Art Manipulation

Art by definition is creative.The artist is necessarily uniquely value added.Now take Christopher Wool.His word painting titled "Apocalypse Now" sold at Christie's for $26.4 million on October 4, 2013.The 1988 painting consisted of a 7 foot white canvas with stenciled letters spelling the written phrase from Marlon Brando's character Colonel Kurtz of the movie of the same name as the painting. The painting read, " SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS".Where's the "unique" ? Stencil letters, white canvas and borrowed words!It's not art.But like penny stocks that grow into dollar stocks one can make money IF you are in at a penny.It's called "penny stock" manipulation or fraud.It's simple. Manipulators take a corporate shell and issue shares among themselves .Then each player subsides market makers.Then just pass small portions of the stock to and from each other at ever higher and higher prices.At the same time hire public relations firms to issue press releases about the companies bright prospects. It's known as "Pump and dump".Now substitute Christopher Wool art as the corporate shell. Now bring in original low cost investors in Wool art. They would be largely made up of Wall Street operators. They understand how to get prices of stocks higher. The same principles apply to getting art prices up.For example. They put their personal collections out to loan in high profile exhibits like the Guggenheim.Donate to the Guggenheim to make sure Wool's works will get a credible show. This includes "experts"gushing over a stenciled canvas!Now for the payoff.Take the Wool canvas to Christie's.Have operatives from original investment group phone in bids.Voila.The gavel goes down at $26.4 million for a painting that sold in the thousands in the early 90's.The bid is shared by the originals. But the object of the exercise was to get the value of their holdings marked up. Which it was. Art works can serve as collateral at the banks."Apocalypse Now" was collateral at Bank Of America and Later JP Morgan. It was pledged by the seller at Christie's David Ganek.

What Price Art ?

This past week saw a record breaking auction at Sotheby's. The gavel went down on $ 491 million worth of paintings. It included a Gauguin that went for $ 40 million and a Klimt at $ 88 million. The month also registered the highest priced transaction ever. Steven A. Cohen, a hedge fund manager, paid $ 137 million for de Kooning's " Woman III". The seller was the equally successful record producer David Geffen.

Why are these paintings selling at exorbitant prices? Is there an intrinsic value? No. The value of the ingredients that de Koonig, Gauguin and Klimt used probably added up to less than a $ 100 dollars . The value-added that propels that $ 100 dollars to close to $ 265 million for the 3 paintings is the painters unique talent multiplied by the expansion of money in circulation since the paintings creation.

The paintings cannot be duplicated. Unlike the world of Cohen and Geffen where monetary transactions are repeated with a margin of profit being produced. The paintings are " one of". Maybe the real value of this uniqueness can better be appreciated by mercantile-types like Cohen and Geffen. Another way of looking at these tranactions is to view them as a place to store production of work a.k.a money. In the future, the Klimt, Gauguin and de Koonig will still be valued in whatever currency is in style but the stock trading and record selling will not be remembered or valued.