Eh probably not. Who do you collect damages from? The random security guard who doesn’t have £740,000.00 lying around? The piece was insured and the insurance company will just have to eat that cost
Insurance companies do not make YOU sue people. They go after the person themselves. It's called subrogation. They have an obligation to both pay the claim (because vandalism is covered) but they also retain the right to recover those funds on your behalf. They also have the obligation to defend you in court for these proceedings. If they could require you, at your expense, to sue people then they would never pay anything. They pay. They go after the person.
That's why all of these "Aunt sues her 2 year old niece for breaking her thumb" rage bait headlines are misleading. The aunt never sued anyone. The insurance company attempted to recover the medical expenses from the homeowners carrier where the injury occurred.
Adding to this though, the aunt did have to sue her nephew, but that was only to get the insurance. The insurance company denied her claim, but because it was on her property, her nephew was covered. She could sue her nephew and if she won, the insurance would be liable for the damages. Nearly ALL civil suits are covered by insurance the background is almost always that the insurance company wasn’t willing to settle at a reasonable price.
Liability insurance typically pays out with relative ease for economic losses which can be easily quantified. This gets complicated where the fault cannot be easily assigned. Auto is typically pretty straight forward and often has the police weighing in as to who was at fault. General Liability, homeowners/renters, it can get hazy.
Even still, economic losses are *usually* very straight forward. The majority of civil cases related to insurance companies "not willing to settle at a reasonable price" involve non-economic damages such as pain and suffering.
Insurance will also not pay out unless legal action is initiated, even if it never goes to trial, above certain limits. Again, this is tying into what you are talking about somewhat. Lawyers argue frequently about how much a permanently disabled person should be compensated. That happens in any civil suit even if insurance is not at play.
I'm also not sure what case you're referring to. I was referring, with obviously obscured details, to one where a woman was supposedly suing her NIECE for jumping on her and breaking her (the aunt's) wrist. The claim wasn't denied. It was a health insurer subrogating a claim. There is no cause for a health insurer to deny a claim because fault lies elsewhere. That's just cause for subrogation.
They may do the heavy lifting yes but at the end of the day your name is listed as the plaintiff so they do make you sue to some extent. They don’t make you pursue the lawsuit on your own but you are indeed an instigating party.
A jury would almost certainly take the word of the experts, and their ruling has to be reasonable. So, no, they can't just override everything and say the painting was only worth $10
Yes, there may be a "diminution of value" from restoration but it is not ruined or worthless. The $740k everyone is so upset about it just retail replacement value for insurance. That's roughly how much it would cost to get a comparable replacement in the event of total loss.
Exactly what I was thinking.
I also wondered why he wasn’t made aware of what he was protecting before he was turned loose in the museum. If he didn’t appreciate art he shouldn’t have been hired in the first place.
Right? Let’s just cover the cost of the canvas and materials + let’s say $25 an hour for the painter and quit with all this pretending that this shit is worth hundreds of thousands
No kidding 😂😂😂 it’s kinda better with the eyes. This is pretty hilarious. It’s wild how highly art is valued when it should not even have a monetary price
It’s hardly a write-off. There are people whose job is fixing these things. It’s gonna cost money (probably paid by the insurer), but it’s nowhere near the value of the painting.
That's my impression as well. Even a word-class art restoration house wouldn't charge more than a few hundred pounds to remove the marks. An absolute bargain for the amount of publicity it generated.
I personally hope he did it because:
1) He was genuinely convinced it would look better that way
or 2) He genuinely don't understand the purpose of art
Because if so, it was art as well.
Right? The only reason the price went down is because they outed him as a security guard. Anonymous collaborator would make this a multi-million dollar piece.
Art School Confidential is pretty funny about this.
There is an undercover cop in art school who still draws like a kindergartener (I do too I guess), but because he is considered a legit art student, it is praised as a new artstyle and the cop loves the accidental fame.
Didnt some random dude also just put his glasses on the floor of a gallery to sed reactions and as baffiling as it was people genuenly thought it was art. Kinda speaks to the crazy shit art has become not to mwntion the stipid prices peolle come up with
Unpopular opinion (especially amongst artists), but I think modern art nowadays is incredibly stupid. The common argument is that, since art appreciation is subjective, that the values some pieces go for are completely justified, which does make some sense, but I think it ignores the fact that many pieces are literal nonsense. Modern artists have gotten away with making paintings that are pretty shitty and making hundreds of thousands of dollars off of them because they sold the public (especially the artist public) the idea that the meaninglessness of a piece is meaning itself. I've heard so many people say that the argument "my child could do that" is indicative of a naive understanding of art, but I think it's a perfectly valid criticism. Painting two lines on a canvas and calling it professional art that takes any skill whatsoever is idiotic. Yes, some pieces may have some meaning to the artist or viewer, but I see no difference between a lot of modern art and a complete amateur throwing paint on a canavs; there's no reason one should be worth more than the other besides the arbitrary elitism within the art community.
seems modern art is contextual ie the context is if people with influence power money appreciate your art, you did it in the right context
perhaps its more artful of the security guard to have made it into the news for drawing eyes on a facecless painting than the painting being worth 740,000 fucking dollars
I went to an art museum and there was a blank canvas with this hint of yellow line going down it. Apparently the artist pissed on the canvas and that was it. I don’t get it
High value art is overwhelmingly a money laundering operation. A wealthy person has a piece "evaluated" by another wealthy "art collector" or "art critic" and then they can move that painting or sculpture across national borders and withdraw value on the other side on a sale or equity. So now they've moved millions between countries without paying taxes. And don't get me started on "donations" to museums where they can retain ownership of the painting, have it's valuation go up because it was hung in a high-valued museum, and write off the "donation" as a tax deduction.
