The Art Collector Game

What, no players? You all want to criticize the taste of the rich guys who buy art... nobody wants to step up and say: "This is what I think is worth millions?"

I would buy this piece. My mom did this one, is that still cheating?

Cheryl,

I used Google, sort of cheating, and found according to Vanity Fair the article on the six greatest living artists.

I decided not give back the million dollars. No go.

Dave

Rembrandt's "Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer" would be a contender,
or one of his self portraits.

It's only cheating if you would *not* buy it if the artist was someone other than your mother.
I'm trying to avoid turning this into a self-promotion thread... or a promote your friends and family thread.

Ken: Can you find a public domain image of the *one* Rembrandt you would buy, if forced to choose, and post it?

Dave: You keep telling us you're on the board of a major museum (I'm curious: which one?). If you were given millions of dollars to buy one painting for the museum... you would give back the donation? Really?

Cheryl, I'll try, I'm technologically challenged somewhat, lol.

Cheryl, I was reading more into the beginning of your OP, as to what art I admired
enough to spend millions for given the resources, or do you mean looking at it more
so towards the trend setting aspect?

You don't buy one piece. You start a collection of art that you enjoy and which is under appreciated. You have the chance to bring a genre into the limelight.

1M....not even close

Edward-

Please give me a short list of under appreciated works and the why the appraisals are low.

Millions for a single painting? I couldn't bring myself to do it. Can I buy a cheaper painting and give the rest to charity? If so I'd pick something by Scott Christensen or Clyde Aspevig.

Didn't say anything about appraisals. I'm talking about getting out in the world and looking at art, finding quality and collecting it.. As soon as I have a few million in the bank, I'll start living the life of leisure and I'll get out there and see more art --- I'll get back to you.

Ken, it could be either - or both. Your money, your purchase. It's about the Golden Rule. You got the gold, you make the rule. Screw what anybody else thinks.

That said, if you admire it enough to buy it and have major world museums fighting over the right to exhibit it, you might also admire it enough to want the art world to trend in the direction of making more art that's similar to it. You could post an explanation of why you chose that one to buy... or not.

You could buy it because it would look nice hanging over your bird feeder, with birds perching on it, and if you had that kind of money, that's how you would spend it, and you would tell the major world art museums to go pound sand if they didn't like it that you were hanging it out in the rain and letting birds perch on it.

David King:
Nope. Nothing goes to charity. You don't spend it, it reverts to the estate, they get to use the money to stuff their faces with bon-bons, and they're not inviting you, they're only inviting the very worst sort of greedy little piggies.

So go for it: Spend the millions on a Scott Christensen or Clyde Aspevig.

(This is a game. It's not real money, no guilty conscience over spending ridiculous amounts of money on art.)

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Mssr. Dan'l. Not $1 million. Untold millions. Unlimited money...You can elbow everyone else out of the auction so far and so fast they break the sound barrier as they fly out the door of the auction house.

So... what are you buying?

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Edward:
This is a game. We're not creating a collection...which admittedly is sometimes a better way to buy art than just buying one piece -- if I did this as a "create a collection" thread it could turn into an image dump thread, so I limited the amount of art "purchased" to one piece of art. I'm interested to see what people would buy that they *do* think is worth millions. It's a harder challenge than urinating all over the taste of someone who actually did spend their money on art.

Leonid afremov is my favorite and any piece or collection of pieces would be awesome

Anne:
You gotta pick one. Please post!!

I go to my favorite "Major world art museum", and ask them what they want, I buy that and sell it to them for the cash they would be willing to pay.

I have no use what so ever for a multi-million dollar piece of art.

No single Aspevig or Christensen sells for millions.

That's a good plan Floyd, I'll buy a millions painting so I can sell it for the cash to buy as much of art I really want as possible. lol

If there were enough money, I would buy a beautiful architecture of the eighteenth or earlier century to turn into to my dream gallery to support my favorite living artists :)!

Laocoön and His Sons
I've been fascinated by this sculpture lately...

I would spend my millions on a giant spider by Louise Bourgeois.

