The World of Art Through Collidescope Eyes: The Price of Art

In this year’s most recent art auction at Christie’s auction house in New York there was a record-breaking sale of a tryptic painting by Francis Bacon titled, Three Studies of Lucian Freud. It sold for a whopping 142.4 million dollars, along with six other record-breaking sales of art all over one million dollars at Christie and Sotheby’s. Most associate the profession of an artist to be a “struggling” field, and the opinion that an artist cannot be as successful as a businessman, or that they make money but they will never be millionares. This statement is completely false. However, one would think, “Isn’t a million dollars a bit steep of a price for a painting?”
The second highest priced work of art was, Andy Warhol’s, Silver Car Crash. This piece was sold at Sotheby’s New York for 105,445,000 dollars. It was composed of silkscreen ink and spray paint on canvas. It is actually a fairly beautiful piece and I could see the great demand for it, it is definitely something that you could hang up in your house because it is a modern piece.
The third highest selling artwork was by Jeff Koons and sold for 58,405,000 million dollars. It is titled, Balloon Dog, which is an actual orange balloon dog composed of mirror polished stainless steel with a transparent orange color coating. There is no way that a metal balloon dog should be over a million dollars. It has to be the most absurd piece of artwork I have ever seen and is definitely not worth over one million dollars. What is even more ridiculous is the fact that the artist, Jeff Koons has copyrighted the “Balloon Dog” so that nobody else could use it even though he was not the first person to create the balloon dog. Therefore, he is the one who should be getting sued for copying it. He should not be suing the innocent people who were selling paperweights. The fourth highest selling artwork is a tad on the absurd side as well. It is an Andy Warhol piece entitled, Coca-Cola and sold for 57,285,000 dollars. The artwork is a print of a black Coca-cola bottle with the Coca-Cola logo, however the logo is half-way cut off. A piece of art this cheap looking should not be worth over one million dollars. Obviously, the bidders are paying for the name, Andy Warhol. The sixth highest work entitled No.11 by Mark Rothko is a painting, oil on canvas, of an orange rectangle with a crème rectangle painted horizontally within it. It sold for 46,085,000 dollars.
The fifth and seventh highest art works I feel are completely worth of their price. The fifth highest is a sculpture, Grande tête mince by Alberto Giacometti, which is composed of bronze and sold at Sotheby’s New York for 50,005,000 million dollars. Ironically, the seventh highest was a cubism piece by Pablo Picasso, entitled Tête de feme and sold for 39,925,000 million dollars.
I could understand the work of Picasso or Giacometti being an appropriate price, however many of the other artworks sold at these recent auctions are ridiculous and should not have been worth over one million dollars. I feel that people at actions make the artwork out to be worth more that it actually is because of the desire to have it, that is what brings the price up so high, not necessarily the artworks worth itself.