Over 16,548,358 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
On June 19th, 2006, a painting by the renowned artist Gustav Kilmt sold for 135 million dollars.
Hold on. Before you go on, read that last sentence again. I'll wait... read it as many time as you need to in order to grasp the full magnitude of what it is conveying. Done? Good. I just wanted you to read it several times so that you know that you didn't misread it. And also so that you know that it wasn't a misprint. And in case you had heard about this aleged news story before, I wanted the full impact to sink in to your already full brain.
To reiterate, on June 19th, 2006 a painting sold for 135 million dollars. Now just to answer all your questions, I looked into it. The painting is just that...a painting. It's not also a combination bookshelf/ spice rack/ 250 acre mansion in the hollywood hills. And although the paint is apparently flecked with Gold, the painting itself is not diamond encrusted or chocalate covered. (C'mon...chocalate covered. that would be cool). And the canvas is just regular old canvas. It's not even that big of a canvas. You'd think for 135 million large that you could get the painting on a wide screen, plasma canvas that also got Bravo and the Discovery Channel.
Also the painting is just a normal two dimensional painting of a woman. It's not like one of those cool hologram paintings that follow you around the room. It's not like one of those pictures from when you were a kid that when you look at it back and forth really quickly it looks like Donald Duck is waving at you. And finally, it's not one of those pictures where you stare at it for a long time eventually you see a beautiful sailboat. It's just a painting.
The painting is some turn of the century aristocratic woman named Adele Bloch-Bauer, and the painting is named, wait for it.. Adele Bloch-Bauer 1. The name alone proves that there ain't 135 milllion bucks worth of creativity in this pic. Hell, apparently somewhere there's an "Adele Bloch Bauer 2". That alone should bring down the retail value. Now I'm sure Mrs. Adele Bloch-Bauer was an icredible woman of much accomplishment, but nobody, not nobody's image is worth 135 million dollars. Heck, Angelina & Brad only got 20 million dollars for their pictures of new baby, Shiloh. and that baby is the closest thing we have to a messiah.
What about the materials? Well, although the paint itself is gold flecked, the canvas is apparently just a canvas. It's not believed to be the lost part of the Shroud of Turin. It's just a canvas. I looked up the retail prices of canvas, and a roll goes for about $120. So, adjusting for the price of inflation...after all it was painted in 1907...No. On second thought...let's not adjust for inflation. Let's assume that Klimt paid top dollar for his canvas and his gold flecked paint. with $120 worth of canvas and, oh let's say a milion dollars worth of the finest Sherman Wiliams Gold Fleck, that still leaves us $1,333,999,880.00 short of the price.
Now, everyone wants to make a profit but DAMN!
But I'm ultimately not here to indict Klimt, as a struggling artist myself I am all for every artist getting everything they can. Klimt was born in poverty and through hard work and good fortune he ended up being the painter behind the most expensive painting on record. (Picasso had the old record, a measly $104 million.)
Good for Klimt. It's just too bad that he's not aound to see any of the money. Ultimately , my problem is with the buyer of the painting, one Ronald Lauder of the Estee Lauder cosmetic company. I just don't understand what posesses a person to place that much value on something that many people would walk past while mumbling, "Ew..too yellow." I'm not anti-art. I'm not anti-capitalism. I'm just pro the human spirit. And I believe that when the media reports that some rich guy spent money on ANYTHING that totals 135 million dollars, and that thing is nearly completely frivolous, in a world full of problems and pain and politics, then a piece of the human spirit dies.
Now I'm not saying that I can't concieve of a painting that expensive. I'm just saying that I would imagine a very different painting. for my money, the only name fitting would be, "The Greatest Painting of All Time". It would have to be on a canvas that was so large that it could only be seen properly from the space shuttle.
The canvas would be flecked with peanut butter M&M's. and instead of some aristocratic lady, it would have to be a truly epic scene. How about something like Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, Krishna, Vishnu, ra the Egyptian Sun God, a coyote, and L. Ron Hubbard turning their back on George W. Bush?
Well I dont even know if I'd pay 135 million dollars for that, but then I dont know art, I know what I like.
-W. Kamau Bell
