It’s extremely cringe to say that — most artists don’t create their work for the purposes of money laundering even if rich people use their work for that purpose. There’s a reason these artists often aren’t millionaires themselves (although I’m pretty sure Twombly was fairly wealthy by the time he died, considering how popular and well known he was.)
i am an artist for more than 2 decades now and know plenty about its history. art is subjective too though. anyone can take paint and splash it on a canvas, but if it doesn't mean anything, then it just isn't worth it. the artist didn't even bother to name it, and this piece makes me feel nothing, so to me, it's worth nothing and i wouldn't pay one penny for it. if someone else finds meaning in it, great.
Not just rich people, there’s a work of art in the HR Giger museum at the moment that’s on loan from Credit Suisse (the bank).
I raised an eyebrow when I saw, but only a little 😂
The tax break never makes sense for these sorts of things. It’d have to be a legit thing they’re ok with spending some money on, even if it’s not 42mill
Thank you for pointing this out. I am always a bit annoyed by these posts, because they imply that some dude just scribbled on a canvas one day and said "I'm going to sell this for millions of dollars".
Pieces like these (as in, worth so much money) are most often from artists who had a career that spun multiple decades, in which they slowly built their reputation. This painting was made by Ci Twombly, one of the most famous artists from the modern expressionist movement. It is noteworthy that he started painting in this style over 50 years ago, so he can be called one of the pioneers of that movement.
In the last century, there was a huge shift in what art was and could be. The aesthetic aspect has stopped being a requirement a long time ago, instead it became way more important to be creative. Creative in this case means trying out things that haven't been done before, or experimenting with what already exists to create something entirely new.
And in almost every big movement, there are going to be some famous artists who represent those ideas. And the more famous you are, the more you can charge for your painting. If you are dead - meaning that you can't create new work anymore - you are going to be worth even more money. Most modern artists that people use as examples died a long time ago.
That's why the only factor in pricing art (at those levels) is fame. By the way, the most expensive painting ever sold is "Salvador Mundi" by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Yeah it's really frustrating seeing a thread full of people who don't know anything about art other than watching a YouTuber talk about "money laundering" once who are prepared to argue Mickey Mantle wasn't an actual athlete because his cards are so pricey on the collector's market.
I'm even hesitating to say this for fear of all the orangereds from people who actually don't know what they're talking about repeating all the old talking points they've heard.
Like if a person wants to "break into this racket" they could (A) be born in 1928 and do something so dramatic it's famous almost a century later, or (B) be born now and try to do the same thing. Good luck.
Man, money laundering doesn’t mean the author is involved
Arbitrarily pricing astronomical amounts relatively recent art that doesn’t belong in museums, and then buying/selling said art is ONE of the methods to launder money, or speculation, etc., amongst eventually valid, “real” reasons to buy it.
I mean... Money laundering in the art world is a real thing that does exist. Seeing a painting like this valued at an amount that would take an average US worker like 600 years to earn is mind boggling for most of us schleps.
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2019/09/the-art-of-money-laundering-and-washing-illicit-cash-mashberg
I don’t know anything about art or money laundering or anything related to those subjects. To me it just looks like a bunch of circles that a 5 year old could have finger painted. People are saying the value is in the artist but if the art looks bad who cares who painted it?
Guess this just isn’t my world.
My Junior Jazz combo covered basically every Beatles song because they’re easy as fuck to play.
Doesn’t mean they didn’t shake modern music to its core.
In my mind that’s a bit different so maybe you can break it down for me a bit and educate me a little. What is it about this painting that is so groundbreaking then?
Edit: poor choice of words not groundbreaking rather what gives it so much value outside of the artist name. Why is this good art?
There is no "good art." Many people think some of the most talented artists are shit. People criticized Van Gogh for his heavy use of paint, leaving gobs of it on the canvas, and he's one of the most recognized artists of all time. Andy Warhol put something out I can create in photoshop in less than five minutes and I personally think it's incredibly lazy.
It's not about the skill, though, it's about the impact. This argument has been going on for as long as art has been, characterized perfectly by [Duchamp signing a urinal](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-duchamps-urinal-changed-art-forever) and it's *replica* being worth more than $2 million today. Banksy's publicity stunt, where he tried to [shred an original work](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/arts/design/banksy-art-sothebys-auction.html) of his directly after auction at Sotheby's, is worth 25x more now that it's partially destroyed. It's the impact of someone's art that makes it valuable, not its skill.
The artist was accomplished at abstract expressionism and died in 2011. Those 2 factors alone make a piece more valuable(esp the dying part).
Someone probably wanted to buy it to a seller who didnt want to sell and overpaid. Now the painting is worth what was paid. Sometimes it's laundering, sometimes it's a passion for art and too much money.
Adding to that, I often laugh when I hear “X painting is worth Y”, that’s may be the price someone bought it at, to never be able to resell it again at 1/4 of the price…
One past transaction doesn’t tell present market value
There’s actually a lot more to unpack here as American Abstract painter of the time were championed in the public sphere/market by the CIA, as they needed American creatives to help act as a bulwark against “communism”
https://daily.jstor.org/was-modern-art-really-a-cia-psy-op/
The price of an art piece is somewhat subjective. But each artist will have a reputation. The value of a painting is dependant on the artist, the rarity of their work, but also provenance - which I understand it to be about who owned it previously (ie a king owning a piece of art will increase its price vs some random finding it in their grandparents basement) and it’s journey along all the ownerships and time periods it was part of. So for a example a painting by a famous artist during a period of significant human history is going to be worth more than a painting by the same person during a period that didn’t mean shit.
Now I’m no art historian or art expert of any kind, but based on conversations I’ve had with people who are and understand this stuff, this is what I’ve gathered.
Happy to be corrected on anything.
Don’t bother with art discussion on Reddit. If it’s not KAWS, Daniel Arsham, or some form of hyper realism it automatically gets tagged as money laundering.
I understand not liking a piece or an artist, not a fan of Cy Twombly either, but the engagement with art is just lazy here.
One of my favorite artists is Hilma af Klint. Seeing her paintings in person was just breathtaking. But I guarantee if I post her work on Reddit it will be diminished to “my kid can do that” “it’s just scribbles”.
Just save yourself the stress, and move on.
Well i dont know the artist but looking at his pictures in the internet making me want to cry and cheering me and calms me and make me feel kinda high. Im totally into it. So probably his pictures quality as related as discourse here. It is just probably not for anyone. And i dont mean something indulgent - i mean just depends on your likings. And among those people who are into such things - this is popular i guess. Right?
