What Is The Purpose of Art?

— James Surowiecki in an October 17, 2005 issue of New Yorker magazine said "Art collecting has traditionally been the domain of wealthy individuals in search of rewards beyond the purely financial. (The economist John Picard Stein once quixotically tried to quantify these intangible rewards, deciding that they were equivalent to a return on investment of 1.6 per cent a year.) The new funds, by contrast, allow people with smaller bankrolls to play the art market by pooling their resources, and the only benefits are economic, since investors don’t get to hang the paintings on their walls. In this scheme, art is just another “alternative asset class,” like gold or wheat."

A corporate tradition for investing in art.


The Artist's Role within your Investment Strategy

Of course, the artist plays a vital role in the scope of a work of art. Yet, in addition to the quality of the piece that an artist creates, other factors also carry weight in terms of the artist. He or she is key to your art investment strategy. Primarily, the basic factors including your collecting goals, enjoyment for a piece, interest, and quality should dictate your decision to buy a work of art. Make certain that the work meets the standards for presentation and condition and then, assess the other criteria.

As for the artist, the artist's general background is important. This certainly impacts the value of the piece. In basic terms, this means that the artist's background or his or her training and art teachers, degrees completed, and other credentials are important. Points such as an artist's exhibition record (how often and where do they show their work?), and the sales or commercial record come into play when determining value and investment return. Most of us understand the concept that, in simple terms, a work of art by an established artist is worth more than a piece by a lesser known artist. For instance, a Van Gogh usually commands higher prices at auction than a work by someone less well known, like Joe Smith. This is a simple concept.

Art is like anything else that can be marketed. We want the "brand name" or the popular artist's work or at least we are made to believe we want it through marketing. This is why we have to conduct some research before we buy.

You probably can guess what I feel about that last italic section. What a pile of shit. "Of course, the artist plays a vital role in the scope of a work of art." I can hardly type the words I am laughing so hard.

Now, I can understand that as an investment, art can be an interesting way to make money disappear. You can hide some of your profits by buying art. You might even make a few bucks. And I understand that investment can be emotional too, for instance an art piece may not have any or much financial worth, but a family can pass down art and enjoy a sentimental investment.

But for god's sake it is retarded to say some thing like "of course the artist plays a vital role". I don't think we need to know about an artists life or a writers life to enjoy their work. But the idea that people are playing around with products as if they just manifested out of thin air is a reverse extreme of being obsessed with tabloid like following of movie stars.

What I find so utterly offensive about the above quote from an investment web site is the chicken shit ignorance.

What happened to using one's own senses, emotions and experience to view and value the stature of any given piece of art work?

The treatment of art as an investment symbolizes a mass level of low self-esteem within the rich, art collecting mafia.

I suggest art's purpose is a cosmic reset button. An object whose value lies in the opportunity to fall through air to lose ones grip on reality and tweak our stale, slavery existence.

Art should be like doing peyote. Where are the art shamans?