The Price of Everything

The true nature of art has always been a contested question; just as history is apohorically written by the victors, then maybe art is defined by the collectors. Artists have always also depended on, and catered to, rich patrons; many have used studios of assistants to help scale up quantity. While humans inevitably seek status, and owning rare goods is one way of doing this; indeed, if there are not enough status symbols to go round, the rich will invent them, and, as they like to consider their wealth as a talent, they will take particular pleasure in owning symbols which self-justify their enormous price tags by increasing in value. These may all be eternal truths, but nowhere are they more apparent than in the hyper-inflated modern art market, which one can think of almost entirely as a product of the perverse imbalance of wealth in this world, regardless of whether you appreciate the work.

This documentary gives us an insight into some of the collectors, and some of the rather unappealing individuals who manage the sales (I guess the aristocrat always has more opportunity for style than the hustler or sycophant trying to live off them). What doesn't quite work is it's portrait of the artists, and it's attempt to divide them into "commercial" and "principled"; the divide might make sense, but the film doesn't really justify it's choices. Nor do we see any glimpse of the ordinary world of the thousands of artists who never become known names; or really understand how a handful manage to cross that line. If you've seen the documentary 'Sour Grapes', about a fine wine scam, you'll get some of the same vibes with a bit more story. Nonetheless, it's still an interesting glimpse into how the sausage of modern art gets made.

There's always somebody would and could accommodate you to spend it by telling you "investments in modern art" is the wisest thing to do.

These contemporary paintings or sculptures we saw in this documentary, some of them looked pretty nice, but lot of them were absolutely disgusting, pretentious and totally unnecessary. But there's always a market for junk or garbage as long as those filthy rich people became addicted to collect them. The contemporary arts are for the rich people, but means nothing to the poor. If you are worried about your monthly bills, credit card debts, the groceries expenses, your kids' education fees, your tax to IRS....as long as you have such worries, the so-called "Art" or "Contemporary Arts" don't mean jacksh@t at all, just a lot of chemically created color paints profusely littered on canvasses.

Artists, like musicians, are the entertainers for the rich who are like the water for the plants, without them, entertainers got no support and their creativities would be drained and dried up. It's like those "Supporting Your Troops", "Supporting Your Local Business" or the latest "Make America Great Again" slogans, if you are unemployed, deep in debts, not with blind political believes, those big words, just like the modern contemporary arts, simply mean nothing at all. So you must have enough extra money that you can freely throw around, these craps won't have any meaning to you, albeit buying or collect them.

The Sun finally would be burnt itself out and becomes a Red Giant in the long run, it'll swallow up the Earth and disintegrate it, owing a piece of real estate property or a contemporary artwork would suddenly become so meaningless and laughable. "The Price of Everything" in other words, simply means "The Price of Nothing".

It's important to be able to separate the documentary quality from the subject itself. Whilst most of us will be fascinated with the world these people live in, that should have no bearing on whether the documentary is good, bad or indifferent.

The film itself is high quality in terms of production, access to artists, retailers and buyers. It's interesting to see the varying viewpoints from each. But, for me, there needed to be some more critical questioning of each source. Without this there's a very fine line between deterimining whether you're watching a bonafide documentary or a subtle mocumentary. I would like to have seen interviewees being challenged more - from the over-zealous critics reading too much into the classic artists' works to the artists producing what many would consider to be the works of the untalented who have jumped on the bandwagon to con the gullible.

The film is a very easy watch and I think most of us will be left shaking our heads at the shallowness of the art world. The term "The emperor's new clothes" springs to mind and you're just wanting the producers to be that little boy at the side of the road who shouts out that the emperor is naked. I know I was shouting it lots!

A world that we seldom get to see inside. The lowly artist toiling away to get their visions out, the dealers poring over hardback catalogs, the galleries and of course the eccentric and super rich collectors.

All fairly interesting if you are, as i am, an enjoyer of art.

All I can say is that there are some truly insipid and awful people featured in this film.