Even Better Than the Real Thing: Why 3D Printed Replicas Benefit Visual Artists

December 04, 2013 / Tim Schneider

*Van Gogh 'Relievo Collection' (licensed, official 3d-printed replica). Image credit: Van Gogh Museum store.*

Sparked by a brief post by Tyler Cowen, last week Izabella Kaminska of the Financial Times and Felix Salmon of Reuters debated one another via blog posts and Twitter (scroll down to the 29th of August) over the financial effect of increasingly accurate 3D printing on fine art. The central question can be summarized as follows: When technology allows for the creation of perfect replicas of the world’s greatest artworks, does that make the originals more or less valuable?

Why would someone pay $140M for Jackson Pollock's "No. 5"?

December 04, 2013 / Tim Schneider / Source

*Jackson Pollock, "No. 5" (1948). Image credit: JacksonPollock.org.*

Tim Schneider’s answer: Most of the answers so far are correct, in that they orbit the two clearest factors in attaching a $140M price tag to “No. 5”: art historical merit, and 21st century plutocracy. Combining those two threads, the argument unfurls as something like, Pollock revolutionized art…

Been sort of an unorthodox week, so I’m linking to my answer to this question on Quora in lieu of writing a from-scratch post. Follow me on there if you dig it. I’ve only started to dive into that platform in the past week or so, but I expect to be answering (and asking) a lot more questions there going forward.

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Welcome! Can I Interest You in an Excerpt?

December 04, 2013 / Tim Schneider

*John Baldessari, "I will not make any more boring art (detail)" (1971). Image credit: Fuck Yeah Art History.*

Thanks for visiting The Gray Market, everybody. Below is a semi-substantial chunk from something longer I’ve been working on. The topic is Damien Hirst and his (in)famous 2008 auction at Sotheby’s London, titled Beautiful Inside My Head Forever. It fits in well with the ethos of this blog by virtue of examining some of the economics, incentives, and business practices driving the sale (and Hirst’s career in general). Figured that made it as good an inaugural post as any other. Hope you enjoy while I start generating original blog-specific content.