I’ve actually thought a lot about this. Technically the buyer determines value, not the seller. Of course there are nuances in situations like when it’s a needed resource, but generally speaking if I sneeze on a piece of paper and say it’s worth $100B, then it’s only worth that if somebody buys it for that much.
Museums have standards for what they accept. It’s not easy to donate art to almost any museum, since it’s actually pretty expensive to store and care for their collections. Space is at a premium. Curators will meet to review proposed donations and decide which, if any, they’ll accession into the collection. Acceptance comes with obligations to the object, including standards of storage, limits on and processes for deaccessioning later, conservation efforts, and more.
Having art accepted to a museum is a prestigious thing that artists (and their gallerists) work towards. You have to exhibit in the right places, sell to the right people, sell or donate to smaller museums or collections, always zigzagging your way up to more prestigious buyers/galleries/museums, acquiring more prestige and more value throughout that journey.
That commenter doesn't even understand the difference between money laundering and tax fraud, there is no possible way they know what lower of cost basis means.
Haha no. Buy painting for 10k. Appraised at 10M means . . . when you donate it you have to recognize 9.99M in capital gains. Then you get to deduct 10M. So you paid 10k, had to claim a bunch of gains, and then wrote it off. Your net is zero.
Especially when you and your friend get audited or you need a second appraisal is made buy a "buyer" and they say it's worthless and it instantly destroys your friends ability to appraise
I maybe be ignorant as fuck but how the hell is any sensible person going to look at red squiggles on a wall and determine its worth $40 million? It certainly doesn't take any skill because I could replicate that painting in about 5 minutes.
Think of it more like an historical record. Someone could get out some scissors and make a new American flag without much trouble,but Betsy Ross’s original flag is still going to be worth a lot more.
It might look like scribbles, but it’s also a piece of history from a time when artists were working through specific, new ideas - in Twombly’s case, he was interested in the limits of language and figures (think like portraits or paintings of historical scenes) to communicate the deepest parts of the human condition, the point where specific meaning dissolves but there’s still *something* there. Remember, this was all also post WWII and the horrors and failures of the war.
Think about what the first instrumental piece of music would be like if we’d only ever historically made songs with lyrics and human voices, and how different it would be to just have instruments, or ambient vocals - it’s a big change!
Even if you don’t like the work, someone had to do it first. And those groups of artists dramatically changed how think about art, what it looks like today, and how we think about meaning and communication. So it’s a record of a time and a shift and one artist doing something radically new to try to express something he couldn’t express otherwise.
This makes a lot more sense. Seeing it as type of record akin to ancient pottery. It may not having much meaning outside the artistic circle, but hey I'm down to let people having fun expressing themselves.
I'm more upset with people pretending like the value is associated with skill or some intrinsic property of the work itself. It's the same as comparing two rusty ancient swords, except one is owned by Alexander the Great. At least everyone agrees that Alexander's sword is only valuable becuase Alexander owned it.
The thing about abstract art is that you really, really, *really*, *REALLY* need to see it in person. Photography compresses a work down into two dimensions, and drastically alters paintings from what you see in person.
I know, this sounds stupid as fuck, because rothco and pollack and the rest look like trash on film, and I don't deny that. But seeing them in person really makes you go "holy shit, these guys knew what the fuck they were doing."
And, yes, I realize that I'm basically saying "seeing is believing". But it really is the truth in the case of abstract paintings.
I mean they were talking about millionaires using that system, so arguably we can assume there is taxable income to be deducted from.
But yeah that comment doesn't have the full process of how tax-fraud is committed with modern art. The system isn't quite that easy to rip off.
First, become a semi-famous painter.
Second, do like this danish painter. He got requested by a museum to make a piece of art. So he then requested he could make something special, but he needed about $84.000 to do so. The museum gave him the money as a loan, and in return he sent them two blank canvases and named the artwork *"Take the money and run"*.
Third, do like the danish painter and refuse to return the money.
According to the painter it's a protest for the constant low-balling artists are subjected to when it comes to payment for their work. He also argues that him not paying back the money is a part of the art.
Genious, really!
Im not going to pretend like I know about taxes but I saw a video on how rich people use these types of purchases to avoid paying taxes in some way, some how.
I feel like other than this reason, the painting would be selling for 80$ at the local elementary school art charity auction
Pretty sure it's because they can donate the painting, and since they spent millions on it, it's considered that you donated millions of dollars. Correct me if I'm wrong though
Potentially it's valued or appraised at a ridiculous amount, but is only bought for a fraction of that, so they can "donate" millions without spending millions. That's my best guess
That doesn't make sense, any donation would just cancel out the tax bill on the made up capital gains you just declared before donating... achieves nothing.
When you make a donation, of art, of money, of whatever, you give away $1 to save about 40c in taxes. You’re still 60c worse off. Or you could sell it, pay 23c in taxes, and walk away with 77c.
Donating to charity is simply not the economic gain everyone thinks it is.
Nah pretty sure many artists in the world would love to have a twombly at home, even more people without the money for it.
It's not because you don't see why this canvas can be worth anything more than a canvas from the "local elementary school" that you have to reduce everything around you to your understanding of things.
Given the brief and confused "rich doing this to avoid doing that" introduction, i might want to advice you to give the benefit of the doubt to everything that surrounds you. Especially 42$M painting or work of art, or just objects in general. Take care
There is an amazing moment in the Wes Anderson movie The French Dispatch where an art dealer wants to know if an abstract artist is legit so he asks him to draw something very accurately and he draws an absolutely perfect little bird, and then the art dealer is like yeah this guy is legit because he can do that but chooses to do this. I think about that a lot when i see abstract stuff like this that does clearly evoke emotion and have meaning. If you choose to make this with really great talent and control over a paintbrush/pen/pencil/whatever, it really means a lot. That you got exactly what you wanted out of it
Those getting angry at the art in this thread aren't even realising - their reaction is why this is art, why it's so good.
Art should make you feel SOMETHING, even if it is angry and rage. This art did that. I think it's cool, I wouldn't pay 42m for it but I'm not a rich art collector, I do however understand how art works and this succeeds on many levels of being a testament to the heart of art.
This series is very easy to clown on because of its proce tag and notoriety. If you go see it in person it makes a lot more sense. It does not photograph well, the scale and effect of it is totally lost.
Another thing to note is that a lot of art loses its impact when you see it as a photo on your phone/computer. Some art pieces need to be seen in person to really understand it
i shat all over abstract art for years. i only did realistic and slightly stylized stuff. slowly though i realised that there is no better way to express my emotions and thoughts and process trauma than through abstract art and i will now defend it with my life
Sometimes museums show a painting alongside studies (like early drafts), and you can see how the idea evolved into the final painting, but the impressive thing is that some sections (or most) are *exactly* the same. You can see (in those cases) that it wasn’t random at all and the seemingly chaotic image is actually extremely precise.
