There's A Whole Other Art Universe Out There

Oh.
My.
Gosh.

Robert, are you inferring that there is an art world beyond faa?????????

Yeah, well, when I make my billions, I'll know who to avoid if I want to purchase art LOL. Wow, I can't even imagine being in that stratosphere....

My, my, my, big greed is everywhere! Interesting to note Modigliani is one of the most forged artists.

Robert,

Great find. A lot of humor in that article.

Magritte? Really? Who would care???

Dave

Just goes to show the greed factor of thieves can just keep escalating no matter how rich they are.

David, Humour? I think you would care if you were the buyer of the Magritte. Because someone is wealthy doesn't mean it was obtained dishonestly. I am glad people value art in the marketplace, rich and poor.

Just because you don't care for Magritte doesn't mean it's not valuable art, David.

That article used the word "million" so many times. Completely different reality from the other 99.8% of us.

Magritte's work is sub par compared to everyone else on the list. Just is.

Valuable yes. Not nearly as valuable.

Suzanne, the article was very funny. BTW the Russian involved is a crook was well.

And Cohen's hedge fund was up on charges a few years ago as well. And lost in court.

Just about all of the "names' involved are crooked. Except the author of the article,
who has a hell of a sense of humor and irony.

Dave

Take this quote.....

owes his company “tens of millions of euros” for “the most beautiful Rothko [painting] in the world.”

How is one Rothko all that different from the next? LMAO

Dave

This quote is even better yet....

"The globe-trotting Bouvier was arrested on Feb. 28 and is out on $16 million bail."

Remember the guy just pocketed $22 million. Flight risk???

Dave

I think the author threw in the Margritte label purposely last as a hoot. But even listing these dead artists as "suspicious deals involving works by .......is meant to set up a rogues gallery of great artists.

With the curtain pulled back on one alleged art fraud, others have rushed forward to point fingers at other suspicious deals involving works by Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Degas and Magritte.

@david
"How is one Rothko all that different from the next? LMAO "

You might wanna go back to school and read up.

So Marlene which Rothko is the "most beautiful"?

How can you tell?

You have the floor.

Dave

I don't pick favorites. I couldn't if I tried.....a retrospective of his work is, however, one of the most thrilling experiences I have ever encountered. To stand in a room, with only 4 giganict Rothkos, one on each wall, literally took my breath away. Rothko's extensive writings and plethora of quotations will stand the test of time, as will his works.
It is a relief, however, to know that you won't be doing any of your derivatives of his art.

Just a suggestion....before you go spouting off your strong and flippant opinions of famous artists, you might wanna consider how those opinions make you look.

I love Rothko's work.

You again are way ahead of yourself. There is no "most beautiful" Rothko. Please read properly.

You are back to the hostility for hostility's sake.

Dave

I'm not hostile, David.
I just always consider the source.
You have yourself a great day.

God you can be kind of a blowhard sometimes, David. I don't think you intend to sound nearly as confrontational as you frequently do. And frankly half the time you seem to be going on about things you don't know quite enough about. If saying that gets me banned then so be it. I've bitten my tongue too many times.

Art is subjective. I, as a fan of Rothko, like almost all his work. I have also had the pleasure of being able to get nose to nose with one and see the nuance of color and texture. I personally love number 61.

I completely understand why lots of folks don't care for Rothko, but to blithely dismiss an artist because you don't get what he/she does is a little ridiculous.

Cynthia,

I know a lot about art history and art theory.

You need to tag team with Marlene? Do I have to have a fight with two people? Really?

Again reading your last comment I love Rothko's work. You need to read things correctly first. The
tag team act needs to be dropped.

Dave

It is interesting to me in the upper echelons of art there is much fraud. Here is an article on fraud and once again Modigliani's work the victim. Although the article Robert posted is not about forgery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/arts/design/a-modigliani-who-says-so.html?_r=0

You don't have to fight with me at all. You won't change my opinion. I am simply somewhat exasperated by your know it all attitude.