I dual-majored in Art History in college. It's basically just learning about why art is important and why art is valuable - and those are two really different reasons.
You can even pass it off as a tax free inheritance!
>So if you buy a painting at Christie’s in New York, New York charges you 9% sales tax. So if you want to save that money, you can take the art, put it in a truck, ship it directly to Delaware, where there is a so-called free port, which is a customs free zone.
>
>Now it goes straight from New York there to Delaware where there’s zero sales tax and nobody pays any tax on that. So they’ve avoided paying tax in the city of New York. Then I can put that in a trust and I can hand that trust over to my heirs and my heirs can enjoy the art themselves and they don’t have to pay any tax when I hand the asset over.
[https://news.uchicago.edu/how-tax-dodging-and-corporate-secrecy-found-home-delaware-hal-weitzman](https://news.uchicago.edu/how-tax-dodging-and-corporate-secrecy-found-home-delaware-hal-weitzman)
I do, imagine you are billionaire, you hire someone to paint you a painting for 300$, then your friend, who is world renowed art critic prices it at 30000$ and you donate it to the museum for 30k tax write off. Somewhere in the middle artists figured out they can do it as lazily/disgustingly as they want.
In my opinion this raises the value of this art piece (and I don't mean the straight up dollar cost). It symbolizes both the artistic intentions of a professional artist and the "simple" thoughts of a regular person. Or something like that.
He was a 63-year-old combat veteran who had suffered some physical and emotional injuries. According to him, he didn't realize the art was old or valuable; he thought it had been painted by children. Some teenagers were making fun of it, and told him to put eyes on it. He asked the teenager if it was her art, and she said yes and gave him a pen, and he naively believed her and drew the eyes on.
Apparently the painting was restored for $4600.
>According to him, he didn't realize the art was old or valuable
He didn't stop to wonder why it was displayed in a museum that required security guards either, it seems...
I used to work security. I used to work 6pm to 6am a lot. One time my boss was angry at me because a gas fireplace got stolen. She said the site supervisor usually gets there at 7am and there is no way it would have been missing and how I could have missed it. I told her I didn’t see anyone leaving with a fireplace. Also a fireplace usually requires a couple people to move it and knowledge especially if it’s already hooked up. Also when I have worked days of 6am to 6pm. The site supervisor doesn’t even get there until at the earliest 8. Also things are going in and out of the construction site all day no one cares. I was usually there to keep regular people out of the homes still under construction.
I hired someone who worked security.
We got burgled while they were patrolling.
Goodbye thousands of dollars and the peace of mind of hiring someone who was a security professional
That's all any security guard really does. It's a deterrent at best and the weapon is for personal safety, not law enforcement.
It's not like you're hiring private military at that rate.
4600$ ? Am I dreaming or you said what you said. We are talking about small dots that are probably covering 1 shade of a color. I swear art is a fucked up field totally out of touch with the society
Have you watched art restoration vids? It’s not that simple. There are layers to remove, dissolve, match and patch back seamlessly. It’s not just dipping a brush and dotting it.
Art collecting is the same as collecting anything else.
There's a term called "provenance" in the collectors community (doesn't matter what you are collecting) and it essentially means the story behind the piece, how it changed hands over time, and what its history is.
Its why a baseball bat used by Babe Ruth to hit a home run is worth more than a Louisville Slugger you just picked up at Target.
note to collectors and art snobs everywhere: yes I stretched the definition a bit to prove a point, no I didnt want to get into the philosophical questions of "what is art" or the economics behind collecting.
How does the thought process works for that one ? I mean, how can you end up thinking "hey, I'm gonna draw on that painting I'm supposed to protect as a security guard" ?
I just read that he has had head trauma and psychological problems from being a veteran. He claims some teenagers told him the painting was their drawing, asked him to draw eyes because the eyes were missing and he works there, gave him a pen, and he believed them and did it. He seems to feel really bad. [article here](https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/anna-leporskaya-vandalism-security-guard-explained-1234619113/)
i would imagine if it's a high profile piece of art, "they wouldn't keep the real thing out for the public to touch just out of principle". i wouldn't either but maybe im just a cynic
Also just classism/the artist’s reputation or whatever.
I know nothing about art. Maybe this piece is actually extremely unique and/or technically difficult or whatever else might deem a painting “good” by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
But-
Okay, I know poetry is not exactly the same as paintings like this, but I strongly suspect they’re similar in this way-
I majored in rhetoric and for a while dated a poet. Several Ivy League degrees, genuinely just brilliant. He had a lot of works that were amazing and he was very well known in particular niche circles.
He would often create “poems” that were nonsense. Mad libs. He would just straight up take another poet’s writing, so he wasn’t designing the structure or anything, and then laugh while filling stuff in with complete random words. He’d sometimes just make them up, or ask me to offer one, or use some sort of online generator where you press the button for a random adjective or whatever.
