Recently, very strange events have started to occur in the ever weird and wonderful world of art, of painting specifically.
Last week I read that IBM Japan, Tokyo University and Yamaha Motors have developed a robot that paints. It is programmed "with certain artistic values" (?). If you order it to paint in 30 brushstrokes, you get an "abstract" (?) painting, 300 brushstrokes yield a "more realistic" (?) 'painting'. As yet, the machine does not actually see what it is doing. As soon as it is capable of that, it will make most human painters obsolete, as 99.9% of them "have certain artistic values", oppose 'abstract' to 'realistic', and think they see what they are doing.
However, this very robot might soon be obsolete.
A tad more sinister was the news that a Blockchain company bought a 'painting' by Banksy (turned out to be a print, in fact), burnt it, and subsequently sold it ($380,000) as a NFT (non-fungible token). That is to say, in the shape of a non-interchangeable digital file. Now I wouldn't mourn the occasional destruction of some graffiti here and there, especially if the undoing is not ideologically motivated, as were the Nazi book burnings - indeed, I find a blind wall preferable to most graffiti, more esthetically gratifying (but who am I to blow against the Beaufort scale?).
Yet why burn the thing?
According to the young arsonist commenting on his act of destruction (this episode was filmed), "the value of the artwork remains the same as that of the physical painting as long as it exists. As soon as you destroy the painting, the value of the painting moves to the NFT."
And here's me, offering reproductions of my work in this very blog, totally gratis, for free, on the house, free of charge. I had no idea of how philanthropic I actually am. However, for those interested I can always burn a drawing or two, in exchange for some hard cash. Any bidders?
But hold on. Hold the fire.
Also in the news was the American 'artist' Beeple. Christie's auctioned a digital artwork of his for $69,000,000. There were 33 bidders.
Before going into the mind-boggling crackpot insanity, I have to remind the reader of something else. Americans (and they're not alone) are very loose and free with terms such as 'art', 'artist'. If you google 'Beeple' or others of his ilk, you will find images of this 'art'.
What is dubbed 'art' is in fact 'artwork': "illustrations, photographs, or other non-textual material prepared for inclusion in a publication" (Oxford Languages); "drawings and photographs that are prepared in order to be included in something such as a book or advertisement" (Collins). The perpetrator of this ultimately commercial discipline is not an 'artist' but an 'art director'. In the latter half of the previous century, Americans were particularly competent in artwork. Their booming economy called for it. These days, it seems they have somehow forgotten about old school stuff like such as color, tone, design, layout, typography.
Beeple's 'art' is weak, shallow illustration. In other words, cheap bullshit. Dime-a-dozen crap worth millions, apparently.
As to what the highest bidder receives for his money, here's an example:
DAY #4791 of BEEPLE’S EVERYDAY PROJECT
(02.13.20)
Artist notes: ***
Auction has ended
Highest bid: $122,500.00
0
of 1 remaining
**This NFT includes a
physical token that can be registered on beeple-collect.com and will allow the
collector the option to provide additional offchain info.**
PHYSICAL TOKEN DETAILS
- An interface-free,
always-on physical artifact of the NFT featuring a signed, numbered titanium
backplate with hidden authentication markers.
- An mf baller-ass box
with certificate of ownership and cleaning cloth
- Authentic Beeple hair
sample*
- QR code links to
beeple-collect.com and displays additional collector info (optional)
- Unboxing session over
Zoom with Beeple (optional)
- Ships in two weeks
* totes promise it's
not pubes.
For more info about this
piece visit:https://www.beeple-collect.com/collections-1/dead
PHYSICAL TOKEN DELIVERY
Physical tokens will be
issued to the NFT owner at the time of shipment (2 weeks). At that time NFT
owners will register at beeple-collect.com to receive their physical token.*
*ok so after i ship you the physical token I obviously can't stop you from splitting up the physical token and NFT but I can assure it will make both of them less valuable. They are meant to augment each other and to me it's like cutting a baseball card in half and trying to sell the pieces. Nobody can stop you from doing it, but it kinda makes both pieces worthless. 😉
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So that is what you obtain: a memory stick. With on it a digital reproduction, of a poor, commercial illustration. And some hair. Non pubic.
The physical work of art has been eliminated, sacrificed, gotten rid of. In its stead is now the digital reproduction. Brave new art world. It is committing seppuku, ritual disembowelment - not to avoid dishonor (it is well beyond that), but out of self-loathing, and for the sake of big money.
The nefarious effects of reproduction, and of the confusion of original and reproduction, have been known for ages.
Allow me to share these prophetic words, dating from the mid-20th century:
"The other danger is undoubtedly more serious because it is more seductive, and claims to be educational: the multiplication of increasingly resembling reproductions; the waxwork museums of monumental art, where questionable effigies of our great mural works are kept, piously sheltered from life, deprived of the light that gave them birth; the dismantling of the work of art in well-meaning and hopelessly explanatory films; and finally, in the distance, the skeletal profile of an Imaginary Museum that would consecrate the deadly confusion between image and painting - so many good intentions threaten the very essence of painting. They aim to replace the living, unique reality of the work of art with an abundance of dead images, an ossuary of petrified realities. They seek nothing less than to make this multiplied image into the only reality, the painting being no more than the prototype, as the author's manuscript is the original of the book. If this is a carefully organised massacre for great works of art, the very worst painting, on the other hand, has everything to gain by it - that is saying the chances of success of this undertaking. Never has the fascination with printed matter risked blinding more people."
Jean Bazaine, Notes sur la peinture d'aujourd'hui, Editions Floury 1948, Editions du Seuil 1953 and 1960, Editions Aubier 1990
(my translation)