This had nothing to do with Marlene, it was all about the things you say here. I didn't even see her initial reply to you.

Art is totally subjective. I happen to like Mr "sub-par" Magritte. But WTF do i know. I only know what I like.

back to the original article - it's an interesting story and my heart bleeds for these poor people. I won't be able to sleep at night because poor oligarchs and hedge fund managers have been potentially defrauded.

how sad ;-(

corruption and greed, not even the art world is exempt from it. What really is perplexing is that people with so much wealth seem to never be content with what they have.

I hope they can afford therapy.

@Mario,
Not a surprise, really....material possessions are just the lowest level of pleasure.

@Cynthia,
I'll gladly split the ban with you. I couldn't have said it better. I also hadn't noticed your initial response when I made my comment.

Invest in Joy & Inspiration
BUY ART


Coming soon to a Discussion near you.
Don't miss it.

Bill Tomsa

http://billtomsa.blogspot.com/

Wow, I must be strange since I love Rothko and Magritte!

I think that is enough from both you ladies, thank you. You both know rule 1

Apologies, Abbie. Won't happen again. :)

Rothko + Rockefeller "provenance" = Rothko Sells for $75 Million.

Dang, ... seems lately that if I am not the problem response, then I attract the problem responses.

Is my Karma really so bad? Do I need to do more Hail Mary? I am a very quiet, reclusive person by nature. I guess this is why. If I were more out in the open, then I might risk more repercussions than I could handle.

I posted this just as a sort of reality check for the "rest of us 99.8% artists", as Cynthia D. alludes to.

I remember once being in a casual conversation with a wealthy local guy (many years ago), and the casualness with which he spoke of moving around millions of dollars in his dealings made an impression on me. The article here reminded me of that.

Regardless of the particular artist on the auction block, ... barring all considerations of quality, craftsmanship, etc., ... is all this REALLY about the art at all?

This is a story about a bunch of fools with too much money buying fabricated legacies and mediocre efforts based upon the advice of a market manipulator.
This type of thing happens all day every day on Wall Street without any criminal charges being filed.

Joe Burgess
jb-imagery.com

The sequence of events might seem unclear to some people here because of all the names, so here it is in a nutshell:

Steven Cohen sold the painting for $93.5 million.

The person who bought the painting (an art broker, Yves Bouvier) sold the painting to Dmitry Rybolovlev for $ 118 million, thus inflating the price by $22 million from its recently sold price. Bouvier is accused, then, of forging documents to artificially inflate this sale and other sales too that he has brokered.

I assume that the painting was appraised on paper officially at $93.5 million, and then somehow Bouvier modified or redid those appraisal papers to falsely jack up the price to $118 million, in order to pocket the difference. Essentially the same painting was being sold in the same time frame at phenomenally DIFFERENT prices. This generally is illegal with any product, as I understand it.

I contend that if art were the true focus here, then such a thing might be less likely to occur. What I suggest is going on involves the game of acquiring symbols of wealth to boost images of wealth and power. The people with money to play these games are less in tune to artistic information and more in tune to what the price standard makers inform them are the costs of maintaining their images as wealthy powerful individuals.

Phenomenally wealthy individuals TRUST the price makers to tell them what is valuable and how valuable something is. It is not a game of cultured sensibility, but rather a game of keeping up an image by using art as a device. It is a game of high style, like driving the latest high-priced car.

Artists who get into this game would seem to be a totally different breed from artists who do art for the satisfaction of doing the art.

I wonder how many living artists are in this game.

HOW MUCH?????????????

WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ... TOO ... MUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Totally totally agree... These people are obviously compensating for the lack of something

Richard,

I have mixed feelings about Magritte's work. That said the analysis of art is always readily available.
People are fully trained to take apart all of that subjective matter and figure out every little nuance.