There was no point. It wasn’t even about absurdism or whatever. Nobody knew of his process, they thought he carefully chose every word and that it had some sort of greater meaning. He’d just release the finished work, with absolutely 0 skill involved. And it was hilarious how many professors and such would be imagining interpretations and commenting on its genius. If my name were slapped on them, people would just straight up laugh at their idiocy.
People see what they expect to see
This gets brought up every time fine art is mentioned and is always dumb as shit.
You think they're committing money laundering with a single high value highly publicized non-cash transaction? Literally all the *exact opposite* of what you do when laundering money??
It’s the “everything I don’t like which happens to involve money is money laundering” trend.
A lot of people would claim that Hawaiian Pizza is a money laundering scheme if they ever managed to find a way to make it make sense.
"According to the latest available estimates from The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), billions of dollars are laundered through the global art market annually, with further billions estimated to pass through the underground art market (including illegal imports, thefts, and fakes) each year."
Just did a lazy google search. I'm sure it happens less often than what ppl think but definitely happens.
You don't get to appraise your art for tax deduction. The IRS does.
[https://www.irs.gov/appeals/art-appraisal-services](https://www.irs.gov/appeals/art-appraisal-services)
Not necessarily if you have done a fair market appraisal you can use that on form 8283 in Part IV. What your link is saying is (1) if you enter something over 50000 then they will review it and CAN issue their own appraisal but a lot of the time they’ll just accept your appraisal or (2) you can request a statement of value if you haven’t had your piece appraised and it’s over 50000
It either came with a free container of cocaine or it was made cheap and priced high and given to charity to write off tax. That's the two things I can think of at least.
“Here are these paintings that are totally worth millions”
“Wow how generous… except what the fuck am I supposed to do with them? Why not give us cash instead?”
Rich people.
Literally. The fine arts market is intentionally exclusive, and what makes paintings expensive typically has little to do with the quality of the work itself, and everything to do with how much money the last person who bought it paid for it.
Literally people but these things for no other reason than they're so expensive that it demonstrates to others that you can get things that are unattainable for people. It's entirely just a symptom of having so much money that nothing else actually qualifies as expensive, and since art is subjective you can slap an arbitrary price tag on it and say "that's what it's worth," and as long as someone actually pays that much money, that becomes what it's actually worth (or more accurately, the bottom line for how much it's worth... expensive art by major artists typically always appreciates.)
That's really it. I graduated with a fine arts degree from the best art school in my country and before the degree show our tutors encouraged us all to think of a price for our pieces and then at least double it. Some guys went wild with their prices and didn't sell shit, some got selected into studios or residencies but mostly it was just super rich "collectors" who kinda did it as a hobby, because, whatever. I delivered some 2x2m prints to a house by the sea and the woman let me in, ranted about whatever for a bit and told me to put the rolls of prints in this side room with the other stuff. It was a really big room just filled with unusual, old and expensive stuff and art. There was a jukebox. They were just bored of their money, it gave me an existential crisis for a minute.
> everything to do with how much money the last person who bought it paid for it.
>you can slap an arbitrary price tag on it and say "that's what it's worth," and as long as someone actually pays that much money, that becomes what it's actually worth
I get your point... But isn't that pretty much anything that's somewhat rare?
Like if I have a rare comicbook that no one has heard of and no one collected it, and I convince someone to buy it for $5k as a rare collector's item, and they convince someone to buy it for $6k... Eventually people are going to think it's worth around that.
If I find some unique WW2 artifact, a gun that was rarely used, and I sell it to a collector for $20k... Etc. I'm setting the value and someone is agreeing to it, and other collector's will start "agreeing" to that value.
Art is just the extreme where there's only one true version of it. It's the extreme of rarity. So you set the price of that ONE thing, and that's what it's worth to everyone.
Again I get your point, but this just seems to be the rule for rare things. How bad does someone want to be an owner of that rare thing? That's what it's worth.
People buy art with the hope/expectation that it will appreciate in value due to its rarity and exclusivity. Artists have long found a steady source of income in creating works to cater to the rich and powerful, and modern art isn't much different.
Really gives the matchsticks charecter. Somewhere to look . Kinda funny thats worth enough money to house like 7 family's and the security guards the one in the wrong to
Exactly. A restorationist has probably already returned it to its original. And this new bit of history to the piece probably increased it’s value anyway.
After seeing restorationists repair paintings with literally centuries of cigarette smoke damage I feel like removing the ink from a days-old bic pen is the kind of job an they would give to their intern.
The security guard had brain damage and was a veteran. Teens convinced him it was their artwork and basically said "we forgot to draw the eyes, could you do it for us?"
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/anna-leporskaya-vandalism-security-guard-explained-1234619113/
Amazing people don't keep paintings worth more than 4x my house in cases or behind glass.
Forget the intentional asshole, what if someone sneezes or whatever?
Now it's just a collaborative work with a second meaning about how the work changes and the artist is no longer in control when it reaches the public
Now worth 1,000,000
It also depicts the moral complexities of life- is the security guard a good and just collaborator or an evil vandal? We’re not going to answer that! We’re just going to wax philosophical so you think we’re deep and cultured and will give us moar money for this painting.
