Paul McCarntey and Nicolas Sarkozy star in Art Gone Asunder

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Two fabulous headlines for your Wednesday morning: Paul McCartney left his head on a train and Sarkozy is ‘needled’ by voodoo doll.

Ahhhh…Wednesday morning news…
Paul McCartney’s Head?
Yes, it’s true. McCartney’s head has been lost, rather, the ape-like wax representation of it. Professional transporter/grand bobby Joby Carter was taking it to an auction in Berkshire, England, where it was estimated to fetch up to 10,000 pounds. Then Carter, similar to Mrs. Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest, left the baby, ahem, the head. The BBC reports: “The head was left in a bag under a seat on a train from London at Maidenhead station in Berkshire on Thursday. The service would have terminated at Reading.”
I suspect McCartney paid him so that nobody would ever connect him with that terrible head again. And speaking of unwanted likenesses, Sarkozy’s in a bit of a stitch across the channel. Oh the power of the public image! Oh life as art! Oh unwanted portraiture! Oh the horror!
Nicolas Sarkozy is not amused.
As one can tell from the image of the French President, left, Sarkozy is not amused to have been transformed into a voodoo doll. BBC reports that “Sarkozy has threatened to sue a publishing company if it does not withdraw from shops a ‘voodoo doll’ in his image.” It even comes with pins! According to BBC, “The publisher said Mr Sarkozy’s reaction was ‘totally disproportionate’ and has so far refused to pull the doll from shops.” Vive la revolution!
Ah, life and art don’t really change, do they? As I wrote in an earlier post, a voodoo doll bears a remarkable similarity to a medieval portrait, and here we see the voodoo doll as portrait. In the Medieval ages after a regime change, the new rulers would scratch out the eyes in portraits of previous rulers.
So what conclusions can be drawn from this morning’s news? If you are a public figure, people will do terrible things to your likeness, in which case you must either steal or sue the maker. Then after passing your hands three times over the false image, you must suck the tiny bit of your soul that is trapped in it out. (I recommend the breath they teach in Lamaze class.) Then you must burn the false, soul-sucking idol. Add its charred remains to the images you create of your enemies for a little extra oomph.

Housing prices are inflated? Let’s discuss art prices

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An artist, a recognized artist who sells his works, offered to pay my boyfriend in paintings. A little unorthodox, yes, but I was psyched. Then he told me he did not take it. A year ago I would have argued it was a great economic investment, not just a way for me to get art on the wall. But now, was his choice the wisest economically?

Even a year ago people considered he unprecedented demand and prices for fine art might be a bit of a bubble. Articles have been popping up left and right to debate that theory now. Here’s a selection, from The New York Times, The Business Times, The Times, and the International Herald Tribune. Note that there’s not an art rag among them.

Catherine Rampell wrote a blog for the New York Times entitled, dismally enough, The Art of Recession. Despite it being a dismal science, Rampell prognosticated on behalf of collectors, pointing to “the failure of a number of large banks may put their corporate art collections back on the market on the cheap” as an example of cheaper prices to come. Makes things a little insecure for the art investor though, with the prediction that “the market for contemporary art assets may soon plummet.”

On behalf of art as an alternate “passion” investment, The Business Times points to “Proponents of the segment argue that art, being a real asset and devoid of the mind-numbing complexity of derivatives, should retain its sheen as a ‘passion’ investment.” They have an interesting quote from auction house Christie’s president (Asia) Andrew Foster: “Art is a very real and tangible thing. Clients agree that art has inherent value….That doesn’t mean prices don’t fluctuate, but value is agreed upon and inherent, and it springs from cultural and global trends more than trading multiples.” Is that true, though?
Also of note, the article mentions the Mei Moses Fine Art Index. According to which, all art for 2007 rose 20 per cent, a performance only surpassed by some of the annual returns achieved in the art bubble years of 1984 to 1990–more than the 5.5 per cent achieved by the S&P. Yet art, too, “has its boom and bust cycles, as Michael Moses, the creator of the index, told Reuters earlier this year.”

But let’s consider results of some recent big auctions. A headline from the Times on October 20, 2008 is ‘Growing signs of art slump as Freud’s portrait of Bacon fails to fetch £7m’ and the IHT reports ‘At contemporary art sales, market stumbles on.’ These are not chipper reports on the auction front. Christies and Sotheby’s have their big auction in November, so that will prove the true bellwether. Yet buyers in the art sector, like every other, seem to be skittish. Souren Melikian writes for the IHT that “The short message is that there is life left in the contemporary art market at 25 to 30 percent below current ambitions. That is very good in the current circumstances. Auction houses and their consigners had better heed the lesson.”
That’s why she’s saying. These do not herald good times ahead for people who count their worth in paintings. On the other hand, if you’re a buyer of impervious fortune, times are great. Less competition for cheaper prices on works you love. What I’m saying: yippee! A Lucian Freud of Francis Bacon for £5.42 million! Andy Warhol’s “Nine Multicolored Marilyns” for a song! If prices keep going down at this rate, I’ll be able to buy something in 10 years.

Until then, all you art investors out there, you have my deepest sympathy. You poor souls, locked in your worthless mansions, staring across your foyer in your silk bathrobe looking at the now moderately-priced Picasso.

Milan Kundera: Can betrayl of another amount to betrayl of self?

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A recent Economist story has made me very sad, indeed. It did not involve the economy, but Czech author Milan Kundera (b. 4/1/29) who moved to France to escape the censorship of the Communist government. Kundera’s most popular book has been The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which deals with of identity and love and betrayal, also touches on his recurrent theme of lives clouded by totalitarianism. Ironically or logically enough, now similar charges are being brought against Kundera in his youth. Per the Economist:

“The story of Miroslav Dvoracek, a Czech spy for the West, would fit well into a Kundera novel. Caught by the secret police in 1950 while on an undercover mission to Prague, he was tortured and then served 14 years in a labour camp. He was lucky not to be executed. He has spent nearly six decades believing that a childhood friend called Iva Militka betrayed him; he had unwisely contacted her during his clandestine trip. Similarly, she has always blamed herself for talking too freely about her visitor to student friends. Now a police record found by Adam Hradilek, a historian at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, in Prague, suggests that it was one of those friends, the young Mr Kundera, who was the informer.”

Could this the face of a backstabber?

Kundera refutes the suggestion. While I might cheer to hear muck about a politician or the latest scandal of some pop star, this news really disappoints me. I find it quite likely that Kundera did betray Dvoracek. He was already in a bit of trouble with the political machine, and yet was allowed to continue his studies. Many in that time faced and made similar choices to the one he is purported to have made. If he did betray him, one could infer that he spent most of his life writing out the guilt from it. Perhaps that’s why he is a recluse now.

Kundera writes poignant characters with a keen sensitivity to time and identity that I haven’t found in other contemporary authors. I idolize his writing. But what if he had to make this choice to write the way he does? I think his writing is wonderful and valuable, while noting it sticks to much the same subjects, like a singer whose songs all sound alike. So what if this incident provided him with limited themes, a sort of stumbling block that he can’t move past mentally?

What if this betrayal of his youth, betrayed his ability to write better and deeper novels?