Picasso painted with great brushstrokes and could fill the canvas. Magritte with only a graphic artist's background
painted square by square leaving a flat feeling to the overall image. You could say he did this because he
wanted a surrealistic look, but even when he was alive he never would have claimed the skills of the other
painters on that list, Picasso in particular.

January 2014 some of Magritte's most famous works were on show at the MoMA. I went with friends and was underwhelmed.

My parents many years ago went to Europe and bought me a present of a coffee table book of Magritte's work. I was
hoping for so much more.

Yes art is subjective. Regardless of the ability of some educated folks to analyze it through and through the subjective is
a full reality. Magritte's work in person is a let down. He was tacked on to that list as a joke. Just my take.

The short article is full of funny things.

I did not follow Cohen's hedge fund courtroom proceedings tooth and nail, but the hedge fund was up on insider trading charges.
At that time and probably still today it was the largest case of its kind. The hedge fund was stripped of a lot of money, in the billion(s).

From Wiki on SAC, Steven A Cohen....

Steven A. Cohen (born June 11, 1956) is an American hedge fund manager. He is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund focusing primarily on equity market strategies.

He has an estimated net worth of $11.1 billion as of May 2014, ranked by Forbes as the 106th richest man in the world.[1][2] Cohen is 35th overall in the U.S.[3] In November 2012, he began to be implicated in a large criminal insider trading scandal. In July 2013, SAC was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with failing to prevent insider trading.[4][5] In November 2013, SAC Capital agreed to plead guilty, stop managing funds for outsiders, and pay a $1.2 billion fine.[6]

Richard,

I love Rothko's work. The thing is with his most famous works that are very spiritual
you can not choose one as the "most beautiful". They are all beautiful and powerful.

The article quoted someone saying there was a rip off involving the "most beautiful" Rothko.
I like the author's sense of humor. Since he might have been quoting a Russian woman's broken English?

Call me a know it all, or just quick, but Rothko did not have a "most beautiful" work. Among all
the crooks in the article one of the wives/girl friends making the claim was a nincompoop.....
with a lot of wealth attached though.....LOL Perhaps she is a lot smarter than I am. :)
Certainly a lot better looking sight unseen.

Dave

The thing with Magritte is as a Surrealist it's much less about the brushstrokes and mainly about the idea.

Where Dali decided early on he would be a 'paranoicly perfect painter' to set him apart from all other comers, it's the other comers that largely proved richer in ideas than him alone.In fact after Picasso's deformations entered the fray, the quality of an artist's brushwork was no longer seen as a vital attribute in 'serious' work.

Modernism has a lot to answer for, but it can't be said it was as lacking in ideas as art from any previous era

It's nice that the link is free this time around.

Rick Mosher posted another article discussing the same subject a while back: http://www.shoutoutuk.org/the-murky-world-of-the-art-industry-interview-exclusive-with-dmitry-tamoikin/, which in addition to this article adds an interesting perspective on the whole mess.

Mark,

I like your perspective. From the 1850s to the 1970s the energy in fine art was tremendous.

Since the 1970s much of the creativity and new ideas have stalled. Not stalled out, but things are waning
in western art. Things are getting rehashed generally. I think digital art has a lot of value in changing that.

The money though is flowing at a greater rate than ever before in history.

Dave

This has nothing to do with art. It has everything to do with who has the biggest bank account or the most bling when the same thing involves NBA, NFL or other professional athletics.

I think it was William Buffer that said that once you reach the $500,000,000 level, there is not a lot of difference between you and the guy that may have 2 or 3 billion or more. Once you get to $500M, there is literally nothing reasonable you can not buy, including a small country if you wanted one. From there it becomes a completion between the wealthy of how much you can afford to throw away.

Floyd,

As a side note, I brought the $29 down to $19 and everything else was taken down to compete
across the internet. We are in a larger world around us. Some folks are putting blind ego ahead of business.