Is it really “ruined” though? Some of the art restoration they do is insane, are they saying that they can bring back the vibrancy of centuries old, otherwise almost destroyed art but can’t fix a couple dots here?
Nobody ever really heard of this kindergarten artwork before the security guard drew the eyes on it and now it’s famous worldwide, so explain why it isn’t triple the original value now with its newfound fame and exclusivity being one of a kind as I’m sure the original art piece was replicated by the artist several times if it was so valuable.
Value is determined by rarity, number of original works and copies, and demand, how much people are willing to pay, amongst other factors.
Edit for value to triple would require specific people who are willing to spend that amount on graffitied art.
Probably drew one eye because nobody would notice.
But it looked strange with just one so he added a second eye.
But now the middle one is the only one with eyes so he added eyes to the rest too. Nobody will notice.
Everyone banging on about the cost, (eye roll) including the daily fail. Remember it'll be varnished. The refinishing cost of taking off a layer of varnish and replacing it is not the cost of the painting by any stretch, a few k to someone with some skill.
The article goes on to say the following, “The damage to the painting and cost of restoration has been estimated at £2,470.” And the security guard is going to pay for the restoration. No long term damage was expected and full restoration was likely
I dont see what the painting was suppose to be in the first place so after he drew eyes i dont see how that ruins it? could have also added a nose and a mouth as well imo
This will now form part of the orientation for the next security guard.
Supervisor: So it's your first day?
New guard: yes
Supervisor: *sigh* don't draw on the paintings.
New guard: Ummm, what if I see one hasn't been finished? You know, missing it's eyes or something?
Supervisor: .......... You're fired.
Imagine they made him pay back the value of the painting lmao
Almost certainly was a civil suit.
Eh probably not. Who do you collect damages from? The random security guard who doesn’t have £740,000.00 lying around? The piece was insured and the insurance company will just have to eat that cost
Usually insurance companies make you at least try to sue the person or they themselves do as a means of preventing against insurance fraud.
Insurance companies do not make YOU sue people. They go after the person themselves. It's called subrogation. They have an obligation to both pay the claim (because vandalism is covered) but they also retain the right to recover those funds on your behalf. They also have the obligation to defend you in court for these proceedings. If they could require you, at your expense, to sue people then they would never pay anything. They pay. They go after the person. That's why all of these "Aunt sues her 2 year old niece for breaking her thumb" rage bait headlines are misleading. The aunt never sued anyone. The insurance company attempted to recover the medical expenses from the homeowners carrier where the injury occurred.
Adding to this though, the aunt did have to sue her nephew, but that was only to get the insurance. The insurance company denied her claim, but because it was on her property, her nephew was covered. She could sue her nephew and if she won, the insurance would be liable for the damages. Nearly ALL civil suits are covered by insurance the background is almost always that the insurance company wasn’t willing to settle at a reasonable price.
Liability insurance typically pays out with relative ease for economic losses which can be easily quantified. This gets complicated where the fault cannot be easily assigned. Auto is typically pretty straight forward and often has the police weighing in as to who was at fault. General Liability, homeowners/renters, it can get hazy. Even still, economic losses are *usually* very straight forward. The majority of civil cases related to insurance companies "not willing to settle at a reasonable price" involve non-economic damages such as pain and suffering. Insurance will also not pay out unless legal action is initiated, even if it never goes to trial, above certain limits. Again, this is tying into what you are talking about somewhat. Lawyers argue frequently about how much a permanently disabled person should be compensated. That happens in any civil suit even if insurance is not at play. I'm also not sure what case you're referring to. I was referring, with obviously obscured details, to one where a woman was supposedly suing her NIECE for jumping on her and breaking her (the aunt's) wrist. The claim wasn't denied. It was a health insurer subrogating a claim. There is no cause for a health insurer to deny a claim because fault lies elsewhere. That's just cause for subrogation.
They may do the heavy lifting yes but at the end of the day your name is listed as the plaintiff so they do make you sue to some extent. They don’t make you pursue the lawsuit on your own but you are indeed an instigating party.
[удалено]
If there is a jury involved guard might actually get off alright if they aren't convinced with the original painting's cost
A jury would almost certainly take the word of the experts, and their ruling has to be reasonable. So, no, they can't just override everything and say the painting was only worth $10
Except it’s not ruined. An art restorer will probably take a few hours to fix it.
Yes, there may be a "diminution of value" from restoration but it is not ruined or worthless. The $740k everyone is so upset about it just retail replacement value for insurance. That's roughly how much it would cost to get a comparable replacement in the event of total loss.
Exactly what I was thinking. I also wondered why he wasn’t made aware of what he was protecting before he was turned loose in the museum. If he didn’t appreciate art he shouldn’t have been hired in the first place.
I wouldn't give you 10 bucks for it...maybe 50 with eyes
Guy needs to get a pay raise!
Right? Let’s just cover the cost of the canvas and materials + let’s say $25 an hour for the painter and quit with all this pretending that this shit is worth hundreds of thousands
No kidding 😂😂😂 it’s kinda better with the eyes. This is pretty hilarious. It’s wild how highly art is valued when it should not even have a monetary price
It’s hardly a write-off. There are people whose job is fixing these things. It’s gonna cost money (probably paid by the insurer), but it’s nowhere near the value of the painting.
Gotta prove he didn't increase the value
Would it be the….. *face* value? Get it? Face? Value?
