No talent hack's painting goes for $140 million!!

[Thump]

Pollock painting sold for record $140 mln: report



NEW YORK (Reuters) - A painting by artist Jackson Pollock has been sold for about $140 million, which would make it the highest price ever paid for a painting, The New York Times newspaper reported on Thursday.

Citing experts who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Times reported that Hollywood mogul David Geffen had sold the painting "No. 5, 1948" to Mexican financier David Martinez in a deal brokered by Sotheby's Tobias Meyer.

If the Pollock painting sale is confirmed, it would surpass the previous world record price paid for a painting, which was set in June when cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder paid $135 million for a 1907 portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt.

Geffen, Martinez and Sotheby's were not immediately available for comment.

The Times described Martinez as a "megabuyer" of modern art who had purchased works by masters such as Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko in recent years.

"No. 5, 1948" is about 4 by 8 feet and features Pollock's drip-and-pour style in a tangle of red, yellow and blue.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

i actually live in springs, new york. his house is only a mile from me.

though at first (years ago) i thought it was just a gimmick, i later realized that his work is amazing. i'm not into art qua art, that is, art for art's sake. in my opinion, much of abstract expressionism should be swept under the carpet. pollock's works, however, are much more complicated than just drippings of paint. pollock's work was poshumously called fractal expressionism. if you read the article http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-01/features/featpollock , you will find out that his work is much more complicated than drips of paint.

i also suggest that if you have the opportunity to see one of his paintings in person, take it. what you can view of his paintings online will never do justice.

 

[Thump]

Pollock's art is garbage and does nothing to distinguish itself over one of my bowel movements on a canvas.

I was listening to the Howard Stern show one time and Robin Quivers is a big fan of Jackson Pollack, Howard challenged her to tell the difference between one of his paintings and one of Pollock's. When asked to pick out the Pollock, she picked out one of Stern's paintings.

Don't know how you call that crap art.

I'm a terrible artist but if I see a painting or piece of art that I feel I can personally replicate, then it's not Art, it's crap.

 

[Thump]

Art

Crap

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

I was listening to the Howard Stern show one time and Robin Quivers is a big fan of Jackson Pollack, Howard challenged her to tell the difference between one of his paintings and one of Pollock's. When asked to pick out the Pollock, she picked out one of Stern's paintings.

oh, in that case... lol.

I'm a terrible artist but if I see a painting or piece of art that I feel I can personally replicate, then it's not Art, it's crap.

no, you can't. it is virtually impossible to recreate the mathematical complexity of his paintings. does that mean that someone else won't mistake your pollock fabrication as a pollock painting? no, it doesn't. does that mean that pollock's paintings aren't art? no, it doesn't. does that mean that his paintings are crap? like all art, it's in the eye of the beholder.

but, again, you cannot replicate his paintings. the difficulty of painting a fractal with the complexity found in his paintings is immense.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

Pollock's art is garbage and does nothing to distinguish itself over one of my bowel movements on a canvas.

I was listening to the Howard Stern show one time and Robin Quivers is a big fan of Jackson Pollack, Howard challenged her to tell the difference between one of his paintings and one of Pollock's. When asked to pick out the Pollock, she picked out one of Stern's paintings.

Don't know how you call that crap art.

I'm a terrible artist but if I see a painting or piece of art that I feel I can personally replicate, then it's not Art, it's crap.

Some would argue that art is solely in the eye of the beholder. Just because you don't get anything out of it doesn't mean it isn't there. I know some very intelligent people that love the stuff.

That being said....Mondriand, Pollock, Duchamp, John Cage, and that whole zany lot will not be found in any of my collections of prints/CDs.

EDIT - Duchamp really doesn't belong in that category. He's in his own little world of art. But I still wouldn't go to an exhibition of his work.

 

[Thump]

Some would argue that art is solely in the eye of the beholder. Just because you don't get anything out of it doesn't mean it isn't there. I know some very intelligent people that love the stuff.

That being said....Mondriand, Pollack, Duchamp, John Cage, and that whole zany lot will not be found in any of my collections of prints/CDs.

EDIT - Duchamp really doesn't belong in that category. He's in his own little world of art. But I still wouldn't go to an exhibition of his work.

Not sure what exactly you can get out of paint splattering.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

Not sure what exactly you can get out of paint splattering.

tell me, what do you "get" out of the mona lisa? i'm not sure what i "get" from looking at a pollock painting, but i know that it appeals to me. i can appreciate the complexity. the paintings just look... whole to me. no, i don't look at a pollock painting and think, "ahh, his broad brushstrokes and drops underscore his view that the world is both complex and simple: a stimulating dichotomy." give me a break. i just like it. i understand it. that's it. you don't. that's fine.

 

[Thump]

tell me, what do you "get" out of the mona lisa? i'm not sure what i "get" from looking at a pollock painting, but i know that it appeals to me. i can appreciate the complexity. the paintings just look... whole to me. no, i don't look at a pollock painting and think, "ahh, his broad brushstrokes and drops underscore his view that the world is both complex and simple: a stimulating dichotomy." give me a break. i just like it. i understand it. that's it. you don't. that's fine.

I respect your opinion.

The reason I consider something like the Mona Lisa art is because of the ability of the artist to so closely mimic life-like features on canvas. Almost to the effect that they look like photographs.