Floyd. You're missing the point. It's not about what the museum wants - this is about YOUR taste in art, not the taste of some curator. In real life, we can go to any museum, and see what a museum curator - who is just a person, like you or me -- thinks is of value.
In this game, if YOU want it, the museums will automatically want it.

Why is this game so hard for everyone? Everyone is trying to weasel out of picking a piece of art by nit-picking at the rules, instead of choosing a piece of art, and posting it.


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Joe, Alfred... FINALLY !!! Someone posted some art. !!!!!! Yay! Also, thank you, MaryEllen for having the courage to go first.

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Xueling: There is enough money. Go forth, and show us your new studio !!!

CHERYL, a studio won't cost too much, I mean a beautiful gallery :D!

Xueling:
Gallery works. Can we see the building you're buying?

Sorry Cheryl, I'm not picking apart the rules, you made them. I'm tripping up over the millions part. If all you want is for people to pick one piece of art to own and money is no object why didn't you just say that? Not all desirable art costs millions.

I could go for this painting

http://www.southwestart.com/articles-interviews/featured-artists/40-prominent-people-scott-christensen/attachment/scott-christensen_temple-lake

Or any of Christensen's paintings of the Grand Tetons. I'm not picky.

not much of a trend setting purchase, but i think i'd throw some spare change down for Richard Serra's Band...

David:
That's gorgeous. That would be in my museum.

The money part was to get people to role-play... stand in the shoes of someone who is buying art, and has a lot of resources to do it. You probably phrased it better.

Yes, I got a very desirable original painting for $40 once...! :-)

Editing: There's also a "world stage" aspect to buying very high end art. When people do that, it's news. High end art can be purchased privately and without fanfare. If it's done publicly, spending a lot of money on a piece of art affects it's percieved value, in the eyes of the rest of the world. Part of this is to see what we, as artists, would choose to present as an example of "great art" to the eyes of the world.

Still researching ... be patient please ...

Ed: Very cool piece of art, the video shows how it changes as you move through it.

So far I've found a castle 35 km from Paris is available for sale:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/overseas-property/property-33950082.html/svr/1124

Xeuling: That would make an awesome gallery. Wonder if there's a way to find out who the architect was.

Let's find out...

Ed, if you ever come to Toronto make sure to check out our Richard Serra at the airport.

Alfred: What would you do with the giant spider after you bought it? (-:

Cheryl, I would install the giant spider in front of our house, where else?

Alfred: LOL !
Someone really needs to make a web to go with that spider. I'm visualizing it between the spires on that cathedral. If the spider was at your house, you would need some big trees, or telephone poles or something...

I'd buy the biggest most awful controvertial piece of crap I could find so people would be talking about me and hating on me for decades..

everyone remembers the controversial people, and ones legacy lasts much longer than the works themselves :P

---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com

Cheryl, that big spider sculpture is very famous, it has many brothers and sisters all over the world. We have one at the national gallery in Ottawa Canada, one at Denver art museum, Japan, Spain.

I would buy this one. My absolute favourite from August Macke (expressionist):

Shawn: Maybe some people actually do that....? It wouldn't shock me if there were some very rich people out there who didn't take all this art stuff very seriously, and in a spirit of great irony, buy the worst art they can find. Something along the lines of a statement about their contempt for artists' contribution to the world generally.

I don't know that I'd want to be *famous* for having the worst taste ever... maybe I will be, but it won't be because I tried for it!!

Alfred: Yes, I know it's famous! It's also really funny, unless you're arachophobic. I did not know there was one at the Denver Art Museum, I've been there quite a bit, but never noticed the spider... I don't know how I could have missed it, it's rather large. I'll have to look for it next time I'm there.

Rudi: (-: Thanks for posting! I like that one, too.

Alfred, thanks good to know it's there... will do.

I would buy the original of this and many others of Otil's work:



But lately it's been all I can do to buy a new computer so I can create more art. :P

I would also buy a few Jesse Barnes originals, like this one: https://www.texasartdepot.com/p-5416-beyond-the-bridge-by-jesse-barnes.aspx

And of course, I'd love the original Starry Night by Van Gogh.