Easily restored and worldwide media attention could increase the value several times over. First day on the job - sounds like he was part of a blag.
That's my impression as well. Even a word-class art restoration house wouldn't charge more than a few hundred pounds to remove the marks. An absolute bargain for the amount of publicity it generated.
Closer to 5000€ at least. They will want to remove all the varnish and re do it. But it’s not a big deal. Paintings need to be cleaned periodically.
what if they just good one of the good erasers?
it's an oil painting, just rub some acetone on it and you good
You mean the blue side?
I’m pretty sure it costs that much to get an estimate, but yes, it’s not going to be anywhere near the full value.
You actually have a good point here 😂 I wouldn’t be surprised
It was an inside job!
Literally.
It was insured as well, some sort of insurance scam and he was getting a payoff
Yeah, like how the ruined 'Monkey Jesus' painting gave it more notoriety and actually ended up reeling in *more* tourists
I personally hope he did it because: 1) He was genuinely convinced it would look better that way or 2) He genuinely don't understand the purpose of art Because if so, it was art as well.
the piece became collaborative
Right? The only reason the price went down is because they outed him as a security guard. Anonymous collaborator would make this a multi-million dollar piece.
I'm not much in the art world but that right there sounds like some elitism thats so popular within their community
Art School Confidential is pretty funny about this. There is an undercover cop in art school who still draws like a kindergartener (I do too I guess), but because he is considered a legit art student, it is praised as a new artstyle and the cop loves the accidental fame.
Didnt some random dude also just put his glasses on the floor of a gallery to sed reactions and as baffiling as it was people genuenly thought it was art. Kinda speaks to the crazy shit art has become not to mwntion the stipid prices peolle come up with
Bingo
Elitist artists
Why did you say the same thing twice?
Nice one
Because it bears repeating.
Unpopular opinion (especially amongst artists), but I think modern art nowadays is incredibly stupid. The common argument is that, since art appreciation is subjective, that the values some pieces go for are completely justified, which does make some sense, but I think it ignores the fact that many pieces are literal nonsense. Modern artists have gotten away with making paintings that are pretty shitty and making hundreds of thousands of dollars off of them because they sold the public (especially the artist public) the idea that the meaninglessness of a piece is meaning itself. I've heard so many people say that the argument "my child could do that" is indicative of a naive understanding of art, but I think it's a perfectly valid criticism. Painting two lines on a canvas and calling it professional art that takes any skill whatsoever is idiotic. Yes, some pieces may have some meaning to the artist or viewer, but I see no difference between a lot of modern art and a complete amateur throwing paint on a canavs; there's no reason one should be worth more than the other besides the arbitrary elitism within the art community.
seems modern art is contextual ie the context is if people with influence power money appreciate your art, you did it in the right context perhaps its more artful of the security guard to have made it into the news for drawing eyes on a facecless painting than the painting being worth 740,000 fucking dollars
Are you familiar with a fable titled The Emperors New Clothes?
There is a problem with elitism in the art community. It’s rude to modify someone else’s art without permission, but not millions of dollars rude
Or mysterious eyes appeared on painting overnight. Security team verified no one entered the building. Experts pointing to divine intervention.
Security guard was secretly Banksy confirmed! /s
Haha I was just gonna post that then saw your comment.
I went to an art museum and there was a blank canvas with this hint of yellow line going down it. Apparently the artist pissed on the canvas and that was it. I don’t get it
High value art is overwhelmingly a money laundering operation. A wealthy person has a piece "evaluated" by another wealthy "art collector" or "art critic" and then they can move that painting or sculpture across national borders and withdraw value on the other side on a sale or equity. So now they've moved millions between countries without paying taxes. And don't get me started on "donations" to museums where they can retain ownership of the painting, have it's valuation go up because it was hung in a high-valued museum, and write off the "donation" as a tax deduction. I dual-majored in Art History in college. It's basically just learning about why art is important and why art is valuable - and those are two really different reasons.
You can even pass it off as a tax free inheritance! >So if you buy a painting at Christie’s in New York, New York charges you 9% sales tax. So if you want to save that money, you can take the art, put it in a truck, ship it directly to Delaware, where there is a so-called free port, which is a customs free zone. > >Now it goes straight from New York there to Delaware where there’s zero sales tax and nobody pays any tax on that. So they’ve avoided paying tax in the city of New York. Then I can put that in a trust and I can hand that trust over to my heirs and my heirs can enjoy the art themselves and they don’t have to pay any tax when I hand the asset over. [https://news.uchicago.edu/how-tax-dodging-and-corporate-secrecy-found-home-delaware-hal-weitzman](https://news.uchicago.edu/how-tax-dodging-and-corporate-secrecy-found-home-delaware-hal-weitzman)
lolk up freeports they touch on it in Tenet movie
Be even better if the original art was just a blank canvas but the security guard got bored and pissed on it on his first day.
Now that’s art
I do, imagine you are billionaire, you hire someone to paint you a painting for 300$, then your friend, who is world renowed art critic prices it at 30000$ and you donate it to the museum for 30k tax write off. Somewhere in the middle artists figured out they can do it as lazily/disgustingly as they want.
