It appears a new record will be set for a painting by a Canadian artist.
The record is currently held by 19th-century artist Paul Kane's Scene in the Northwest Portrait, a wintry view of a man and dog team in pioneer-era Canada that sold for nearly $5.1 million at a 2002 auction in Toronto.
But Agnes Martin's image — an extremely subtle grid of light grey pencil lines set against a soft beige background of acrylic paint — is expected to sell for between $4 million and $6 million next month in New York at a Sotheby's auction of contemporary art.
Like many of Martin's works, the nearly two-metre-wide painting titled The Desert would strike uninitiated viewers as laughably spare or virtually invisible. But others, including top critics and some of the world's leading art collectors, consider Martin's minimalist works to be groundbreaking meditations on colour and pattern, as well as brilliant expressions of her reverence for nature.
Describing The Desert as a "tour de force" that showcases Martin's lightest touch with both brush and pencil, Sotheby's contemporary art specialist Anthony Grant told Canwest News Service that such well-preserved, large-format paintings from the key mid-1960s period of the artist's career are extremely rare.
I understand art critics drink... a lot. :rolleyes:
linkI actually do like some minimalist works, and so I looked carefully at this and began to see the faint outlines of a landscape... and then I scrolled down a bit and it all moved and I realised it was muck on my laptop screen. Sooo disappointed! No, I don't get it.
If I ever meet the person that pays money for this, I'll slap the shit out of 'em.
I actually do like some minimalist works, and so I looked carefully at this and began to see the faint outlines of a landscape... and then I scrolled down a bit and it all moved and I realised it was muck on my laptop screen. Sooo disappointed! No, I don't get it.
Obviously you're among us "uninitiated". :haha:
If you do a chalk & charcoal filter on it in photoshop, it's pretty clearly a still-life of a mickey-mouse doll (seriously).
If you do a chalk & charcoal filter on it in photoshop, it's pretty clearly a still-life of a mickey-mouse doll (seriously).
[SIZE="5"]If you put a douche-bag filter on it, you get this...[/SIZE]
It's still better than DuChamp.
It's still better than DuChamp.
Or Warhol.
To quote from an episode of "The Flintstones", "I don't know what the artist got for this, but he should'a got life.".
It reminds me of a beige excel spreadsheet, which in turn makes me think of work, which makes me depressed. This "art" sucks. :greenface
i see two slightly blue guys standing facing each other..... possibly peeing toward each other.
DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!
I can't imagine why not much of this guys work survives. I can just see someone boxing up all his stuff, going "All this canvas, you think he would have painted something on here, eah?" Then chucking it out.
Hook me up with that buyer quick! I'll do it for them for $2.5 mil and it won't be old and stale!
Hillrick, call it The Great Beige North.:haha:
I may have seen one of this artist's works at MOMA when I was about 10. I remember a wall-sized work, with pencil lines on the wall in three different directions creating a grid pattern.
I remember thinking that it was bullshit. But you know, age 10, you're not going to be able to appreciate art like that.
And at age 10, you're liable to get an honest impression rather than being brainwashed by the "initiated". ;)
Don't even get me started here. I've seen shit selling for as much (not by a Canuck, mind you) that would make Agnes Martin's piece look like the Mona Lisa.
Seriously.
Do Not Get Me Started.
Oh, you've seen Pollock too. :haha:
I think the most rediculous exhibition i ever saw was a series of paintings, each on canvas, approx. 8 feet by 8 feet, ALL painted solid black, some with a red, runny line on one edge. All at the Met.
I could drink a can of latex paint and crap a better mural.
Just think, you could film yourself doing that and call it performance art! Then would would be a world renowned painter and crazy person.
Another case of someone having more money than brains. Give me a good ole' dogs playing poker any day!