Period as a semi-retired pensioner: 163 days
This week’s blog is a follow on from last week on digital art and the bored ape yacht club (BAYC) and deals with the wider topic of art appreciation. This is probably an entirely unsuitable topic for Ruminant Pink Friday™ because I am an engineering philistine and I have no experience or training in art or art appreciation. From my research it appears that those that have serious credentials in art appreciation fall into two groups. Those that work in the serious art industry and those with serious money who then develop the finest taste in art.
Engineers like me are very simple creatures and are rightly looked down on by more refined people. We are easily motivated. As a young engineering undergraduate in the early eighties, I recall that any number of earnest young students would come into the lecture theatre with a flyer for a political rally or cultural event. Then, Mike Wolhuter, who always sat in the back row, and had a very limited range of questions would ask his standard question, “Will there be free beer?”. Unfortunately, there were never any events with free beer and the pamphlets were turned into paper darts and enthusiastically returned to the presenter. Mike’s other standard question was, “Prof will this be in the exam?”. The answer was almost always yes. So, I confess to having had a stunted education in art and cultural appreciation.
This week I read a book called “Black Edge” about a hedge fund called SAC capital and its founder Steve Cohen. https://www.amazon.com/Black-Edge-Inside-Information-Wanted-ebook/dp/B01M0T8H53. Steve Cohen came from a humble background and founded SAC capital and became a multi dollar billionaire. SAC capital specialised in obtaining insider information and trading on this. Several of his employees were criminally convicted and went to jail. SAC capital paid $1.9 billion in fines and was closed to outside investors and Steve Cohen was never prosecuted. He is worth more than $10 billion.
Steve Cohen has also become a revered art collector praised for his discerning taste and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on his personal art collection. The story regarding a Picasso called Le Rêve (the dream) is worth telling. In 2006 the painting was owned by an American billionaire called Steve Wynn and he agreed to sell it to Steve Cohen for $139 million. However, before the deal was concluded, Wynn was boasting and gesticulating to his friends and showing them, the painting and he pushed his right elbow into the painting and tore the canvas. Oops. The deal was off.
Wynn then devoted significant resources to restoring the painting. As one must. He hired Terrence Mahon one of the best art restorers in the world to restore the painting. Mahon realigned the individual threads of the canvas and sewed them together using an interface of acupuncture needles. He then gently applied paint over the newly merged threads. The space filled with paint was about the width of a pencil tip. It was work that required a jeweller’s eye and the steady hand of a vascular surgeon. The task was completed for $90 500. Then the painting began a lengthy reputational laundering process which involved the metaphorical sprinkling of holy water on the painting by the high priests of the art world. In 2013 the reputational laundering process was complete; the painting was as good as new, and Steve Cohen bought the painting for $155 million.
It is very hard for an art and cultural philistine like me to make any sense of this. This then brings me to the illustrated painting which was sent to me by one of my (many) groupies. It is painted by Cy Twombly one of the most expensive contemporary artists in the world. The price of his paintings is from $2 million to $69.6 million. I now have a confession to make. If you put this image into an array of 3rd grade school art, prior to me seeing it, I might not have been able to pick it out as being the work of an art genius. I know that this is a just a reflection of what a philistine I am. You, dearly beloved readers, are not art philistines so I’m sure you would immediately have been able to see the value.
I also must confess that we do have original art in our homes, and I do like it, but it is not particularly valuable. I also suspect that the high priests of the art world would sneer at it and would say it reflects undeveloped and juvenile art taste. Steve Cohen, on the other hand, has highly refined art taste.
Billionaires have exquisite taste. Just think Donald Trump. Taste is for sale to the highest bidder and people are prepared to pay a lot to be declared tasteful.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions please keep them coming.
Regards
Bruce
Ruminant Pink Friday 
Important people like to prove their value to the people important to them. Its called virtue signalling. Art as an object that has no practical value is an excellent place to show you have money to burn on useless objects. Its also part of the Turchin cycle that elites employ to show their dominance.
Other civilizations did it in other ways. Roman emperors paid for the gladiator games, to virtue signal their importance, and to keep the masses entertained and on their side.
Some south east islander used to spend their wealth on giant feasts.
In religious times you assist in building cathedrals or temples which have more lasting value than a piece of oil on paper.
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