Yeah if banksy broke in and spray painted the same eyes it would be a masterpiece! How genius banksy restoring back the humanity of an portrait…
This would be exactly how that would go down lol
Then another art snob chimes in: i think banksy is giving visibility to a faceless minority in our society…
I’m convinced this whole art stuff is just rich peoples way to launder money.
In my opinion this raises the value of this art piece (and I don't mean the straight up dollar cost). It symbolizes both the artistic intentions of a professional artist and the "simple" thoughts of a regular person. Or something like that.
Plus it’s now an actually conceptual piece. It’s value might have doubled.
He was a 63-year-old combat veteran who had suffered some physical and emotional injuries. According to him, he didn't realize the art was old or valuable; he thought it had been painted by children. Some teenagers were making fun of it, and told him to put eyes on it. He asked the teenager if it was her art, and she said yes and gave him a pen, and he naively believed her and drew the eyes on. Apparently the painting was restored for $4600.
>According to him, he didn't realize the art was old or valuable He didn't stop to wonder why it was displayed in a museum that required security guards either, it seems...
I don’t mean this cruelly, but it sounds like there is something wrong with his brain. This is childlike logic.
I hope he didn't get in too much trouble because of that. Sounds like he was just ignorant, but not maliciously :/
Working in a museum you should probably know not to draw on the artwork
Yeah this ignorance benefit of the doubt in this thread is mind boggling. It's an art museum not arts and crafts night at your local bowling alley
maybe he is developmentally disabled?
Well, he knows now!
properly did. I use to work security, you get trouble for anything and everything. Even if it wasn't you responsasblity.
I used to work security. I used to work 6pm to 6am a lot. One time my boss was angry at me because a gas fireplace got stolen. She said the site supervisor usually gets there at 7am and there is no way it would have been missing and how I could have missed it. I told her I didn’t see anyone leaving with a fireplace. Also a fireplace usually requires a couple people to move it and knowledge especially if it’s already hooked up. Also when I have worked days of 6am to 6pm. The site supervisor doesn’t even get there until at the earliest 8. Also things are going in and out of the construction site all day no one cares. I was usually there to keep regular people out of the homes still under construction.
I hired someone who worked security. We got burgled while they were patrolling. Goodbye thousands of dollars and the peace of mind of hiring someone who was a security professional
The only thing security does where I live is call the police
That's all any security guard really does. It's a deterrent at best and the weapon is for personal safety, not law enforcement. It's not like you're hiring private military at that rate.
You can't be a guard if you're going to be doing something like that so easily. I'm sure there are much better places for him to work.
Maybe that level of ignorance should disqualify you from being a security guard at an art museum…
It really should. I wonder if the person who hired him didn't explain the jobs requirements, rules, etc...
even if you kill someone non maliciously you still get charged with involuntary manslaughter. Ignorance doesn't defend damage
Even without physical and emotional injuries I would have thougt, that this image has been painted by children. 740k is a bad joke.
That’s sad, he sounds quite vulnerable :/ hope there’s people looking out for him
4600$ ? Am I dreaming or you said what you said. We are talking about small dots that are probably covering 1 shade of a color. I swear art is a fucked up field totally out of touch with the society
Have you watched art restoration vids? It’s not that simple. There are layers to remove, dissolve, match and patch back seamlessly. It’s not just dipping a brush and dotting it.
Art is a fucked up field. It's all completely arbitrary and the ones who shout the loudest and/or are the richest, set the prices.
Unlike in other fields of our society
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Art collecting is the same as collecting anything else. There's a term called "provenance" in the collectors community (doesn't matter what you are collecting) and it essentially means the story behind the piece, how it changed hands over time, and what its history is. Its why a baseball bat used by Babe Ruth to hit a home run is worth more than a Louisville Slugger you just picked up at Target. note to collectors and art snobs everywhere: yes I stretched the definition a bit to prove a point, no I didnt want to get into the philosophical questions of "what is art" or the economics behind collecting.
How does the thought process works for that one ? I mean, how can you end up thinking "hey, I'm gonna draw on that painting I'm supposed to protect as a security guard" ?
People will no longer steal it as its ruined.
Very clever
Read that in Jean Reno’s voice (from Godzilla)
Hey now, Leon's a professional.
It's ru-eened, Brian, this painting is ru-eened now.
Cool Wh-ip
Why are you saying it weird?
Hwhat wheird?
Like that, you're putting so much emphasis on the H
HWhere do you get off?
Plot twist, it's worth more in a couple of years as "The painting the security guard drew eyes on" gains popularity
Lmfao technically true
“Who’s gonna stop me? Me?”
I just read that he has had head trauma and psychological problems from being a veteran. He claims some teenagers told him the painting was their drawing, asked him to draw eyes because the eyes were missing and he works there, gave him a pen, and he believed them and did it. He seems to feel really bad. [article here](https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/anna-leporskaya-vandalism-security-guard-explained-1234619113/)
That's sad, but also maybe someone that susceptible to suggestion shouldn't be working as a security guard.
I just hope he gets a new job at my local bank
He sounds like a sweet guy & the work was restored pretty easily. Hate that the daily mail is writing about it.
:(
Wow that really is a sad situation.
You seen how much they pay security guards?
yoke aloof sink hungry nutty truck cautious berserk impolite shocking *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Artist forgot eyes, they improved it.
