The Mona Lisa Curse
The first offering of Channel 4's Art and Money season is The Mona Lisa Curse tonight from 6.30pm to 8:00pm. Veteran art critic and fellow dinosaur Robert Hughes lambastes the contemporary art market in which art and artists are idolised for the glory of the rich. The Medici's did it. So did various popes. So what's new about Roman Abramovich doing it? Not a lot, but let's hear what Hughes has to say about it. A witty polemic is promised. If that doesn't frighten off the couch potatoes, nothing will.
posted by Unknown @ 21.9.08
4 comments
4 Comments:
How about the fact that the Popes and the Medicis actually commissioned art because they wanted it to make their churches and homes look good - as opposed to people who turn up for the party to get 'seen' and then stash away their 'hoard' in warehouses?
I don't think Hughes would have any sort of problem with the Popes or the Medicis - what he has a problem with is people buying art who have no idea what they are buying or whether it is any good.
My resident couch potato who normally can't be persuaded to say anything about art(!) actually connected with it and thought it was a very good programme.
Hi, Katherine
I'm glad your couch potato enjoyed the show!
I see your point about the Medicis and the popes decorating the old homesteads, but I think you're being too kind to them. They were rich and powerful, just as today's billionaires are, and they used art as propaganda and for self-aggrandizement, just as modern multinational companies and their directors do.
Look up Lorenzo the Magnificent on Google graphics and see how he liked to be portrayed: God's gift to humanity, holier than thou.
The difference between the old patrons of the arts and the new is, as you rightly point out, the new ones are clueless about art. Both groups need/ed to buy the best and to be seen to buy the best, but in the old days only competent artists who could produce a masterpiece were allowed to become artists. So the best were the best. Today, after a century of snobs telling us that twerps like Picasso and Hirst are geniuses, you really need to know something about art in order to avoid being conned into buying rubbish.
So today's billionaires buy the most expensive items in hope that they're buying the best. More fool them. As Hughes points out, they're buying a fashionable brand name, not a work of art. They must have a Picasso to go with their Rolls-Royce. The term for this nonsense is "conspicuous consumption".
See my post on Damien Hirst's Pussy, posted today.
can anyone please help me on getting a copy of this documentary, i need it urgently, where can i download it or but it? write to juan_ca90@hotmail.com
Hi, Juan
It's a Channel 4 TV documentary, so that's the firm to contact. If they don't have the video for sale, ask them when they're going to repeat the programme.
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