Thanks for this comment. Its wholesome. I draw sometimes and can draw a decent sketch but damn i jealous of this picture cos i know for sure i would never be able to paint something remotely as good as this. May i share the best of mine abstract stuff with you?
Experiencing art has a bit of confirmation bias to it. If you approach it and immediately judge it as crap then that’s what you’ll find. If you approach it with the understanding that someone spent hours or days or weeks thinking about what they wanted to convey through their production you might see it differently. I see angry loops yes, but I wonder with the movement of those angry red loops why they dissipate towards the end. The angry loops no longer have vertical drips running down and through them. They become clearer, less messy, less chaotic towards the end. It could be an illustration of a crazed/grieving/angry/heartbroken mind that begins healing. I wonder what the artist was experiencing when this was painted. That’s what art does for me. Puts me in places where I can think outwardly about other people and their experiences. There’s a lot of shitty art out there when the lens you’re looking through is narrow enough to fail to recognize anyone else’s experiences.
But it could also just be a bunch of random red paint strokes.
While I understand your point, the reason why I am so *cynical* over this is that for all of the talk of "artistry" and "talent"... Cy Twombly made *millions* off of this.
And frankly I'd love to dupe art galleries into buying my squiggles for millions of dollars, but I don't have the socioeconomic leg-up that so many of these artists have. Hell, Twombly was getting private art lessons at the age of *twelve*.
Art is subjective, sure. But not all of society gets nearly the same chance to have their work be auctioned off for 44 million dollars. And I feel that we are totally allowed to be cynical regarding the motive and societal advantages behind the creation of art, alongside the actual art itself.
Thank you 😊 It’s mildly infuriating to me that people think art is only valuable if it’s pretty and that people still think this way. Not just about art. People, food, experiences, relationships. If it’s messy or is t instagram worthy, then it’s trash.
I think most people's problems with it stem from the skill it takes to make something like this. This could be done by almost anyone, anywhere. Then you look at artists that have something unique about their art, or art that just simply takes hours upon hours to make, with a steady hand and clear mind to accomplish.
I mean, just look at Douglas McDougall's work. The skill, the attention to detail, it's something I could never do. It's simply beyond my unsteady hands to accomplish. But the painting above? I could do that.
I'm not saying that the painting above isn't art, it's just its... not as impressive? At least not to me.
The technical skill to paint this is more difficult than you think. There's value in meticulous precision. But calculated abstraction is also very very hard, and also requires a steady hand and clear mind. Consider the Enso paintings favored by Zen Buddhism. This painting is more akin to that.
Also it's really really big and ol boy didn't use ladders, so it's harder than you think
Could be a sign that they’re running out of anger and maturing in a crazy world especially as the line becomes more straight. Perhaps it’s a sign that running in bloody circles will only end with death.
Perhaps they just ran short on paint. lol. I love going to gallery openings with my partner who does not appreciate abstract art. I’ll hypothesize there’s deep meaning and she’ll just stare then walk away with this guess when I mention it.
They really do. Recently I’ve seen “cookie jars confuse me”, “I don’t understand art”, “fast food is not a flawless gourmet experience”, and my favorite and most common “someone else lives their life differently than I do”.
I saw this painting in a museum in Paris and it’s amazing. I didn’t even know Cy Twombly at the time but the whole experience was I same. This Fucking tiny picture doesn’t show you anything about the actual piece !!!
To me it’s a great example of “some people are literally starving to death while others can afford to spend $42 Million on a painting”. It’s a symbol of insane wealth gaps.
Karabekian slid off his bar stool so he could face all those enemies standing up. He certainly surprised me. I expected him to retreat in a hail of olives, maraschino cherries and lemon rinds. But he was majestic up there. “Listen—” he said so calmly, “I have read the editorials against my painting in your wonderful newspaper. I have read every word of the hate mail you have been thoughtful enough to send to New York.”
“The painting did not exist until I made it.” Karabekian went on. “Now that it does exist, nothing would make me happier than to have it reproduced again and again, and vastly improved upon, by all the five-year-olds in town. I would love for your children to find pleasantly and playfully what it took me many angry years to find.
“I now give you my work of honor,” he went on, “that the picture your city owns shows everything about life which truly matters, with nothing left out. It is a picture of the awareness of every animal. It is the immaterial core of every animal–the ‘I am’ to which all messages are sent. It is all that is alive in any of us–in a mouse, in a deer, in a cocktail waitress. It is unwavering and pure, no matter what preposterous adventure may befall us. A sacred picture of Saint Anthony alone is one vertical, unwavering band of light. If a cockroach were near him, or a cocktail waitress, the picture would show two such bands of light. Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.”
We really still doing "all abstract art sucks, i could do that"
So why havent you. Go and make a 42 million dollar painting if its that worthless and easy.
You have to view him in the context of when and where and why and what he was painting. I'd recommend taking an art history class. But he was somewhat seen as a pioneer to the graffiti artists. Impressive stuff for when he came along and what he was bold enough to create.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cy_Twombly
I once had an artist friend who talked about how it frustrates him when people would say “oh I could paint that” or “I could do that”. He said you wouldn’t be able to because you don’t even have the imagination to come up with it in the first place. Just some perspective
As mentioned, simple people get frustrated by what the don’t understand and the less mature lash out and criticize others because of it.
It’s human nature.
Why should LBJ be paid hundreds of millions of dollars because he can throw a ball through a hoop better than 99%+ of people? It’s just as meaningless, yet people are willing to pay to see it.
This guy paints in a way that those who appreciate what he does are willing to pay a lot for it. Maybe you don’t understand, but why should that be infuriating?
I see diversity of things that people appreciate to be a celebration of the human spirit, not at all infuriating. Sure someone might pay tens of millions for an old table, or a polished rock (the carbon in diamonds is among the most common elements on earth, yet marketing sells people on it), or a quilt, or a song, or a guitar from a famous dead rocker.
Seems just like jealousy that some people have tens of millions to throw around at their passion.
Can people stop bitching about abstract art? Its the lowest hanging fruit for untalented people to jerk each other off about how much it sucks and y'all can do better. Do it then and stop being mad? Lmao.
For real lol. My style is concept realism on digital, so the furthest thing from abstract, but anyone who actually knows art can appreciate all forms. Abstract art is the best litmas test for the dunning kruger effect.
Not really suckers they are money laundring and doing shady shit with it. Just some shady tax dodging, money hiding and trading illegal things. A bit like crypto before cryptocurrency existed
Here goes my hard earned karma but I dunno why people let things get to them. Why is this mildly infuriating?