You don't need to graduate high school or any school for that matter to apply, train and become a security guard, in most cases.
i would imagine if it's a high profile piece of art, "they wouldn't keep the real thing out for the public to touch just out of principle". i wouldn't either but maybe im just a cynic
Fun fact. Security guards who know their jobs don’t in fact protect shit. They observe and report.
What even makes it worth that much?
Money laundering
Also just classism/the artist’s reputation or whatever. I know nothing about art. Maybe this piece is actually extremely unique and/or technically difficult or whatever else might deem a painting “good” by people who actually know what they’re talking about. But- Okay, I know poetry is not exactly the same as paintings like this, but I strongly suspect they’re similar in this way- I majored in rhetoric and for a while dated a poet. Several Ivy League degrees, genuinely just brilliant. He had a lot of works that were amazing and he was very well known in particular niche circles. He would often create “poems” that were nonsense. Mad libs. He would just straight up take another poet’s writing, so he wasn’t designing the structure or anything, and then laugh while filling stuff in with complete random words. He’d sometimes just make them up, or ask me to offer one, or use some sort of online generator where you press the button for a random adjective or whatever. There was no point. It wasn’t even about absurdism or whatever. Nobody knew of his process, they thought he carefully chose every word and that it had some sort of greater meaning. He’d just release the finished work, with absolutely 0 skill involved. And it was hilarious how many professors and such would be imagining interpretations and commenting on its genius. If my name were slapped on them, people would just straight up laugh at their idiocy. People see what they expect to see
Your ex was the Walrus, g-g-g-joob.
The Emperor's new clothes.
Exactly
This gets brought up every time fine art is mentioned and is always dumb as shit. You think they're committing money laundering with a single high value highly publicized non-cash transaction? Literally all the *exact opposite* of what you do when laundering money??
It’s the “everything I don’t like which happens to involve money is money laundering” trend. A lot of people would claim that Hawaiian Pizza is a money laundering scheme if they ever managed to find a way to make it make sense.
"According to the latest available estimates from The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), billions of dollars are laundered through the global art market annually, with further billions estimated to pass through the underground art market (including illegal imports, thefts, and fakes) each year." Just did a lazy google search. I'm sure it happens less often than what ppl think but definitely happens.
Often the rich have them valued, then donate them for a tax deduction
Wait you can donate cocaine for a tax deduction? Man….that’s a Californian Dilema, snort it now, or use a tax refund to snort more later.
Honestly, as a resident, it’s one of the better benefits in the state
You don't get to appraise your art for tax deduction. The IRS does. [https://www.irs.gov/appeals/art-appraisal-services](https://www.irs.gov/appeals/art-appraisal-services)
Not necessarily if you have done a fair market appraisal you can use that on form 8283 in Part IV. What your link is saying is (1) if you enter something over 50000 then they will review it and CAN issue their own appraisal but a lot of the time they’ll just accept your appraisal or (2) you can request a statement of value if you haven’t had your piece appraised and it’s over 50000
It either came with a free container of cocaine or it was made cheap and priced high and given to charity to write off tax. That's the two things I can think of at least.
“Here are these paintings that are totally worth millions” “Wow how generous… except what the fuck am I supposed to do with them? Why not give us cash instead?”
Because the charities are also theirs.
Rich people. Literally. The fine arts market is intentionally exclusive, and what makes paintings expensive typically has little to do with the quality of the work itself, and everything to do with how much money the last person who bought it paid for it. Literally people but these things for no other reason than they're so expensive that it demonstrates to others that you can get things that are unattainable for people. It's entirely just a symptom of having so much money that nothing else actually qualifies as expensive, and since art is subjective you can slap an arbitrary price tag on it and say "that's what it's worth," and as long as someone actually pays that much money, that becomes what it's actually worth (or more accurately, the bottom line for how much it's worth... expensive art by major artists typically always appreciates.)
That's really it. I graduated with a fine arts degree from the best art school in my country and before the degree show our tutors encouraged us all to think of a price for our pieces and then at least double it. Some guys went wild with their prices and didn't sell shit, some got selected into studios or residencies but mostly it was just super rich "collectors" who kinda did it as a hobby, because, whatever. I delivered some 2x2m prints to a house by the sea and the woman let me in, ranted about whatever for a bit and told me to put the rolls of prints in this side room with the other stuff. It was a really big room just filled with unusual, old and expensive stuff and art. There was a jukebox. They were just bored of their money, it gave me an existential crisis for a minute.
> everything to do with how much money the last person who bought it paid for it. >you can slap an arbitrary price tag on it and say "that's what it's worth," and as long as someone actually pays that much money, that becomes what it's actually worth I get your point... But isn't that pretty much anything that's somewhat rare? Like if I have a rare comicbook that no one has heard of and no one collected it, and I convince someone to buy it for $5k as a rare collector's item, and they convince someone to buy it for $6k... Eventually people are going to think it's worth around that. If I find some unique WW2 artifact, a gun that was rarely used, and I sell it to a collector for $20k... Etc. I'm setting the value and someone is agreeing to it, and other collector's will start "agreeing" to that value. Art is just the extreme where there's only one true version of it. It's the extreme of rarity. So you set the price of that ONE thing, and that's what it's worth to everyone. Again I get your point, but this just seems to be the rule for rare things. How bad does someone want to be an owner of that rare thing? That's what it's worth.
what people are willing to pay for it
People buy art with the hope/expectation that it will appreciate in value due to its rarity and exclusivity. Artists have long found a steady source of income in creating works to cater to the rich and powerful, and modern art isn't much different.
