Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Me thinking about Japanese people thinking about American people thinking about Japanese art
As much as I'd like to be well-informed on the American art scene, especially after having spent a year or so in arty-farty LA, I'm simply not. It's not that I don't have the time. I do. It's that I simply don't have the mettle. Naturally I find myself relying heavily on second-hand information, which invariably comes from strange places.
Take this morning (it's around 7 a.m. here in Tokyo) for example: I was just about to turn in after a long night of studying (Karl Jaspers, and new English vocabulary words, among other things) and late-night TV viewing when I was informed by the seemingly astonished anchor of a morning news show that recently, this art auction happened in NYC. His summary of the event went something like this (I quote liberally from the linked webpage below):
"...the fourth record, which hailed a belated Japanese offshoot of Surrealism. Done, Christie's wrote, in 1999, it is signed and dated "Takashi [20]01." Takashi Murakami painted mushrooms that have Bambi-style human eyes and seem to be wafted across solid gold ground. "Untitled, Gold" (as it is called in the catalogue) doubled its estimate at $623,500."
The anchor then when on to tell me, in rather apologetic tones, that this kind of thing was rather aberrational, turning in his perplexity to the show's bespectacled, resident art expert poised and ready at his flanks. The snappily attired fellow, pointer in hand (incidentally, on the end of the pointer that he welded was a miniature, white-gloved hand, itself pointing with it's index finger...this point alone indicates to me the need for a completely seperate pontification), quickly dispelled all of my reservations about the 'real value' of Japanese art on the American art market with a few handy charts and colorful graphs. His VERY Japanese rationalization of the reason(s) why Murakami's art can fetch such a high price at an auction actually turned out to be the most priceless thing about the whole affair.
I don't know about you, but I always enjoy being told in 'objective terms' why people with whom I feel at times I have little but a nationality in common are willing to pay in upwards of six digits for art that is seen by a Japanese morning news show anchor as 'whimsical.' I guess I'll have to pedal over to Roppongi Hills this afternoon after my morning cup of afternoon tea and verify this Truth in person...for free.
Take this morning (it's around 7 a.m. here in Tokyo) for example: I was just about to turn in after a long night of studying (Karl Jaspers, and new English vocabulary words, among other things) and late-night TV viewing when I was informed by the seemingly astonished anchor of a morning news show that recently, this art auction happened in NYC. His summary of the event went something like this (I quote liberally from the linked webpage below):
"...the fourth record, which hailed a belated Japanese offshoot of Surrealism. Done, Christie's wrote, in 1999, it is signed and dated "Takashi [20]01." Takashi Murakami painted mushrooms that have Bambi-style human eyes and seem to be wafted across solid gold ground. "Untitled, Gold" (as it is called in the catalogue) doubled its estimate at $623,500."
The anchor then when on to tell me, in rather apologetic tones, that this kind of thing was rather aberrational, turning in his perplexity to the show's bespectacled, resident art expert poised and ready at his flanks. The snappily attired fellow, pointer in hand (incidentally, on the end of the pointer that he welded was a miniature, white-gloved hand, itself pointing with it's index finger...this point alone indicates to me the need for a completely seperate pontification), quickly dispelled all of my reservations about the 'real value' of Japanese art on the American art market with a few handy charts and colorful graphs. His VERY Japanese rationalization of the reason(s) why Murakami's art can fetch such a high price at an auction actually turned out to be the most priceless thing about the whole affair.
I don't know about you, but I always enjoy being told in 'objective terms' why people with whom I feel at times I have little but a nationality in common are willing to pay in upwards of six digits for art that is seen by a Japanese morning news show anchor as 'whimsical.' I guess I'll have to pedal over to Roppongi Hills this afternoon after my morning cup of afternoon tea and verify this Truth in person...for free.