Back to the articles, I wish my mother had brought me up to have my mouth and hands under the FED spigot.
Just collect through my bank or whatever what the FED prints every day.

Dave

Excellent article Vanessa! It is an extension of the article for the thread. Great find! It appears the fraud and corrupt dealings in art is huge and its tentacles are everywhere in the art world.

Seems that once the dollar value reaches over $20, there is nothing but fraud and corruption in everything these days. So sad.

I can't take credit for the article, Sydne, but thanks. Rick Mosher posted it on another thread four days prior. It does seem that the art world operates like any speculative market economy. If people start mentioning art futures, that's definitely the time to stop taking the art world seriously :D

This happens not just in Art, everyday, everywhere. if I can go over details but who really cares anymore.
When I listen to things like this just make my blood boil. I was trying to block my eyes and ear, but it is difficult.
My husband has an advanced degree (PhD) yet, how many times he struggled to keep his job in Academia. He is not the only one there are many more.
I have a friend, he has advanced degree from UC Berkley, yet a job is hard to come by. There is something wrong with this picture. So little value in education and no reward for honest hard working peoples like these. Yet 1% our county can play with their money such as this, and hold such a power.

LMAO.....Floyd.....

I will take a little fraud over here please.....LOL

Vanessa, I think David Bowie was the first one to have bonds written against future royalties over his music rights.
Ziggy played guitar.

Hyoye, My BIL is in your husband's boat. Until a few months ago it was harrowing for a few years now. He has just landed a major set of
research works with a major MIT/Harvard center for research, the Broad Institute. He is an MD/Ph.D, but he began to talk
of how he could always fall back on his MD license in Mass to practice medicine. His work is crucial. Cuts are everywhere. Painful cuts.

Dave

We think the financial markets are rigged but in comparison to the art market they are a beacon of light and transparency.

... a quote from the article in the SECOND link that somebody presented that complements the article that I presented very well.

Such intelligent conversation about art has shown up in this discussion, but none of these points are of any immediate relevance to the money handlers in the buying and selling of this high-priced stuff. If these guys could speak in the intelligent ARTISTIC terms presented here, then things might be different. As I suggested though, this is NOT art for decoration, art for art's sake, or art for anything other than status making and financial portfolio creation, and the price tags are paid according to TRUST, which here has been severely eroded.

We usually think of art as something we appreciate for inherent qualities of the art object, but definitely not here. Those "inherent qualities" are secondary at most. Here the art is a financial tool and little more.

If you haven't seen this, it's worth a look. "60 Minutes ponders Miami's Art Basel"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mHVy_hH8vc

That avant garde art world 60 Minutes is talking about.....is not ready for the future.....

so ironic.

Dave

We usually think of art as something we appreciate for inherent qualities of the art object, but definitely not here. Those "inherent qualities" are secondary at most. Here the art is a financial tool and little more.

"Financial tool" could be a way of putting it. Or handy venue for money laundering since the end consumer doesn't seem to be profiting as much from an artificially inflated transaction. Pity the poor person who is saddled with the beanie baby equivalent of the art world, too (won't mention his name). Rick Mosher did post an interesting article.

David, lol re. "I'll take a little fraud over here please". I know the feeling although am a little uncomfortable considering how some of that money could be from misery causing illicit activity. We have a huge problem of human trafficking all along I-4 in Florida. Interesting fact about David Bowie, though. Wonder how his bonds performed or if anyone ever had a call or put on them :)

Hyoye, we might be reaping the benefit of too many chiefs. How can a service or resale economy support us? That seems to be the route the US took and anyone who has ever lived in an area of a tourist based economy were probably shaking their heads. I'm so sorry that your husband and friend are having such a tough time though. I'm hoping you guys can keep your spirits up and am wishing you all the best.

Vanessa,


The US is still the largest manufacturing power in the world. A couple of years ago 2013 we produced
$2.8 trillion, a smaller part of our GDP. The Chinese are second with $2.2 trillion. We are only talking the manufacturing
base.

