The art world

Yesterday evening I attended this private view. I was fairly ignorant of the art world and thanked the host for all the free wine and beer and for opening their house as a gallery for the general public.

At private views pictures are for sale and there are usually no prices on them, not even any explanations. This gallery consisted of a few fairly large photographs which looked like stock photography. I thought that one (which turned out to be a night sky) was actually empty until I examined it closely. (I have recreated this work above - it took me literally 8 seconds.)

The theme apparently was “In Search of a Private Paradise”. One artist concluded that it was impossible to find one, which made me want to point out Richard Branson and his Necker Island.

I could seriously have believed one piece was a joke if someone had told me so:

“In her video, Donna Conlon presents a sequence of lights blinking to the sound of Christmas tunes translated into Morse code in an attempt to search for messages, greater truths, evidence of another world.”

This was indeed a projector running a black film with some little fairy lights and a few random letters. It was in a sense pathetic. But put away your Hubble Telescope, forget about your Mars Lander and terminate your SETY programme. Maybe these fairy lights will have more success.

There’s nothing wrong with having a look at some photos and having some nice drinks. That’s great, and I will do it often. But when I discovered these items were priced at more than £3000 each I nearly dropped my can of Stella Artois. They were, as mentioned, indistinguishable from any stock photography or any decent photography you would find on Flickr.

There is a line I have spoken of before. It is the line where a price continues to rise but the intrinsic value of an item does not. It amazes me how many people fail to see that line and still spend their money. This entire movement is a case of Emperor’s New Clothes, and the only winners here are the “artists”, who must, on occasion, be laughing all the way to the bank.