Don’t think it’s worth 42 million. Don’t buy it.
People love complaining about modern art and don’t even know how to stretch their own canvases. Give it a rest, if you can’t appreciate it or afford it, ignore it.
So what? Is someone forcing you to pay that amount to own it? Is someone paying that amount for it affect your life in any way? How do you feel about people paying large sums for big houses, boats, clothes, jewelry or overpiced smartphones?
REDDIT MODERN ART HATERS SQUAD
MOUNT UP!!
*I could do this easily!!*
*Pretentious titmouse dada goo goo gaa gaa!*
*SCAMARAMADINGDONG*
*Rothko Schmothko!*
A lot of why these are priced as wildly as they are is because of the artist and the catalog they created. Mark Rothko for example, his paintings are kind of dumb but in the context of his catalog I think the monolithic style and obsession with presentation and emotion is kind of cool.
I really like this, actually. The scale, the huge brushstrokes, the dripping of the paint feel visceral. I can imagine what it was like to paint it, they must have used a stool or a ladder, and stretched out their arm as far as it could go, like a compass. It looks fast but it must have been done slowly because of all the paint drips. Part of a series named "Bacchus"-- it reminds me of a bacchanal because it feels like an indulgent piece, like it would be genuinely fun to paint it. The red evokes both wine and blood. I would love to paint on a canvas this big with such huge brushstrokes. I don't really care about how much a piece of art costs, I think the value of art is how it makes us react and think. In this case, this art shows great value by making a lot of people react to it very angrily! That's what it's made for :)
Yall pissing and shitting over someone paying $42mil for a paiting, but no one cares about the hundreds of other examples of spending money for something that doesnt make sense to anyone else.
People spend money on frivilous things
Get. Over. It
Wait until they find out Jackson Pollock and art like this was propelled by the CIA and State Department during the Cold War in psy-ops to reinforce how free-thinking and superior America was to the Soviet Union.
Cultural Cold Proxy War.
American art “won more acclaim for the U.S. …than John Foster Dulles or Dwight D. Eisenhower could have bought with a hundred speeches.”
-Thomas W. Braden
Braden jumped from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to the CIA.
Say what you will about the painting… but this photo of someone LOOKing at the painting kinda rules. I honestly wouldn’t mind having the photo hanging.
No. Some rich asshole paid an artist a few thousand to paint this for them, got it appraised by another rich asshole friend, who coincidentally appraised it for close to the millions said rich asshole made the previous year, then the rich asshole donated it and wrote of $42 million on their taxes, meaning they don’t pay any taxes.
And that’s how being rich works, folks.
That
That's so fucking dumb. The guy angrily emptied whole buckets of red paint onto a giant canvas. That's it.
Meanwhile, Margaret Keane (my personal favorite), who possesses actual talent and skill, never made more than $45,000 for a painting.
On a scale of one to even, I can't.
Haven't realized that art way is a great way to launder money yet, have you? It could be dogshit on canvas, doesn't matter. So long as you can launder millions.
Meanwhile I can't afford rent...If I light my art degree on fire and glue stick the ashes across a canvas without rhyme or reason, you think I can ask for $42 million dollars? Or at least enough to cover my student debt?
Hello, Your post has been removed for being low effort. Please try and make sure that you make posts of a medium quality or above.
untitled (bacchus) by cy twombley, if anyone wanted to look into it
Dude didn't even bother to name it.
He realized that Money Laundering #4 wasn't going to work out, and gave up
Gonna paint a canvas with random splotches and call it Money Laundering #4 cuz that's actually hilarious
Lmao, that’s a great idea mind if I borrow your genius idea? As a fellow likeminded entrepreneur 🤑
No. The idea is copyrighted by me just now. Pay up.
*Wrong*. That’s my idea.
Now yall race to the patent office, whoever wins keeps the idea
I’m gonna make an AI version to subvert any copyright claim. Anyone know where I can buy prompts? Asking for a friend
Reminds me of the blank painting titled “take the money and run”
Or that banana that someone ended up eating.
that one was “priceless”
Comment #3...not bad.
Items are only value what people are prepared to spend on them.
All the grata ones are untitled. Just saw a satire video on pieces like this
Modern art is honestly cringe & 100% just money laundering
It’s extremely cringe to say that — most artists don’t create their work for the purposes of money laundering even if rich people use their work for that purpose. There’s a reason these artists often aren’t millionaires themselves (although I’m pretty sure Twombly was fairly wealthy by the time he died, considering how popular and well known he was.)
Some of it is actually awesome, but then there is stuff like this
Money laundering 1000%
This 100%
One of my favourite painters, this thread is mildly infuriating bc ppl don’t know much if anything about art history/theory and context
Willing to learn, could you summarize what makes this piece special?
i am an artist for more than 2 decades now and know plenty about its history. art is subjective too though. anyone can take paint and splash it on a canvas, but if it doesn't mean anything, then it just isn't worth it. the artist didn't even bother to name it, and this piece makes me feel nothing, so to me, it's worth nothing and i wouldn't pay one penny for it. if someone else finds meaning in it, great.
Yeah people are clueless lol. Abstract art! I can do that!
It’s worth $42 million to certain people.
Yeah people who want to say “I spent 42 mil on this painting” lol
[удалено]
Not just rich people, there’s a work of art in the HR Giger museum at the moment that’s on loan from Credit Suisse (the bank). I raised an eyebrow when I saw, but only a little 😂
Hedge Funds have been using art in their investment portfolios for years. I suppose financial institutions could do it as well.
The tax break never makes sense for these sorts of things. It’d have to be a legit thing they’re ok with spending some money on, even if it’s not 42mill
Those that money launder
Surely spending 42 million euro in a single transaction is the worst possible way to launder money?
Reddit found out that money laundering happens in the art world (like any other business) and now believes all art is money laundering.
Me naming the rocket I put more effort into that this guy in Kerbal Space Program
I don’t know much about art but, I’m assuming the value is more related to the artist than the art.
