The top floor of Corbusier’s Villa Stein (one of perhaps the top 500 most important houses of the late 19th/early 20th centuries - i.e. a Van Gogh of houses) is for sale for the same price per sq.ft. (approx $1400) as buildings in the same area of suburban Paris, designed by nobody in particular. Meanwhile, Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for an inflation adjusted price of $136 million yet a poster of similar square footage and style costs around $10.
In other words, a work of art that you can actually live in has zero premium over a commodity item, but one that you can look at has a premium factor of 13 million over a commodity one.
There are 2 possible conclusions: architecture is vastly under valued or painting prices are almost entirely irrational.
or perhaps a third: apples and oranges. paintings (art) is a free agent activity and beholding to no one functionally and only comparable to another painting (art object). its not an applied art like architecture, music, dance, literature, ceramics, weaving, etc. ( im taking a little license here mixing dance music weaving and ceramics but it has to be said.) arnt corbusiers undervalued as architecture and paintings overvalued as art?
Perhaps a fourth: paintings (and art, generally) are portable commodities, like money. You can't hide Villa Stein in a safe.
Oops, didn't see that sentence. But the sentiment stands.
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- bill 7-02-2009 6:15 pm
Perhaps a fourth: paintings (and art, generally) are portable commodities, like money. You can't hide Villa Stein in a safe.
- Justin (guest) 7-02-2009 7:40 pm [add a comment]
Oops, didn't see that sentence. But the sentiment stands.
- Justin (guest) 7-02-2009 7:42 pm [add a comment]