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alexsyd's avatar

Graham, you might want to read Theories of Modern Art, by Herschel B. Chipp.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=herschel+b+chipp+theories+of+modern+art&i=stripbooks&crid=1FT08RKPGUUYB&sprefix=herschel+b+chipp+theories+of+modern+art%2Cstripbooks%2C141&ref=nb_sb_noss

There are manifestoes, letters, etc. from the horse's mouth so to speak. Beginning in the late 19th century with Symbolism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, and more.

Basically, modern art is a rejection of ancient Greek culture, Christian religion and story-telling. A kind of anti-western spiritual development. It has parallels in architecture, poetry, literature, dance, and so forth. Concerning visual art, people considered traditional Western art mere illustration. Abstraction would lead us into a new world of Freudian, or Marxist, or Darwinian truth about human nature. Something like that anyway.

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streamfortyseven's avatar

Having known a few artists - and kids with expensive art school degrees, one of whom went on to a career in HVAC, where he has made ten times as much as others in his class, who did not go the skilled trades route - most of the money goes to the gallery owners - they take a 50% cut of what they sell - at a minimum. Art school kids - 95% of whom have no talent whatsoever, according to their teachers and professors (and I've known a few of those, too) - tend to be sons and daughters of rich people, if they're successful - so they already know their market. The few who aren't end up doing unskilled labor in a life of debt slavery. And they tend to have addiction problems and die off pretty quickly, unless the can find something more lucrative than art.

And I know a relatively famous sculptor, Harry Weber:

"Harry Weber was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1942 where he attended St. Louis Country Day School. He was educated at Princeton University where he studied art history.[1] Following his education, Weber served six years in the United States Navy. This included a year on river patrol boats in Vietnam where he compiled a compelling series of drawings chronicling his experiences there.During his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with V for valor, the Presidential Unit Commendation and the Navy and Marine Corps Combat Ribbon. ... " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Weber_(sculptor) I've got one of two copies of his first piece - he has the other - which makes that pretty rare, and another early piece - my Aunt Jane was an early supporter of his. He's got a web page - https://harryweber.com/. I don't know how much these pieces are worth, never had them appraised, don't need to, I like them as art, not stacks of dollar bills.

My grandparents on my father's side did a tour of France on their honeymoon in 1914 and bought back a bunch of French art - mostly prints, a few paintings. And none appraised, I remember them from my childhood, so they're not for sale. I don't see art as an investment - actually I should sell some of it off, there's not enough wall space to hang it. My French art from 1914 is beautiful to look at, it wouldn't be worth much in today's market which specializes in ugly junk and - recently - AI slop. And I think that the rich use art for money laundering/tax avoidance more than anything else. And there's a ton of fraud and counterfeit stuff out there, a rich relative (second cousin, once removed) lost something like $5 million when two or three paintings he'd bought turned out to be fakes.

What's driving the current real estate bubble is private equity snapping up single family residential real estate and converting it into rental properties - the Klaus Schwab/WEF thing of "you will own nothing, rent everything, and be happy" - and they buy planning commissions and city governments - for a billionaire, a million dollars is chump change, and the return on the bribes is just huge... It will wind up being a choice between a revolution or slavery, governments have become far too corrupted and bought off.

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