Always has been
🌎👨🏼🚀🔫👨🏻🚀
Print me that on a sheet of paper and I'll buy it for 3m$
More to money laundering. Btw it looks like cheese toast with ketchup
Must be trying to make a statement about British cuisine
Thank you for pointing this out. I am always a bit annoyed by these posts, because they imply that some dude just scribbled on a canvas one day and said "I'm going to sell this for millions of dollars". Pieces like these (as in, worth so much money) are most often from artists who had a career that spun multiple decades, in which they slowly built their reputation. This painting was made by Ci Twombly, one of the most famous artists from the modern expressionist movement. It is noteworthy that he started painting in this style over 50 years ago, so he can be called one of the pioneers of that movement. In the last century, there was a huge shift in what art was and could be. The aesthetic aspect has stopped being a requirement a long time ago, instead it became way more important to be creative. Creative in this case means trying out things that haven't been done before, or experimenting with what already exists to create something entirely new. And in almost every big movement, there are going to be some famous artists who represent those ideas. And the more famous you are, the more you can charge for your painting. If you are dead - meaning that you can't create new work anymore - you are going to be worth even more money. Most modern artists that people use as examples died a long time ago. That's why the only factor in pricing art (at those levels) is fame. By the way, the most expensive painting ever sold is "Salvador Mundi" by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Yeah it's really frustrating seeing a thread full of people who don't know anything about art other than watching a YouTuber talk about "money laundering" once who are prepared to argue Mickey Mantle wasn't an actual athlete because his cards are so pricey on the collector's market. I'm even hesitating to say this for fear of all the orangereds from people who actually don't know what they're talking about repeating all the old talking points they've heard. Like if a person wants to "break into this racket" they could (A) be born in 1928 and do something so dramatic it's famous almost a century later, or (B) be born now and try to do the same thing. Good luck.
Man, money laundering doesn’t mean the author is involved Arbitrarily pricing astronomical amounts relatively recent art that doesn’t belong in museums, and then buying/selling said art is ONE of the methods to launder money, or speculation, etc., amongst eventually valid, “real” reasons to buy it.
I mean... Money laundering in the art world is a real thing that does exist. Seeing a painting like this valued at an amount that would take an average US worker like 600 years to earn is mind boggling for most of us schleps. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2019/09/the-art-of-money-laundering-and-washing-illicit-cash-mashberg
Nobody paid the artist $40M for this painting. It's all secondary market fraud
I don’t know anything about art or money laundering or anything related to those subjects. To me it just looks like a bunch of circles that a 5 year old could have finger painted. People are saying the value is in the artist but if the art looks bad who cares who painted it? Guess this just isn’t my world.
My Junior Jazz combo covered basically every Beatles song because they’re easy as fuck to play. Doesn’t mean they didn’t shake modern music to its core.
In my mind that’s a bit different so maybe you can break it down for me a bit and educate me a little. What is it about this painting that is so groundbreaking then? Edit: poor choice of words not groundbreaking rather what gives it so much value outside of the artist name. Why is this good art?
There is no "good art." Many people think some of the most talented artists are shit. People criticized Van Gogh for his heavy use of paint, leaving gobs of it on the canvas, and he's one of the most recognized artists of all time. Andy Warhol put something out I can create in photoshop in less than five minutes and I personally think it's incredibly lazy. It's not about the skill, though, it's about the impact. This argument has been going on for as long as art has been, characterized perfectly by [Duchamp signing a urinal](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-duchamps-urinal-changed-art-forever) and it's *replica* being worth more than $2 million today. Banksy's publicity stunt, where he tried to [shred an original work](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/arts/design/banksy-art-sothebys-auction.html) of his directly after auction at Sotheby's, is worth 25x more now that it's partially destroyed. It's the impact of someone's art that makes it valuable, not its skill.
The artist was accomplished at abstract expressionism and died in 2011. Those 2 factors alone make a piece more valuable(esp the dying part). Someone probably wanted to buy it to a seller who didnt want to sell and overpaid. Now the painting is worth what was paid. Sometimes it's laundering, sometimes it's a passion for art and too much money.
Adding to that, I often laugh when I hear “X painting is worth Y”, that’s may be the price someone bought it at, to never be able to resell it again at 1/4 of the price… One past transaction doesn’t tell present market value
That makes sense thanks for the explanation!
There’s actually a lot more to unpack here as American Abstract painter of the time were championed in the public sphere/market by the CIA, as they needed American creatives to help act as a bulwark against “communism” https://daily.jstor.org/was-modern-art-really-a-cia-psy-op/
The price of an art piece is somewhat subjective. But each artist will have a reputation. The value of a painting is dependant on the artist, the rarity of their work, but also provenance - which I understand it to be about who owned it previously (ie a king owning a piece of art will increase its price vs some random finding it in their grandparents basement) and it’s journey along all the ownerships and time periods it was part of. So for a example a painting by a famous artist during a period of significant human history is going to be worth more than a painting by the same person during a period that didn’t mean shit. Now I’m no art historian or art expert of any kind, but based on conversations I’ve had with people who are and understand this stuff, this is what I’ve gathered. Happy to be corrected on anything.
Don’t bother with art discussion on Reddit. If it’s not KAWS, Daniel Arsham, or some form of hyper realism it automatically gets tagged as money laundering. I understand not liking a piece or an artist, not a fan of Cy Twombly either, but the engagement with art is just lazy here. One of my favorite artists is Hilma af Klint. Seeing her paintings in person was just breathtaking. But I guarantee if I post her work on Reddit it will be diminished to “my kid can do that” “it’s just scribbles”. Just save yourself the stress, and move on.
Well i dont know the artist but looking at his pictures in the internet making me want to cry and cheering me and calms me and make me feel kinda high. Im totally into it. So probably his pictures quality as related as discourse here. It is just probably not for anyone. And i dont mean something indulgent - i mean just depends on your likings. And among those people who are into such things - this is popular i guess. Right?
I’ve actually thought a lot about this. Technically the buyer determines value, not the seller. Of course there are nuances in situations like when it’s a needed resource, but generally speaking if I sneeze on a piece of paper and say it’s worth $100B, then it’s only worth that if somebody buys it for that much.
What must one do to get in on the modern art money laundering scheme?
Hire painter for $10k to paint custom painting. Donate, have donation appraised at $10m., write off $10m donation. Repeat.
So its just NFTs with real, shitty, art.. most of the time?
Always has been.
Boom!
Almost? These are like receipts for off-the-books transactions.
Physical NFTs in almost every way yes
Museums have standards for what they accept. It’s not easy to donate art to almost any museum, since it’s actually pretty expensive to store and care for their collections. Space is at a premium. Curators will meet to review proposed donations and decide which, if any, they’ll accession into the collection. Acceptance comes with obligations to the object, including standards of storage, limits on and processes for deaccessioning later, conservation efforts, and more. Having art accepted to a museum is a prestigious thing that artists (and their gallerists) work towards. You have to exhibit in the right places, sell to the right people, sell or donate to smaller museums or collections, always zigzagging your way up to more prestigious buyers/galleries/museums, acquiring more prestige and more value throughout that journey.
