Something Thoughtful

Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.  

BILLIONAIRES’ BULLSHIT

While having my frugal breakfast of one boiled egg and a milkless cup of tea, I heard it on National Radio near 6 a.m. just before Morning Report begins.

I checked the calendar to see if it wasn’t already April Fools’ Day. It wasn’t. It was still Wednesday 31 March.

Banksie’s “Keep It Real”, an inconsequential, small, stenciled graffiti-like piece, done years ago, had just been sold for 1.45 million dollars at an auction in Auckland. That’s the price of a house in Auckland nowadays, if you’re lucky.

The radio host chattered about it with the man who ran the auction house.

Did they talk about the artistic qualities of the work? Did they analyse its style? Did they compare it with others of the artist’s oeuvre? Did they discuss its meaning or possible impact upon the beholders? No. They talked about MONEY, with the radio host quickly seguing into gosh-gee tone at all the dosh that had been handed over for it.

Why do Banksie’s works sell for so much? the radio host asked.

The auction man said it was because Banksie was a mystery. Nobody knew who he was, so that made him more attractive to buyers.

The auction man also said that Banksie was ‘the’ artist of the 21^st century, “just as Andy Warhol was ‘the’ artist of the 20^th century and van Gogh was ‘the’ artist of the 19^th century”. Well that does for Picasso and Matisse and a few others, thought I, not to mention quite a few 19^th century artists. (Turner, anyone? Delacroix? Cezanne?). And besides, how can you crown anyone ‘the’ artist of the 21^st century when the 21^st century is still only 21 years old?

But I digress.

Banksie’s anonymity can only be called an elaborate publicity stunt to stoke interest and bump up sales for those of his works that are not in public spaces. Indeed I sometimes wonder if “Banksie” is really a consortium, so formulaic are the images that are produced. They are neither better nor worse than other planned graffiti. Okay, they’re a big cut above “I WAS HERE” graffiti, and I’d give him (or them) points for some few flashes of wit. But they’re no better than what many other anonymous wall-daubers are producing.

So, apart from the money factor, and apart from the pubicity-stunt anonymity, what’s their appeal? On the same day as the inane conversation on radio, the NZ Herald  had article which told us that Banksie is “deeply concerned with social justice and inequities.” And here we hit another bump in the road. Once and for all, let’s make it clear that that the good intentions of an artist, the worthy causes that an artist supports, have very little to do with the quality or aesthetic worth of the works an artist produces. In the main Banksie’s works have all the subtlety and style of product advertising. (Insert here postmodernist twerp who will tell us advertising is the great art-form of our time and blah, blah, blah.)

There there’s this MONEY thing. I don’t have to be told that money has always been a factor in the art world (works produced for wealthy Renaissance patrons etc.) But remember, Banksie’s money-spinners are bought by extemely wealthy people (the technical term is “rich white wankers”). You don’t think that the proletariat can cough up that much money, do you? They are bought as investments to hang in boardrooms and private homes.

To deploy another technical term, they are billionaires’ bullshit.