July 11, 2008
The $12 million Stuffed Shark
Tyler Cowen on the contemporary art market:
Should we think such purchases are silly or noble? Many people recoil from the contemporary art market as the home of pretension and human foible, but as expensive pursuits go, the art market is a relatively beneficial one. The dead shark cost $12 million to buy but, of course, it didn’t cost nearly that much to make. So the production process isn’t eating up too many societal resources or causing too much damage to the environment. For the most part, it’s money passing back and forth from one set of hands to another, like a game — and, yes, the game is fun for those who have the money to play it. Don’t laugh, but we do in fact need some means of determining which of the rich people are the cool ones, and the art market surely serves that end.
comments
One Response to “The $12 million Stuffed Shark”
Leave a Reply
And only much later will they discover that the shark is stuffed with 12 million one dollar bills.