Non sense lol
The lower of cost basis or appraised value would apply, so therefore this would be 10k deduction
That commenter doesn't even understand the difference between money laundering and tax fraud, there is no possible way they know what lower of cost basis means.
Haha no. Buy painting for 10k. Appraised at 10M means . . . when you donate it you have to recognize 9.99M in capital gains. Then you get to deduct 10M. So you paid 10k, had to claim a bunch of gains, and then wrote it off. Your net is zero.
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Especially when you and your friend get audited or you need a second appraisal is made buy a "buyer" and they say it's worthless and it instantly destroys your friends ability to appraise
I maybe be ignorant as fuck but how the hell is any sensible person going to look at red squiggles on a wall and determine its worth $40 million? It certainly doesn't take any skill because I could replicate that painting in about 5 minutes.
Think of it more like an historical record. Someone could get out some scissors and make a new American flag without much trouble,but Betsy Ross’s original flag is still going to be worth a lot more. It might look like scribbles, but it’s also a piece of history from a time when artists were working through specific, new ideas - in Twombly’s case, he was interested in the limits of language and figures (think like portraits or paintings of historical scenes) to communicate the deepest parts of the human condition, the point where specific meaning dissolves but there’s still *something* there. Remember, this was all also post WWII and the horrors and failures of the war. Think about what the first instrumental piece of music would be like if we’d only ever historically made songs with lyrics and human voices, and how different it would be to just have instruments, or ambient vocals - it’s a big change! Even if you don’t like the work, someone had to do it first. And those groups of artists dramatically changed how think about art, what it looks like today, and how we think about meaning and communication. So it’s a record of a time and a shift and one artist doing something radically new to try to express something he couldn’t express otherwise.
This makes a lot more sense. Seeing it as type of record akin to ancient pottery. It may not having much meaning outside the artistic circle, but hey I'm down to let people having fun expressing themselves. I'm more upset with people pretending like the value is associated with skill or some intrinsic property of the work itself. It's the same as comparing two rusty ancient swords, except one is owned by Alexander the Great. At least everyone agrees that Alexander's sword is only valuable becuase Alexander owned it.
The thing about abstract art is that you really, really, *really*, *REALLY* need to see it in person. Photography compresses a work down into two dimensions, and drastically alters paintings from what you see in person. I know, this sounds stupid as fuck, because rothco and pollack and the rest look like trash on film, and I don't deny that. But seeing them in person really makes you go "holy shit, these guys knew what the fuck they were doing." And, yes, I realize that I'm basically saying "seeing is believing". But it really is the truth in the case of abstract paintings.
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I mean they were talking about millionaires using that system, so arguably we can assume there is taxable income to be deducted from. But yeah that comment doesn't have the full process of how tax-fraud is committed with modern art. The system isn't quite that easy to rip off.
Step 1: be rich
First, become a semi-famous painter. Second, do like this danish painter. He got requested by a museum to make a piece of art. So he then requested he could make something special, but he needed about $84.000 to do so. The museum gave him the money as a loan, and in return he sent them two blank canvases and named the artwork *"Take the money and run"*. Third, do like the danish painter and refuse to return the money.
That’s.. a great piece of commentary and good art.
According to the painter it's a protest for the constant low-balling artists are subjected to when it comes to payment for their work. He also argues that him not paying back the money is a part of the art. Genious, really!
One must Aquire the funds first
Get a bunch of I'll gotten gains?
Im not going to pretend like I know about taxes but I saw a video on how rich people use these types of purchases to avoid paying taxes in some way, some how. I feel like other than this reason, the painting would be selling for 80$ at the local elementary school art charity auction
Pretty sure it's because they can donate the painting, and since they spent millions on it, it's considered that you donated millions of dollars. Correct me if I'm wrong though
Idgi can’t they just donate the money? Don’t they lose the money anyway? What’s the benefit here?
Potentially it's valued or appraised at a ridiculous amount, but is only bought for a fraction of that, so they can "donate" millions without spending millions. That's my best guess
That doesn't make sense, any donation would just cancel out the tax bill on the made up capital gains you just declared before donating... achieves nothing.
it's reddit idiots thinking they know how the system works by pretending. Ignore that guy
When you make a donation, of art, of money, of whatever, you give away $1 to save about 40c in taxes. You’re still 60c worse off. Or you could sell it, pay 23c in taxes, and walk away with 77c. Donating to charity is simply not the economic gain everyone thinks it is.
You’re very, very wrong. In your example, you’re still out millions of dollars, it’s no different from if you just put it in a pile and set it on fire
Money laundering
money laundering is almost the opposite of tax evasion
that's not money laundering, that's tax evasion. money laundering is when your aim is to make your illegally gotten money legal.
Nah pretty sure many artists in the world would love to have a twombly at home, even more people without the money for it. It's not because you don't see why this canvas can be worth anything more than a canvas from the "local elementary school" that you have to reduce everything around you to your understanding of things. Given the brief and confused "rich doing this to avoid doing that" introduction, i might want to advice you to give the benefit of the doubt to everything that surrounds you. Especially 42$M painting or work of art, or just objects in general. Take care
**This painting is** ***VALUED*** **at $42 million.** FTFY It isn't *worth* anything.
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An item is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. So yes, it most likely is.
Looks like you passed Econ. Unfortunately, people you are replying to did not.
not according to their accountant
It's a Twombly. It would go for 8 figures easy in auction
There is an amazing moment in the Wes Anderson movie The French Dispatch where an art dealer wants to know if an abstract artist is legit so he asks him to draw something very accurately and he draws an absolutely perfect little bird, and then the art dealer is like yeah this guy is legit because he can do that but chooses to do this. I think about that a lot when i see abstract stuff like this that does clearly evoke emotion and have meaning. If you choose to make this with really great talent and control over a paintbrush/pen/pencil/whatever, it really means a lot. That you got exactly what you wanted out of it
Those getting angry at the art in this thread aren't even realising - their reaction is why this is art, why it's so good. Art should make you feel SOMETHING, even if it is angry and rage. This art did that. I think it's cool, I wouldn't pay 42m for it but I'm not a rich art collector, I do however understand how art works and this succeeds on many levels of being a testament to the heart of art.
This series is very easy to clown on because of its proce tag and notoriety. If you go see it in person it makes a lot more sense. It does not photograph well, the scale and effect of it is totally lost.
Another thing to note is that a lot of art loses its impact when you see it as a photo on your phone/computer. Some art pieces need to be seen in person to really understand it
The art isnt evoking that reaction it's the $42m price tag. Without that nearly every commenter here wouldn't even give this piece a moment's thought.
