Record-breaking bids in three categories at auction

[Brownian Motion]

The week brought record-breaking bids in three categories at auction houses in Europe:

Sculpture: $51 Million

The 3 1/4 inches high statue made of white limestone was called “one of the first great sculptures of civilization.” Sotheby’s expected bidding to top out at $18 million, but an anonymous buyer went much higher.

Pre-1905 Car: $7,275,000

The world’s oldest surving Rolls-Royce “would be a trophy in any collection.” Now, it’s part of an anonymous British citizen’s garage for more than three times the expected price.

White Truffle: $340,230

In a year of truffle shortages and heists, a strong-willed and secretive billionaire from Macao beat out Damien Hirst, the British artist.

[Chuck Nessa]

So, did Damien Hurst sell the sculpture?

[porcy62]

So, did Damien Hurst sell the sculpture?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Got to say, those truffles (or that truffle) look like the kind of pile of shit that a modern artist WOULD produce - AND get into the Tate.

MG

[Niko]

Got to say, those truffles (or that truffle) look like the kind of pile of shit that a modern artist WOULD produce - AND get into the Tate.

MG

between school and university i had a job at some very hip arts exhibition; one day i left a shovel like this one

lying in the exhibition space during a cigarette break when i came back someone was actually standing there looking at my shovel (i think i have a fairly liberal attitude towards what deserves to be called art; still an object that isn't able to distract people's attention from a shovel does not really deserve to be called art imho)

(what we actually did with these shovels is another story about modern art; in the museum there was some outside pool and some artist had the brilliant idea of a "art happening" where people would actually SWIM in that pool; unfortunately the floor of that pond was tiled with stones, so in order to make swimming possible (?! never understood that point) me and some other equally low-paid guy had to let out the water than put all the stones into three huge containers which some other people had to build then move them out of the building get them out of the boxes, clean them and put them back into the boxes and then back to the pool; all in all this took us about a week; as this was the only week of real "hard" work in my entire life so far it was an interesting experience, but still... i tend to believe that the artist herself didn't actually know how much work of others was behind her happening (which i didn't feel like attending); but during that week i strongly developed the thought that me and that other guy shoveling these stones and moving them through the exhibition space in small portions was actually the greatest piece of art they had at the time; we were 19 and i dare say at least we looked better than the other stuff they had...

edit to add, looking at the picture i dug out of google - this is a more interesting and beautiful shovel than the one i had

Edited December 6, 2007 by Niko

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

A WONDERFUL STORY!!!!!!

Thanks so much for sharing that!

MG

[Niko]

A WONDERFUL STORY!!!!!!

Thanks so much for sharing that!

MG

i have one more story from that job, there was this theater performance where the "audience" would stand at the window in a building at a very busy four way street while the actors would run around on that street (it was about 5 in the afternoon and thus heavy traffic), my job was to stand outside and tell people that they had just had the luck of running into a free theater performance and invite them to come in (didn't work, maybe i was not as friendly as i could have been, but i guess there were other issues as well) it was raining real hard which meant for me that my job of standing outside was not overly pleasant, more importantly it meant that the audience inside could hardly see the actors out on the street 50 meters from them; not surprisingly it took less than 10 minutes till some concerned car driver called the police... after the performance was over the director decided that my conversation with the police men had actually been the most interesting part of the (?) play, (at least it was the only part of the play the audience could actually see), glad she couldn't hear what i said, i was not too respectful concerning the whole performance and the artist ("no they are not drunk, they are artists they know what they're doing...") (i actually was drunk, years later when i had a job in an insurance company i looked back and realized that in that environment it had been completely normal to drink to or three large bottles of beer during work...)(after these experiences it was clear to me that i didn't want a job that had remotely to do with culture later in my life...) (and i dare say people in insurance companies really are nicer with each other)(wouldn't want to work there either however)

(the artists really weren't the problem, most of them were actually rather nice; but pretty much all the other people there, those who set up the exhibitions and stuff...)

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

MG

[ejp626]

Can't link to it right now, but at the MCA here in Chicago they have hired a group of actors to kiss each other for 8 hours a day (they do shift in teams) and enact various famous poses (Rodin, Klimt, etc.).

After a few minutes, it is more interesting watching peoples' reactions than the performance itself.