$15.99 on Etsy
If Vincent van Gogh were alive today he’d be selling Starry Night coffee mugs on Etsy. Such is the fate of fine art in the clutches of capitalism - a system that has transformed the sublime into the sellable, the profound into the profitable, and the avant-garde into an algorithm-driven Instagram advertisement.
Once upon a time art was a holy endeavor, bankrolled by popes, kings, and the occasional Medici with a midlife crisis. Michelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling; he was commissioned to paint it. But at least he got to name it after a pope and not a corporate sponsor (as if there is really any difference). If painted today it would be branded as “The Ceiling™, proudly sponsored by Red Bull: Gives You Wings”.
Capitalism’s sly trick is convincing artists that exposure is a valid currency. “Your work will be seen by thousands!” curators chirp, as if exposure pays one’s bills. Meanwhile Jeff Koons sells a giant balloon dog for $58 million and laughs all the way to the bank. For Koons - the P.T. Barnum of banality - art is about marketing, not meaning. Only a huckster could convince people that a vacuum cleaner in a plexiglass box is profound, making one question how (or more pointedly why) the curators at MOMA endorsed this.
€24.95 at the Louvre Gift Shop
Museums are not immune. The Louvre isn’t a sanctuary of culture; it’s a gift shop with a wing dedicated to old paintings. You haven’t really experienced The Mona Lisa until you’ve waited in line for hours to catch a glimpse of her enigmatic smile through a forest of selfie sticks, then purchased a tote bag version on your way out. Culture has been reduced to merchandising.
The rise of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens, an oxymoron if ever ther was) took this farce to cosmic heights. Suddenly anyone with a crypto wallet could become an art investor (assuming that one considers a low resolution digital image that can be freely and infinitely copied “art”). Beeple’s $69 million digital collage, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, wasn’t just a commentary on digital consumerism—it was digital consumerism, and it functioned on multiple levels from Christie’s promoting a new market to the “blockchain technologist” who bought it as a promotion for his business. Beeple immediately cashed out. Critics called it groundbreaking. Sheep-like “investors” who got hosed called it heartbreaking.
Then there are the disruptors of the art world — the rogue artists who’ve embraced capitalism like a ravenous raccoon ransacking a dumpster. Damien Hirst preserved half-animals in formaldehyde and called it a metaphor for death; Sotheby’s called it a “blue-chip investment.” I’m not sure the investors who paid millions for leaking tanks of formaldehyde would agree.
OMG
Banksy’s commentary on capitalism - shredding his own painting at auction proves the point. Auctioned for $1.4 million in 2019, it resold for $25 million in 2021. In capitalism rebellion is a bankable commodity, and it comes with a certificate of authenticity.
Perhaps the most inane twist is the transformation of artists from tortured souls to entrepreneurial brands. The romantic image of the starving artist has been replaced by the “content creator” - a digitally savvy entrepreneur who creates what amounts to adware and posts process videos, complete with sponsorship by Louis Vitton. Picasso once said, “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” Today he’d say, “Art is the lie with a 50% profit margin.”
So next time you see a Warhol soup can, remember: it’s not a critique of consumer culture - it’s a recipe for business.