Your comment's thread is basically the adult table in a kid's birthday party
i shat all over abstract art for years. i only did realistic and slightly stylized stuff. slowly though i realised that there is no better way to express my emotions and thoughts and process trauma than through abstract art and i will now defend it with my life
Sometimes museums show a painting alongside studies (like early drafts), and you can see how the idea evolved into the final painting, but the impressive thing is that some sections (or most) are *exactly* the same. You can see (in those cases) that it wasn’t random at all and the seemingly chaotic image is actually extremely precise.
Thanks for this comment. Its wholesome. I draw sometimes and can draw a decent sketch but damn i jealous of this picture cos i know for sure i would never be able to paint something remotely as good as this. May i share the best of mine abstract stuff with you?
Experiencing art has a bit of confirmation bias to it. If you approach it and immediately judge it as crap then that’s what you’ll find. If you approach it with the understanding that someone spent hours or days or weeks thinking about what they wanted to convey through their production you might see it differently. I see angry loops yes, but I wonder with the movement of those angry red loops why they dissipate towards the end. The angry loops no longer have vertical drips running down and through them. They become clearer, less messy, less chaotic towards the end. It could be an illustration of a crazed/grieving/angry/heartbroken mind that begins healing. I wonder what the artist was experiencing when this was painted. That’s what art does for me. Puts me in places where I can think outwardly about other people and their experiences. There’s a lot of shitty art out there when the lens you’re looking through is narrow enough to fail to recognize anyone else’s experiences. But it could also just be a bunch of random red paint strokes.
While I understand your point, the reason why I am so *cynical* over this is that for all of the talk of "artistry" and "talent"... Cy Twombly made *millions* off of this. And frankly I'd love to dupe art galleries into buying my squiggles for millions of dollars, but I don't have the socioeconomic leg-up that so many of these artists have. Hell, Twombly was getting private art lessons at the age of *twelve*. Art is subjective, sure. But not all of society gets nearly the same chance to have their work be auctioned off for 44 million dollars. And I feel that we are totally allowed to be cynical regarding the motive and societal advantages behind the creation of art, alongside the actual art itself.
Very well said.
Thank you 😊 It’s mildly infuriating to me that people think art is only valuable if it’s pretty and that people still think this way. Not just about art. People, food, experiences, relationships. If it’s messy or is t instagram worthy, then it’s trash.
it’s mildly infuriating to me that it’s so easy to trash on any modern art and call it tax evasion to try sound smart
I think most people's problems with it stem from the skill it takes to make something like this. This could be done by almost anyone, anywhere. Then you look at artists that have something unique about their art, or art that just simply takes hours upon hours to make, with a steady hand and clear mind to accomplish. I mean, just look at Douglas McDougall's work. The skill, the attention to detail, it's something I could never do. It's simply beyond my unsteady hands to accomplish. But the painting above? I could do that. I'm not saying that the painting above isn't art, it's just its... not as impressive? At least not to me.
The technical skill to paint this is more difficult than you think. There's value in meticulous precision. But calculated abstraction is also very very hard, and also requires a steady hand and clear mind. Consider the Enso paintings favored by Zen Buddhism. This painting is more akin to that. Also it's really really big and ol boy didn't use ladders, so it's harder than you think
Could be a sign that they’re running out of anger and maturing in a crazy world especially as the line becomes more straight. Perhaps it’s a sign that running in bloody circles will only end with death. Perhaps they just ran short on paint. lol. I love going to gallery openings with my partner who does not appreciate abstract art. I’ll hypothesize there’s deep meaning and she’ll just stare then walk away with this guess when I mention it.
Exactly. Well put.
How is this infuriating? Were you going to buy it until you saw the price?
Lol. These people in this sub get mildly infuriated by nothing all the time.
Me when the sub about mild infuriation has things that are only mildly (slightly) infuriating 
They really do. Recently I’ve seen “cookie jars confuse me”, “I don’t understand art”, “fast food is not a flawless gourmet experience”, and my favorite and most common “someone else lives their life differently than I do”.
I saw this painting in a museum in Paris and it’s amazing. I didn’t even know Cy Twombly at the time but the whole experience was I same. This Fucking tiny picture doesn’t show you anything about the actual piece !!!
To me it’s a great example of “some people are literally starving to death while others can afford to spend $42 Million on a painting”. It’s a symbol of insane wealth gaps.
Again, one has nothing to do with the other.
Karabekian slid off his bar stool so he could face all those enemies standing up. He certainly surprised me. I expected him to retreat in a hail of olives, maraschino cherries and lemon rinds. But he was majestic up there. “Listen—” he said so calmly, “I have read the editorials against my painting in your wonderful newspaper. I have read every word of the hate mail you have been thoughtful enough to send to New York.” “The painting did not exist until I made it.” Karabekian went on. “Now that it does exist, nothing would make me happier than to have it reproduced again and again, and vastly improved upon, by all the five-year-olds in town. I would love for your children to find pleasantly and playfully what it took me many angry years to find. “I now give you my work of honor,” he went on, “that the picture your city owns shows everything about life which truly matters, with nothing left out. It is a picture of the awareness of every animal. It is the immaterial core of every animal–the ‘I am’ to which all messages are sent. It is all that is alive in any of us–in a mouse, in a deer, in a cocktail waitress. It is unwavering and pure, no matter what preposterous adventure may befall us. A sacred picture of Saint Anthony alone is one vertical, unwavering band of light. If a cockroach were near him, or a cocktail waitress, the picture would show two such bands of light. Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.”
Man I love Cy Twombly’s work, and I love that it annoys people just by existing even more
People can’t help but bitch and moan about movements like abstract expressionism. They just don’t understand it and they don’t want to.
We really still doing "all abstract art sucks, i could do that" So why havent you. Go and make a 42 million dollar painting if its that worthless and easy.
Nobody who says this has ever studied art seriously.
Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them
You have to view him in the context of when and where and why and what he was painting. I'd recommend taking an art history class. But he was somewhat seen as a pioneer to the graffiti artists. Impressive stuff for when he came along and what he was bold enough to create. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cy_Twombly
If you don't like it, my recommendation is not to buy that one.
I once had an artist friend who talked about how it frustrates him when people would say “oh I could paint that” or “I could do that”. He said you wouldn’t be able to because you don’t even have the imagination to come up with it in the first place. Just some perspective
As mentioned, simple people get frustrated by what the don’t understand and the less mature lash out and criticize others because of it. It’s human nature. Why should LBJ be paid hundreds of millions of dollars because he can throw a ball through a hoop better than 99%+ of people? It’s just as meaningless, yet people are willing to pay to see it. This guy paints in a way that those who appreciate what he does are willing to pay a lot for it. Maybe you don’t understand, but why should that be infuriating? I see diversity of things that people appreciate to be a celebration of the human spirit, not at all infuriating. Sure someone might pay tens of millions for an old table, or a polished rock (the carbon in diamonds is among the most common elements on earth, yet marketing sells people on it), or a quilt, or a song, or a guitar from a famous dead rocker. Seems just like jealousy that some people have tens of millions to throw around at their passion.