People are constantly misinforming each other. There are many agendas at work and none of them are honest. People
then parrot what they hear.

US major corporations are moving Chinese operations or plants back here and updating them in the process.
China does not have the water to produce for the world and her internal needs. China now is looking to produce
much more for her own wants and needs.

Cheaper energy prices in the US make the US more than worth the move.

Dave

I have a great idea for a contemporary art installation:

Take the check for the amount of money that some buyer paid for one of those high-priced pieces, convert it to dollar bills, and, using these dollar bills as the sculpting medium, construct a large human brain with a notable part of it missing, positioning a green arrow nearby pointing to this missing part labelled with the word ... Labartotomy

This would be my ... Labartotomy ... installation piece, for which the asking price would be DOUBLE the amount of money required to assemble it.

"...US major corporations are moving Chinese operations or plants back here and updating them in the process..."

What's the projected time frame when those "Made in the USA" labels start appearing on products again?

I think that I will start attaching the label saying "Made on Earth" to my art products. This way, all we have to worry about is whether USA labor is being abducted to other planets or not.

Watch out for any product label that states,... Made on Zimdar ... I hear that the laborers there do not take anything seriously. Kiss any hope of a warranty goodbye.

Vanessa, Dave
Thanks, anyways. Sorry I must give you the wrong idea.
My husband and this particular friend of mine are doing very well nowadays. They had to go through such a process in the past. I remember my husband had to give up his research for a while to get more money. He moved around many schools before
UMass, Brandeis, Boston, etc. He has been Academia now about 20 years.
I am mainly talking for in behalf of some of the faculty members in Academia.
We have many circles of friends who are in Academia. We have a family member who is head of the state education in other state. Researchers. Instructors, These are all our close friends and family. We have a guy comes over to our house to do our yard work. He makes more money then some of my friend.
You wonder why Kids doesn't want to stay in school. My daughter is trying to get an MBA. I am not sure if that is a good idea. She will be heading toward France in near future.
Robert, This is a very good point you are making here in this thread. Art related to 1% of population in America.
There are so many tax loopholes for wealthiest in this country. I am not surprise about this. Art is a second best investment according Bloomberg.
There is a reason why wealthy are investing money on Art.
Some case, it had nothing to do with Art. I should say it differently many cases, it had nothing to do with Art

Hyoye S.,

It has to do with the art of keeping up appearances.

... the art of creating status symbols.

... the art of scamming the wealthiest in the name of art.


I just peed in my toilet at precisely 3:52:0000035689712 Universal Time. This marks a momentous occasion in the history of an individual's life, as measured by the most accurate timing device currently invented, even more viscerally recording a technologically special moment in the history of human time keeping. I have recovered precisely 3.5111111119954 ml of this precious liquid gold, and I am starting the bids at a $ quarter mil.

Robert, My comments were that good? I am flattered. Next time I will try harder so you can pee in your pants. We don't need to know all this unless.... LOL

BTW
I agree totally. Art becomes a money making tool. and status symbol.
Wealthy people jumping into the bandwagon.

No worries, David I'm not parroting what I hear so much as observing what was and is in areas I've lived. Perhaps a little narrow, but furniture, textile, many computer components and other like products are rarer. And I'd love to purchase US stainless steel in products like scissors. Oh well.

We are exporting things that require less processing, like lumber, etc, and we still exceed in food exports. Kind of like exporting cotton to England under King Charles III and having to purchase clothing from England in return.

Glad things are better, Hyoye. I always thought it took time and so many publications to establish yourself in academia? Someone told me the competitive nature of the academic field wasn't too far removed from the one in art. Maybe your daughter could still pursue her education but avoid the usurious student loans because she too might face a lean time period?