 

[FCollinsBuckeye]

Thump must like Bob Ross and velvet Elvises.

Or is it Elvii?

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

Not sure what exactly you can get out of paint splattering.

Me neither. But some people do.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

The reason I consider something like the Mona Lisa art is because of the ability of the artist to so closely mimic life-like features on canvas. Almost to the effect that they look like photographs.

... and that's a great reason. although, i bet you could find hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of painters that can do just that. in fact, you can find several painters who could recreate the mona lisa so well that virtually no one could distinguish it from the real thing. what virtually no one, if anyone, has been able to do successfully is recreate a pollock painting. what i mean by recreate is to paint by hand one that is as complex as pollock's paintings. you see, that is part of what intrigues me. only after his death did they find out that his paintings were fractals. and it's not as though pollock knew he was doing it. more or less, his paintings have roughly the same complexity in any portion of his painting as the complexity found in the painting as a whole. it sounds rather easy to do. in fact, you could possibly scribble a bunch of squiggly lines on a paper and come away with someone that appears to you like a fractal with pollock-like complexity. this is what happened in the howard stern situation you brought up. perhaps only to a keen eye or to a computer could the difference be noted... but the difference would invariably be substantial.

our eyes and our brains are "smarter" than we give them credit for. while we may not see a pollock for the fractal that it is, many subconsciously appreciate the uniform complexity. why is a pretty girl's face pretty? it just is, right? what "just is" to us can also be explained mathematically. beautiful faces have a greater tendency of being symmetrical. we don't see beautiful faces as being symmetrical, but we often think of them as being beautiful because they are symmetrical.

 

[HabaneroBuck]

Buckguy, there is nothing wrong with appreciating the "kinetics" of a Pollock piece or having something like it in your house (I guess). But you can drop about a thousand bucks for the materials and do it yourself OR pay a talented local artist a thousand bucks to give you a similar effect, and you will be EQUALLY satisfied with the piece (probably moreso because it is an original all for you). There. Two thousand dollars, an original piece, and all the satisfaction of a Pollock original, just without the name brand.

This isn't the difference between a thirty dollar dress shirt at the nearest department store and a $200 designer dress shirt which is much better in quality anyway. You can get the same effect in a painting, and spend 70,000% less. Same with the van Gogh craze of the nineties. These are twentieth-century painters. One who spends that much on these paintings is a raging idiot. Of course, there's always another idiot out there who will possibly pay more for the piece down the road...

EDIT: Fine, if no one can reproduce a Pollock, then so be it. Still going to have a hard time convincing anyone that his work is extraordinarily admirable.

 

[Thump]

... and that's a great reason. although, i bet you could find hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of painters that can do just that. in fact, you can find several painters who could recreate the mona lisa so well that virtually no one could distinguish it from the real thing. what virtually no one, if anyone, has been able to do successfully is recreate a pollock painting. what i mean by recreate is to paint by hand one that is as complex as pollock's paintings. you see, that is part of what intrigues me. only after his death did they find out that his paintings were fractals. and it's not as though pollock knew he was doing it. more or less, his paintings have roughly the same complexity in any portion of his painting as the complexity found in the painting as a whole. it sounds rather easy to do. in fact, you could possibly scribble a bunch of squiggly lines on a paper and come away with someone that appears to you like a fractal with pollock-like complexity. this is what happened in the howard stern situation you brought up. perhaps only to a keen eye or to a computer could the difference be noted... but the difference would invariably be substantial.

our eyes and our brains are "smarter" than we give them credit for. while we may not see a pollock for the fractal that it is, many subconsciously appreciate the uniform complexity. why is a pretty girl's face pretty? it just is, right? what "just is" to us can also be explained mathematically. beautiful faces have a greater tendency of being symmetrical. we don't see beautiful faces as being symmetrical, but we often think of them as being beautiful because they are symmetrical.

How can he be considered brilliant for painting in fractals when he didn't even realize he was doing it?

Your point about other artists replicating the Mona Lisa to a T is well taken and I would consider everyone of their duplications art. But the fact that I, not being an artist, could make a painting similar to Pollock's and most others not know the difference leads me to conclude that it is indeed not art.

I could not, in a million years, begin to paint anything even remotely resembling the Mona Lisa.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

Buckguy, there is nothing wrong with appreciating the "kinetics" of a Pollock piece or having something like it in your house (I guess). But you can drop about a thousand bucks for the materials and do it yourself OR pay a talented local artist a thousand bucks to give you a similar effect, and you will be EQUALLY satisfied with the piece (probably moreso because it is an original all for you). There. Two thousand dollars, an original piece, and all the satisfaction of a Pollock original, just without the name brand.

again, recreating the complexity of a pollock painting is phenomenally difficult. without understanding fractal complexity, i can see how it appears that anyone can recreate a pollock painting.

i never commented about the amount spent on the painting. $140 million is a ridiculous amount to spend on a painting. there are ungodly amounts that can be spenty wisely on paintings... if they are investments. there are buckets to be made by buying paintings for millions and then turning around and selling them for millions more. whether a profit will be made by selling the pollock painting later, i don't know. whether that is the objective, again, i don't know.

now if you're going to say that one could go out and spend thousands if not just hundreds to attempt to recreate a pollock and come away equally satisfied... sure, that is possible. i don't know about you, but i don't have millions to test that hypothesis.