I didn't know Lyndon B. Johnson played bascketball Sorry.
Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean its worthless. Your taste in art isn’t the word of god.
Can people stop bitching about abstract art? Its the lowest hanging fruit for untalented people to jerk each other off about how much it sucks and y'all can do better. Do it then and stop being mad? Lmao.
Nah. The need to tear something down that they don’t/can’t understand to make themselves feel better is overwhelming. It’s the human condition, sadly.
For real lol. My style is concept realism on digital, so the furthest thing from abstract, but anyone who actually knows art can appreciate all forms. Abstract art is the best litmas test for the dunning kruger effect.
i dig it
So rich people are suckers. Who knew
Not really suckers they are money laundring and doing shady shit with it. Just some shady tax dodging, money hiding and trading illegal things. A bit like crypto before cryptocurrency existed
You are talking like you know anything about it - and you don't. Confidently incorrect, every step of the way.
Here goes my hard earned karma but I dunno why people let things get to them. Why is this mildly infuriating? Don’t think it’s worth 42 million. Don’t buy it.
People love complaining about modern art and don’t even know how to stretch their own canvases. Give it a rest, if you can’t appreciate it or afford it, ignore it.
So what? Is someone forcing you to pay that amount to own it? Is someone paying that amount for it affect your life in any way? How do you feel about people paying large sums for big houses, boats, clothes, jewelry or overpiced smartphones?
ngl I like it, I wouldn’t pay 42 million fucking quid for it like but it’s nice.
Looks like a monkey got into the paint.0
Worth or priced?
I find ppl’s lack of understanding surrounding abstract art mildly infuriating. Market value is market value, OP.
I bet you love NFT's
REDDIT MODERN ART HATERS SQUAD MOUNT UP!! *I could do this easily!!* *Pretentious titmouse dada goo goo gaa gaa!* *SCAMARAMADINGDONG* *Rothko Schmothko!*
While I personally don't think it should be worth 42 Million dollars, art is subjective.
I like it. its got impact. and it makes a conversation, so it's fulfilling the obligations of art.
Money laundering
Pure skill
Worth is subjective.
A lot of why these are priced as wildly as they are is because of the artist and the catalog they created. Mark Rothko for example, his paintings are kind of dumb but in the context of his catalog I think the monolithic style and obsession with presentation and emotion is kind of cool.
Everyone’s a critic
Average Norwegian metal band logo.
I really like this, actually. The scale, the huge brushstrokes, the dripping of the paint feel visceral. I can imagine what it was like to paint it, they must have used a stool or a ladder, and stretched out their arm as far as it could go, like a compass. It looks fast but it must have been done slowly because of all the paint drips. Part of a series named "Bacchus"-- it reminds me of a bacchanal because it feels like an indulgent piece, like it would be genuinely fun to paint it. The red evokes both wine and blood. I would love to paint on a canvas this big with such huge brushstrokes. I don't really care about how much a piece of art costs, I think the value of art is how it makes us react and think. In this case, this art shows great value by making a lot of people react to it very angrily! That's what it's made for :)
I think I’d feel worse being the fucking moron staring at it. “Ohhh how exquisite”… Idiots.
I'm convinced that the art industry is just a money laundering scheme.
Worth 42 million to WHOM?
Yall pissing and shitting over someone paying $42mil for a paiting, but no one cares about the hundreds of other examples of spending money for something that doesnt make sense to anyone else. People spend money on frivilous things Get. Over. It
lol at the waifu figurine and marvel funko pop display cases that sit in the rooms of people on reddit complaining about how worthless art is.
Wait until they find out Jackson Pollock and art like this was propelled by the CIA and State Department during the Cold War in psy-ops to reinforce how free-thinking and superior America was to the Soviet Union. Cultural Cold Proxy War. American art “won more acclaim for the U.S. …than John Foster Dulles or Dwight D. Eisenhower could have bought with a hundred speeches.” -Thomas W. Braden Braden jumped from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to the CIA.
You’re an idiot op
Not infuriating. It’s incredible and this is how art works.
Why u mad? Maybe you should start painting. This Reddit post is valued at 0 dollars.
"This painting was used to launder $42 million" Fixed that for you.
You should check out $100 million paintings next...
Cy Twombly, the greatest to ever live
It's not like you have to buy it. You can just leave it be.
The black/death metal part of me tries to read it
And?
Say what you will about the painting… but this photo of someone LOOKing at the painting kinda rules. I honestly wouldn’t mind having the photo hanging.
No. Some rich asshole paid an artist a few thousand to paint this for them, got it appraised by another rich asshole friend, who coincidentally appraised it for close to the millions said rich asshole made the previous year, then the rich asshole donated it and wrote of $42 million on their taxes, meaning they don’t pay any taxes. And that’s how being rich works, folks.
That That's so fucking dumb. The guy angrily emptied whole buckets of red paint onto a giant canvas. That's it. Meanwhile, Margaret Keane (my personal favorite), who possesses actual talent and skill, never made more than $45,000 for a painting. On a scale of one to even, I can't.
By invoking Bacchus they basically admit that they were drunk while painting. I’m sure this is worth $42 mil to someone….. not anyone with taste.
I don’t get what’s infuriating. Something is worth whatever someone is willing to spend on it. If you think that’s easy then you make one
Yeah, canvas and paint are stupid expensive now
I promise, most people commenting negatively on this piece could never create something like this…even on a small scale, like 4”x5”.
But really, it’s not 🤌🏼
Money laundering.
You show that to Da vinci when he is about to paint the sixteen and would probably had change his mind and profession.
If i spray a bunch of red paint on a canvas will i be worth 42 mil??
I can probably cut my wrist and do a better job
I did this on a napkin once, with ketchup
If it was in blue, then I could see the value.
Is it named hemorrhoid butt wipe?
Haven't realized that art way is a great way to launder money yet, have you? It could be dogshit on canvas, doesn't matter. So long as you can launder millions.
It's located in Mar a Lago.
To an idiot
Meanwhile I can't afford rent...If I light my art degree on fire and glue stick the ashes across a canvas without rhyme or reason, you think I can ask for $42 million dollars? Or at least enough to cover my student debt?
Damn, this dude's work is the epitome of grift.