Cheryl,

This well known artist is a pop artist who has always struck a balance between absolutely crazy modern art and beautiful visuals.
I would pick something up by him. If I could. James Rosenquist.

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/79880?locale=en

Dave

Cheryl, the big spider at Denver art museum is at the entrance of the new building but it is only half the size of one in Ottawa Here is the one in Denver.

.

Ed, we have another Richard Serra sculpture in Toronto , at the entrance of the Toronto convention center.

Alfred, thanks for posting... I really can't imagine how I managed to miss it!!

Dave, That's really random... how he juxtposes images. I can see his influence in some of your work, how he breaks up the shapes and makes them interact.

JL: Cool, I think you're the first person who has chosen work by someone from FAA. (-:

It would be a classic, a dead, famous painter. It would depend on which I could get my hands on. If something came up for sale and it was the one, I would know. My husband and I decided to buy some art on a trip to Cape Cod. We entered a Cuban gallery and I walked right up to one work and asked my husband if he would buy it for me. He did and it hangs on my wall today. Then we walked into a John Lennon Show and both walked all around separately looking at each piece. In the end, we both chose the same piece: Sheep Meadowing, and it also hangs on our wall. It would be like that.

Cheryl,

My first Van Gogh Mural used one of his works as a model. Not a copy.

His work is extremely well known and expensive. He is out of the 1960s.

I studied his work in the mid 1980s.

Dave

Susan,
I like how you choose art, you let the art choose you -- serendipity.
For purposes of this game, you can get your hands on anything you like - whether it's for sale in the "real world" or not. Is this the one you choose, by Yoko Ono, above? It is very charming, I can see why you like it.

David,
I didn't think you copied, I could see the influence. You studied his work? What about his work drew you in?

Cheryl,

My prof back in art school showed a video on him working in his studio. I had the prof
for several courses, I saw the video twice.

I like his work because of the tension between the outlandish the the beautiful well done image, the
whole thing becomes a concept piece on a few different levels. The image I linked had tape on it. The
tape was stripped away to show the painting under the tape. There were two layers of paintings. Sorry
there layers of paintings.

Dave

There are three layers of van Gogh images in this.

This was hard! First I was thinking Wilson Hurley. I saw a prairie thunderhead painting of his back in the early '80s at the Cheyenne Museum of Western Art and fell in love. $10,000 was bit too rich for me, though. Then I was thinking Keith Haring. I love his bright minimalist style and bought a couple postcards of his ladybugs at the Denver Museum of Art. But I think I'd have to go with this one, even though I'm sure it's not in the same price league.



His work is just amazing. I saw this one on Twitter and could totally see it hanging in my house. If I actually had wall space for art, which I sadly don't, not even my own.

ok.............


What would you buy?
or....."Looking Forward to the Past,"
https://artmarketinsight.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/art-market-looking-forward-to-the-past-auction-results-by-artprice/
"Looking Forward to the Past," features both modern and contemporary works. In an interview with the New York Times, Gouzer noted a shift in collecting patterns whereby collectors nowadays "start with contemporary, and then they start to look for other works that have quality, relevance and freshness."

I always keep to the conditions and wishes of the participants.

I would buy this:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Ringing_Tree_(Panopticons)

I would immediately march my butt directly to the Delaware Art Museum, pull out a check, and asked them how quickly they can have Howard Pyle's "The Mermaid" delivered. Wouldn't even have to think twice! It's my favorite painting of all time, and just might barely fit in my foyer (the painting is HUGE): http://www.delart.org/collections/american-illustration/the-mermaid/

Ahhh, what dreams are made of!

A sculpture by Elisabeth Frink. One of her larger pieces would cost millions - but if money was no object!

I'd rather be famous for my message, than be famous for my deeds tbh.

Everyone has a checkered past, so I'm right up there on ironic messages. Make people think.

---Shawn Dall
ShawnDall.com