art as scrap

Today's post is: more musings on the "value of art", and how that relates to other basic human needs with which art competes for resources today. Earlier this week, an important piece of public art was stolen from a park in London:

Two Forms Divided - Barbara Hepworth (1969)
shown before & after theft
(photos: Southwark Council and Trevor Moore)

The theft of this historically-significant piece by renowned sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth (her Wiki is HERE) is thought to be part of a "sickening epidemic" of public art thefts in England for the scrap value of the bronze metal (report on the theft is HERE) - which is, of course, a small fraction of the actual price at which the work would be valued for sale (something over US$780,000). If this is the case, then someone needed the scrap value in cash so badly s/he was willing to steal the sculpture and risk going to jail for it. It's been speculated that the piece was stolen by someone who "just doesn't care", or "got in with the wrong crowd" (see a thoughtful and interesting commentary by Zoe WIlliams of The Guardian HERE). Regardless of the facts that may ultimately come out in this case, it seems likely that (if the scrap metal motive is true) somebody saw some easy money, needed easy money, and grabbed the artwork at that value - despite what others might have thought the piece was worth at auction.

Please understand: I don't condone this or any other form of theft based on some argument of relative "need". For all I know the thief might be feeding a drug habit, or owe a bunch of money to people with nasty tendencies, or be engaged in who knows what other personal behavior that's been deemed socially unacceptable and/or criminal and thus punishable. My only reason for mentioning this aspect of "value" is to point out that SOMEBODY apparently valued this important piece of artwork based on its immediate scrap value - rather than its value in the Art Marketplace - because they needed the money. I make NO argument that "society is at fault", or that the thie(ves) should be pitied, or that the marketplace is somehow corrupt, or any of that.

I do argue, though, that the assignment of "value" can vary based on one's level of need. In the field of psychology, Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" gave us a structure for this approach to understanding human behavior; he argued that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other needs. If this Hepworth sculpture was stolen to be sold for scrap metal, the thie(ves) valued it at its immediate cash value and NOT at its potential sale price as an artwork. This, to me, is assigning value to an object based on immediate need - which gives a different figure than its value as art. Two numbers, same object.

To play with this "value of art" idea a little farther, consider the legacy of recently-passed sculptor John Chamberlain (his Wiki is HERE), who initially found fame making art from the rusted parts of junked cars:

(untitled)
original image (and others) at The Art Theoretical,
an Avery McCarthy studio blog

Chamberlain said he started working in this scrap metal medium because it was (1) available and (2) inexpensive: "Michelangelo had a lot of marble in his back yard, so to speak; I had a lot of this stuff" (quote from LA Times obituary HERE). To me, this is the other half of the "value of art" argument; this guy chose to work in this medium because the material itself was so cheap, yet he was able to transform that low-value material into high-value artworks (one of his pieces sold last June for $4.7M). So, value is determined by WHAT, exactly? Beats me.

[NOTE: The previous post titled "Art - at what cost?" (read it below) described an amazing but very costly installation of "Land Art", a class of work which often makes use of the massive scale that's possible when the Earth itself is used as the medium. That posting, in which I reflected on other potential (charitable) uses of the $10M being spent to assemble the piece's components - mainly for the cost of transporting a 340-ton granite boulder 106 miles to the site - drew a really insightful and articulate comment from ObsArt (a cool blog on Earth Art) defending the work and its expense.]
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Today's creation is a Quicktime video I made from some still photos of our Christmas tree (we finished decorating it late last night):

(video © me)
Mozart: 8 Variations On A Dutch Song by Christian Ernst Graaf,
performed by Walter Klien
(from a great collection published by Musical Concepts,
available HERE.

I shot the stills this afternoon with some good sunlight coming in a window behind the tree; the mixed light was tricky but it gave a satisfying result. Had some Mozart on while decorating it, so that's what ended up in the clip.

Merry Christmas!
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