Vanessa,
Correct, many publications, most importantly, if you can bring grants to school which means major research.
Fortunately, my daughter has money of her own. Trust me, I will stop her going to Paris if she had to borrow.
Education becomes no longer a good investment.

Oh, I hope it isn't a bad investment, at least in knowledge gained. Speaking of which, it wasn't clothing but finished goods in general we got in return for our raw exports. My bad.

Food, grains, aerospace, defense, pharma, surgical equipment, lumber, oil, NG, education, machine tools, financials,

Some smaller household goods as well.

Our Fortune 2000 corporations simply make it elsewhere, so the labels are not always ours.

Water, China just does not have enough. Companies are bringing their manufacturing back to the US.

The world including China is losing manufacturing jobs.

I firmly believe people have all sorts of different agendas when it comes to jobs, money, power, trade, etc
that we will never get the truth out of any of the bigger fish in this universe.

Dave

Yes, I'm certainly talking about not making products in the US but have no idea why companies set up overseas. Someone told me that it's a matter of tax breaks, not labor and building costs, and the difference in profit kept is about 4% but I've never found anything substantiating that theory.

I didn't realize China was having such severe drought, though. They had been clearing farms and undeveloped patches of land in favor of industry which sounds a little strange to me. Importing all your food is the quickest way to become prey to exchange rates and other variables, right? Anyway, thanks for the info, David.

Vanessa,

One more recent theories on how companies gain manufacturing advantages is based on how big markets are.
China's major cities offer immediate markets. So US companies producing in Chinese major cities have or had
major advantages compared to building things here and shipping. They could cover the cost of the factory right
there and then selling to those in the city before exporting things to further away.

Many US goods now have Made in Mexico on them. Mexicans work for less. Mexicans honor labor unions. US
propaganda against labor unions is very short sighted. Labor unions on very big factory floors get things done
for both labor and the company. Tennessee's VW plant case in point. The German company insisted on a union shop.
Went to Mexico to get it, with two factory floors I beileve.

China in some parts is having a drought, but China like the US is large part dessert US 40%.

All major countries use water in massive massive quantities for cooking, sewage, agriculture, energy production, manufacturing etc.......
as populations burgeon there is not enough water for all of those needs.

China has water, but can not spare water to produce for her own wants and the globe's wants. China is turning inward.

The US has far more water through the east. mid west, south and northwest. There was some sort of stat I briefly saw
stating the US has something over ten times more water ways than China.

The great thing about solar energy when it finally displaces fossil fuels is that far less water will be used.

There are times in everyone's life in the Northeast where we think it would be nice to live in the sunshine state. The thing is we
all know there are fewer good paying jobs in Florida. I know it is a huge state with all sorts of things going on, but good jobs
we up here believe are thinner on the ground in Florida. People save for a life time to retire from up here to Florida. Those folks
are notoriously frugal on a fixed incomes.

Dave

If you are ever curious as to the art on the walls of multi-million dollar homes/estates, just pull up high-end listings from realtor.com, zillow.com, trulia.com and take a look. It's interesting!!

Art in this case is related to world economy and related to many issues globally.
Venessa, David
When I was working for Electrical engineering firm many years ago, we made all the parts in China factory except the prototype because as you know federal government doesn’t have authority over employer which means there are no minimum wages been set. Low price labor is the main factor.
Everything was a lot cost effective back then. Raw material had been dropped from overseas as well because it was much cheaper that way. We did nothing here but designing parts and do paper work here in the US.
Don’t forget these parts were made for major companies such as Intel/ Artesyn, Lucent tech, IBM, GE, Macintosh, Lockheed, TDI, etc.
Many sub parts were made in China back then. Not sure how it is now.

I am surprised to see some of my MINI Cooper parts were made in Japan.
I ordered this, and came directory from England. I thought British Motors made this.
I guess I was thinking old model of MINI which is MINI minor that is 100% British.
It is very hard to pinpoint what is made in the US or not. Technology industry is much more sophisticated now than ever.