Delving again into the world of art

20250625

I’ll deliver a speech this Saturday entitled “Investing in Art.” It unites the themes of two recent speeches, investing for Ukrainians and a book review of Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word. I’ll post a video of the speech.

My point of departure concerns a company, Masterworks, that allows small investors to participate in big-time art. They sell fractional interest in works by recognized artists for $20 apiece and distribute a share of the profits when the painting is resold. Analysis of other works by twenty of the artists in their stable provides a fairly good overview of the contemporary art market.

The deeper I get, the more convinced I am that Wolfe was right. The artist’s story is more important than talent. Among the twenty are a Cuban female painter who lived to 106, achieving widespread recognition in her nineties. At least three capitalize on their life’s experience as black people. There are a handful of sexual novelties among them. Some became recognized for pioneering new directions in art – Banksy with his graffiti style, another with a technique of soaking canvas in diluted oil paint. There are sub-genres of op art, abstract impressionism and so on.

Konstantin Rudnev, a new member of our ArtTalkers Toastmasters Club has a story as interesting as any of them. After attending art school some three decades ago he formed his own custom furniture business. It did well, selling high quality wooden tables and chairs throughout Ukraine. It was, unfortunately, situated in his native Mariupol.

He and his family hid in basements during the weeks of relentless bombing that flattened the city, leaving as quickly as possible when the Russians provided a safe corridor. They lost everything they had. However, Olena, Konstantin’s wife had enough contacts in banking that she was able to find work fairly quickly. Konstantin himself went back to painting.

Zoriana, who is friends with his daughter Sofia, came with me to his one-man show in the very center of Kyiv two weeks ago. She fell in love with this work, which now hangs on her wall.

I am pleased that history has not yet disproven my recent post that Trump probably made the right decision. Pundits are all over the lot as to where things go from here. It appears that the ayatollahs remain in charge and have no intention of renouncing their “death to Israel” rhetoric. It is also clear, however, that Israel has excellent intelligence from within Iran. They will certainly know of any effort to restart the nuclear weapons program. They will not sit still and let it happen.

The implications for Ukraine are not yet clear. It will be a while before anybody can decide that Israel can throttle back its missile defense and give Patriots to Ukraine. Putin has continued his terror attacks on civilians, though one has to wonder how he will be able to replenish his arsenal.

I’ll stand by my longtime claim that Putin is simply a palooka. He does not know how to do anything much except bomb civilians and conduct meat wave assaults. His personal survival would be at stake if he halted the war, even for a short cease fire. Draining as his attacks are, Russia started with vast resources. Given no alternative, Ukraine is simply waiting him out, being careful with our assets. As always, the pundits are all over the map. I find the pro-Ukrainian ones more convincing.

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man will leave now by bicycle for last-day ceremonies at Marianna’s nursery school, then pick up Zoriana from her last day of camp.

Graham