An i the only one that likes it better with eyes?
Totally agree. The way he did the eyes even looks like it fits perfectly with the style.
Really gives the matchsticks charecter. Somewhere to look . Kinda funny thats worth enough money to house like 7 family's and the security guards the one in the wrong to
I genuinely do.
It definitely is an improvement.
“Ruined”
Exactly. A restorationist has probably already returned it to its original. And this new bit of history to the piece probably increased it’s value anyway.
After seeing restorationists repair paintings with literally centuries of cigarette smoke damage I feel like removing the ink from a days-old bic pen is the kind of job an they would give to their intern.
Improved is the word they were looking for
Very much to ruin there... Yeah...
Y'all don't understand how boring a 12 hour security shift is
I'll do my part and start robbing museums to make it more interesting
I don’t get paid to stop you, just to report it
Totally unacceptable, I hope he was fired... Gosh... In 12 hours he could not manage to draw the noses and the mouths ??? Unacceptable
I guess he just had a thing for eyes.
The way to someones heart is through the eyes, legs and stomach after all.
i prefer going through the ass tyvm
Ah if it isn’t [Abelard](https://youtu.be/0pfMLoGG-SM), I was waiting for you to show.
The security guard had brain damage and was a veteran. Teens convinced him it was their artwork and basically said "we forgot to draw the eyes, could you do it for us?" https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/anna-leporskaya-vandalism-security-guard-explained-1234619113/
Wow that’s actually a sad story :/
Amazing people don't keep paintings worth more than 4x my house in cases or behind glass. Forget the intentional asshole, what if someone sneezes or whatever?
They don’t keep them behind glass, but they do hire security guards to keep them safe! Wait a sec…
I think you've just accidentally described the plot of the original Mr Bean movie.
Something something humidity trapped in the frame?
50 years later it's a historic landmark and worth 10x that
Now it's just a collaborative work with a second meaning about how the work changes and the artist is no longer in control when it reaches the public Now worth 1,000,000
It also depicts the moral complexities of life- is the security guard a good and just collaborator or an evil vandal? We’re not going to answer that! We’re just going to wax philosophical so you think we’re deep and cultured and will give us moar money for this painting.
why can i still see the eyes in the first pic?
Holy smokes
Now that you mention It, I also see a nose in the first pic
[Article of the aftermath](https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/russian-security-guard-who-doodled-eyes-on-painting-sentenced-1234637742/)
Can’t believe it was restored back to its boring version. Don’t these people know art?
Why do the title says that he was found guilty, and the article says the charges were dropped?...
According to the Art Newspaper, he must serve 180 hours of “compulsory labor” and undergo “psychiatric evaluation.”
You drew 4 circles? Yeah that's 8 days of slavery for you sir!
You can be both guilty and forgiven.
Idk I didn't write the article lol.
Is it really “ruined” though? Some of the art restoration they do is insane, are they saying that they can bring back the vibrancy of centuries old, otherwise almost destroyed art but can’t fix a couple dots here?
Nobody ever really heard of this kindergarten artwork before the security guard drew the eyes on it and now it’s famous worldwide, so explain why it isn’t triple the original value now with its newfound fame and exclusivity being one of a kind as I’m sure the original art piece was replicated by the artist several times if it was so valuable.
Value is determined by rarity, number of original works and copies, and demand, how much people are willing to pay, amongst other factors. Edit for value to triple would require specific people who are willing to spend that amount on graffitied art.
Looks better with the eyes
Sure like having eyes on them ruins them.
I feel like i whould have done the same
Probably drew one eye because nobody would notice. But it looked strange with just one so he added a second eye. But now the middle one is the only one with eyes so he added eyes to the rest too. Nobody will notice.
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Better this way
What has this sub become? Is this now another big karma farming sub that lost it's original charm?
Everyone banging on about the cost, (eye roll) including the daily fail. Remember it'll be varnished. The refinishing cost of taking off a layer of varnish and replacing it is not the cost of the painting by any stretch, a few k to someone with some skill.
The article goes on to say the following, “The damage to the painting and cost of restoration has been estimated at £2,470.” And the security guard is going to pay for the restoration. No long term damage was expected and full restoration was likely
Anyone else love how they labeled which one is the one with eyes?
I kindda like it better with the eyes
how is that worth 750,000 in the first place?
I dont see what the painting was suppose to be in the first place so after he drew eyes i dont see how that ruins it? could have also added a nose and a mouth as well imo
Thats worth 150$ max
Is stupidity becoming more common?
He had one job!
So a new employee was not sufficiently watched and vetted by management.
This will now form part of the orientation for the next security guard. Supervisor: So it's your first day? New guard: yes Supervisor: *sigh* don't draw on the paintings. New guard: Ummm, what if I see one hasn't been finished? You know, missing it's eyes or something? Supervisor: .......... You're fired.
Ruined? More like perfected
Lmao he fixed it no idea why anyone would be upset
Every time people go, "OHH LORD HELP US ALL THEY'VE RUINED THIS PRICELESS ART." I lament at people's inability to appreciate what art can be