Dear mods, this isn’t clickbait because tragically, the title is accurate (as in, someone literally spent 18K on nothing).
In other words, the artist told a guy that he made an invisible sculpture titled “I Am” (English translation), and gave it a fancy meaning that talks about transcending imagination or something.
Even more tragic, I would not be surprised that someone in the future will be dumb enough to throw a million dollars/euros on an NFT of an invisible work, you know it is coming (because of a system where real artists have trouble selling physical, high quality work while these ‘modernists’ get fame and fortune off of what amounts to a scam dressed in a tuxedo). Now it is to be said that a fool and his money are soon parted and this is seen in spades here, now if only there wasn’t a rapidly rising number of fools who will literally believe anything if some big words were thrown in.
And here we thought the NFT craze and the Banksy exhibits were the height of absurdity.
I think art is a quality things can have that only artists, creative people, can perceive and understand. Someone blind from birth can understand the physics of color but not the experience. Art is like that. The artless can produce technically impressive images/objects but they usually aren’t art. The artful can produce such that are art as well as non-realistic, abstract, etc. art. The artful can see art in the world around them.
Some “artists” take advantage of the artless to sell them non-art. Some buyers, artful or not, buy as an investment. They don’t care if it is art – only if it can be sold for more than they paid. I think the empty spot shown above is that, not art, and taking advantage.
I am reminded of this: Some realist painter (or photographer?) despised non-realistic or non-representational art. To express this he painted a square canvas a solid neutral gray color and named it modern art. Ironic that in doing so he created the very type of art he claimed wasn’t art. The gray canvas alone is not art. The title doesn’t make it art. The complete multimedia piece including the gray canvas, title, plus who created it and why is art.
The modern art circus is nothing but an tax evasion scheme, or money laundry - might be work as cover for black market transaction too.
Who knows - maybe the buyer is part of organized crime syndicate and the 18000€ are payment for a truckload of slaves/guns/drugs?
What is not invisible now is the name of the artist… His name was published in all the news in the world for only 15K Euros, good marketing move to advertise himself!
Questions of weather it should be considered Art or not aside… it stings so much because we, deep down, aware there are more practical and worthier ways to spend all that money. The world around is burning, drowning or starving and here we are You’d think there’s no place for material exchange in “transcendent” art.
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Renzatic
(Professor Emeritus Billy H. Wafflesmith XIV Esq.)
13
If we apply postmodern doctrine to this ‘art piece’, then what you can be as offensive or as inoffensive as you want. Though this doesn’t actually require deep postmodern thinking because if you can’t actually see the sculpture or feel it, then it is not possible to know for sure what it looks like.
You’d think there’s no place for material exchange in “transcendent” art.
