogues to the tech scene and many younger builders/hackers/engineers. I think it's a symptom of wildly speculative markets with potential major payoffs and few regulations.

Galleries want a 50% cut from every sale of new art. He's getting a discount by buying in bulk and going straight to the artist.

Edit: TBC, I don't think there's anything wrong with what he's doing, but he's clearly making some enemies

I like him. I think the problem (from the artists' pov) is that he reflects the fickleness of art fashions; instead of pacing output and helping an artist to gather momentum for the long term, he's like a pump-and-dump salesman - and once an artist's price has peaked, their personal brand is toast. They don't make much during their brief moment of fame, and then its over and they're yesterday's news. Since many artists are not at all business-savvy, they feel like they just got caught in a revolving door.

He's an embodiment of the end of organic growth in art. Cherrypicking young artists and forcing then towards pieces that will churn larger profits. Public opinion is riding an Instagram fueled hype machine with this tasteless fool at the helm.

I would like to hear the other side of the story. It is entirely possible that, in effect, the work is not likely to be valuable in the future and so he's gaining trust of those who do not understand the value of a piece and selling what will eventually be a worthless piece for inflated value.

Honestly, I don't take pity in the games of the wealthy.

That very well may be true, but in essence the values of lots of art are a product of the whims of curators, directors and art dealers. So those people who see their monopoly on power threatened probably would make a disingenuous stink about what he's doing.

Basically he's sort of being the itunes/pandora/spotify/whatever to the radio DJ of old who could make or break a music artist.

There may be a few pieces of art which are historically significant because of how they shape(d) future artists and appreciators of art --but those pieces are few and far between and moreover you don't see the same value assigned to similarly significant things in life but which aren't regarded art.

In the first paragraph:

> “Who do I know in the States who’s not a kid on heroin?”

Are we to really believe that Amalia Ulman only knows young heroin users in the US, and no one outside of that group? How did this get through the NY Times fact checking process?

Worth visiting ArtRank.com which subverts much of the emerging art speculation

If you enjoy reading about the art world you might like http://tondo.is/

The whole industry is incredibly fascinating.

> all of Ulman’s medical bills, which, after a month in the hospital and an additional month in rehab, totaled nearly half a million dollars.

This guy takes advantage of a desperate situation for the poor in US. The discussion is focused in the wrong problem.

Require care for 60 days, spend 10-20 years paying for how you didn't die. Remind me again why we don't have actual public health care, and how our system is so much better for people.

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