Q. What’s white and rolls down a bathroom wall?
A. George Michael’s latest release.
–David Brent, The Office
Dreams of sugar skulls and rotting sharks
In Unrequired Reading last week, I posted Clive Crook’s praise for Damien Hirst, who is auctioning off some of his “art” in the biggest auction ever for a living artist, or something. Crook didn’t praise Hirst’s art qua art; rather, he praised Hirst’s ability to get stupid rich people to blow millions on his products:
I am a huge admirer of Damien Hirst. Not of the art, which is rubbish, but of the sheer productivity and exuberance he brings to his life’s work of fleecing rich idiots. “Oh Damien, you’re a genius. Screw me over again.” “Why not,” he says, munching a bacon butty.
Art critic Robert Hughes is less cheery about this prospect. It’s not that he feels badly for the rich people who are spending multimillions on Hirst’s work; rather, he has a more conventional pissed-off-edness about what Hirst’s products say about contemporary art:
If there is anything special about this event, it lies in the extreme disproportion between Hirst’s expected prices and his actual talent. Hirst is basically a pirate, and his skill is shown by the way in which he has managed to bluff so many art-related people, from museum personnel such as Tate’s Nicholas Serota to billionaires in the New York real-estate trade, into giving credence to his originality and the importance of his “ideas”. This skill at manipulation is his real success as an artist. He has manoeuvred himself into the sweet spot where wannabe collectors, no matter how dumb (indeed, the dumber the better), feel somehow ignorable without a Hirst or two.
Which is to say, give Hughes a read, too!
(I gotta get around to reading his memoirs
It’s the F*** Backstop!
I suppose that when I ran a link to the NYMag article on “the death of book publishing,” I should’ve made it part of my F*** You, You Whining F*** series. I failed you, dear readers.
Fortunately, Kassia Kroszer is out there as my F*** You Backstop with a good post that bashes the living crap out of that article and its synecdochal contention that “literary fiction” is book publishing. Thanks, KK!
Et Tu, Squatch?
I just couldn’t resist that headline after I saw this story.
Rated C for Cretinous
If Slate‘s business/finance site, The Big Money, is going to run inane articles like this one that calls for TV and movies to receive ratings about product placement, then let’s hope it dies a swift and quiet death:
In contrast with the late ’60s, our period is one of inexhaustible consumption and materialism, and the collapse of personality and aspirations into a culture of brands and logos. We are bankrupt and filling our seas with plastic. Yet we have no method by which to regulate-or even measure-the hidden ads the fill all of our many screens.
And speaking of “if only things were more like the late ’60s” . . .
Update: RR’s policy suggestions are unsafe at any speed.
Unrequired Reading: Sept. 19, 2008
Waiting for the eclipse
I haven’t slept well lately, so I assume my fourth estate alter ego has been working overtime on plumbing my mind for good arts articles. What’s in today’s edition of the Official Newspaper of Gil Roth?
- a walking tour of the architecture of Park Slope,
- a review of an exhibition on the origins of abstract painting in America,
- what we draw about when we draw Babar,
- Van Gogh: just because,
- and the coup de grace: the history (and sales record) of a possibly fictitious acolyte of Andy Warhol.
I guess this means I’ll get better nights of sleep once the Sun closes up shop, but my arts life is going to be a lot less interesting.
Newsflash!
The book publishing business remains blockbuster-driven, continues slide down crapper. Return to what you were doing.
Poesiealbum
I’ll sure miss the NYSun when it closes up shop at the end of the month (barring a buyer who’s willing to lose a bunch of money). Today’s gem is Against Oblivion, Adam Kirsch’s review of The Terezin Album of Marianka Zadikow. I can’t do it justice, so go read it for yourself.
Market timing
Two anecdotes that help me make sense (of humor) out of the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy, the Merrill Lynch buyout, the Fannie/Freddie seizure, Bear Stearns debacle and all else:
1.
Around 1991, I walked into a local-ish comic store, as is my wont. As I was checking out, I noticed that the store had the first issue of Justice League International for sale at $20. It had come out in 1987 and I had a copy at home. A semi-impoverished college student, I figured I could use a few bucks, and asked if they were buying copies of that comic.
The clerk said, “No, man. We’ve got a whole box of that issue back in the storeroom.”
“Then why are you selling it for $20?” I asked.
“Because that’s what [The Guide] says it’s worth,” he told me.
Ah: [The Guide]. I don’t recall which price guide was in vogue back then, but I think that was the beginning of the era when comic magazines were publishing revised price guides on a monthly basis.
“But [The Guide] doesn’t make money selling copies of JLI #1,” I replied. “It makes money selling copies of [The Guide]. You oughtta put ‘HALF-OFF!’ signs up and I bet you could move the whole box pretty quickly.”
“But [The Guide] says they’re worth $20!”
“It’s only worth what you can get for it,” I said. Never let it be said I didn’t learn anything from my dad.
Mark to market. That’s why Lehman Bros. went into bankruptcy while Merrill Lynch managed to get itself bought.
2.
My next-door neighbor took his stockbroker exam in October 1987. This was three days before the Black Monday collapse, in which the Dow tanked 22%. He went on to work as a substitute teacher in our high school for the next several years.
In that spirit, congratulations to Slate, which launched its new business/finance site, The Big Money, yesterday.