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How can a stuffed shark be worth $12 million?
It was a bargain, I say. Here is my review of Don Thompson's excellent The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art. Here is one excerpt from my review:
Should we think such purchases are silly or noble? Many people recoil from the contemporary art market as the home of pretension and human foible, but as expensive pursuits go, the art market is a relatively beneficial one. The dead shark cost $12 million to buy but, of course, it didn't cost nearly that much to make. So the production process isn't eating up too many societal resources or causing too much damage to the environment. For the most part, it's money passing back and forth from one set of hands to another, like a game — and, yes, the game is fun for those who have the money to play it. Don't laugh, but we do in fact need some means of determining which of the rich people are the cool ones, and the art market surely serves that end.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 10, 2008 at 12:25 PM in The Arts | Permalink
Comments
I've always thought that some small but nonzero percentage of massive art purchases are jaded rich people looking at some insane crap an artist is trying to sell and saying to themselves, "this person is never going to survive in modern society".
The only hope for such a person is to become rich, so what society thinks doesn't matter anymore. Since the rich sympathise with this situation, they make occasional donations that turn weird ordinary people into eccentric rich people.
In other words, the guy who bought the stuffed shask looked at it and thought "this man was beaten up a lot in school, and probably gets beaten up a lot now; I know what that's like, and the only thing that saved me from it was getting rich".
Posted by: Caliban Darklock at Jul 10, 2008 12:41:52 PM
s/shask/shark
Posted by: Caliban Darklock at Jul 10, 2008 12:43:10 PM
Tyler's justification makes a lot of sense, until we consider that taxpayer money is used to fund many of the museums and institutions that support these works. People making $35k a year are among those funding pickled sharks.
Also note that there was no link to the review.
Posted by: talisman at Jul 10, 2008 12:56:53 PM
but we do in fact need some means of determining which of the rich people are the cool ones, and the art market surely serves that end.
Actually, what we need is some way to determine which are the dumb ones, and the art market serves that purpose quite well. The answer is those who pay $12 million for a stuffed shark or the like, though I think Caliban's idea is a possible alternative explanation.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Jul 10, 2008 1:43:05 PM
The social waste comes from all the resources and effort dissipated in trying to be the one artist who manages to get a rich person to pay $12 million for something or other. Just like how there are way too many (mostly idle) rickshaw drivers in places that rich big tippers hang out.
Posted by: David J. Balan at Jul 10, 2008 2:01:34 PM
The more interesting question is where does that $12,000,000 end up? Paying for dry cleaning? Investments? Tropical resorts? It could be a steal from the rich, give to poor proposition in the long run.
Posted by: at Jul 10, 2008 2:19:53 PM
I wonder if the same people who are talking down about "stuffed sharks" feel the same about picasso, manet, and many others. These people did non-traditional art in traditional mediums. The rubric of what is cool, attractive, worthy is constantly in flux, and in your negativity I can't help, but smell a bit of a rush to judge. Also the shark is dumb.
Posted by: mdesus at Jul 10, 2008 2:27:01 PM
forgot to mention the shark is really just that a non-traditional work in traditional medium (sculpture).
Posted by: mdesus at Jul 10, 2008 2:28:09 PM
It's not about the amount of beatings received in one's life. It's more about ascertaining some ideal of what is unique. Subjectivity, in terms of the art's quality, comes second in the art world these days. Both the artist and the buyer are striving for this ideal; one's on the end of production and other is on the "consumptive" end. You can buy a Ferarri that's off a short production line of 10 or 20, but there's nothing quite like a stuffed shark to fill the void.
Also consider the Hollywood frankenstein; 20 to 40 to X0-million-dollar budgets syphoned off into filth like "Wanted" for 2 hours of provisional nothing sex and violence. And that's milking the 35k crowd, albeit $10 at a time. But, it's a damn waste just the same.
Posted by: J Larmor at Jul 10, 2008 2:57:10 PM
I'd like to see Robert Frank comment on this one. Partly out of curiosity about the future of humans in an environment of global warming, I find myself thinking a lot about things rich people can do that don't use a lot more material resources than ordinary people use. For example, it's great that a very wide swath of the income distribution in Manhattan lives in a small apartment, rides the subway and walks for transportation, eats out for food, and enjoys a good standard of entertainment. For many people in Manhattan, the apartment overlooks a busy street, the restaurant is a pleasant dive, and the entertainment is a free concert in Central Park. For the rich, the apartment overlooks Central Park, the restaurant is well-ranked in Zagat's, and the entertainment is commonly Opera. It causes me neither surprise nor worry to hear that the entertainment also includes buying a $12 million shark.
Posted by: Parke at Jul 10, 2008 3:04:34 PM
Hearing things like this makes me wonder if the person who bought it had a childhood obsession with sharks, and just thinks that sharks are the coolest creations ever. They are more ancient than trees, you know.
Posted by: Erik at Jul 10, 2008 3:12:29 PM
For $12 million I'd have live sharks with lasers in my swimming pool.
Posted by: 8 at Jul 10, 2008 3:26:43 PM
Based on that theory, we can predict the following dynamics: few buyers will have relationships with artsists because this would create the appearance of a conspiracy against other buyers, which the buyers would want to avoid in order to be pereceived as trend-setters. Yet the buyers would still want to have access to the work before others. Thus buying agents or critics would take the place of buyers as artists-best-friends. These middlemen are necessary to clear the market because of the need of buyers to be seemed as "above-the-fray" of the actual process of artmaking.
Is this what's observed? I only have hearsay to support my answer, which is yes.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jul 10, 2008 3:37:08 PM
What was a pet rock but mass-produced and mass-marketed contemporary art? Or a Chia Head?
At least the guy buying the shark has a one-of-a-kind item with the distinct possibility of greater-fool-theory profits. What's the average person's excuse?
Posted by: at Jul 10, 2008 4:14:56 PM
At least the guy buying the shark has a one-of-a-kind item with the distinct possibility of greater-fool-theory profits. What's the average person's excuse?
It doesn't cost much and has some entertainment value?
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Jul 10, 2008 5:36:18 PM
8, :-)
"For $12 million I'd have live sharks with lasers in my swimming pool."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7bYNAHXxw
Posted by: Shane M at Jul 10, 2008 6:52:18 PM
If the main purpose of any artist is to create something which causes a sense of wonder in others, then a stuffed shark that goes for $12mil US qualifies on a grand scale. Rich people spend enormous sums of money on art or other items because they can. The line between cool and dumb is often a matter of perspective and personal opinion, no?
Posted by: CB at Jul 10, 2008 10:11:38 PM
Why is a stuffed shark a one of a kind item?
Rent boat.
Catch Shark.
Take to taxidermist.
While you're at it you could probably get a deer head, a stuffed swordfish, and a stuffed squirrel.
Posted by: at Jul 10, 2008 11:02:58 PM
...but we do in fact need some means of determining which of the rich people are the cool ones...
(A bit of esprit d'escalier, alas): Should we call this the "greater cool theory"?
Posted by: at Jul 31, 2008 8:51:08 PM
