The Price of Everything
Directed by: Nathaniel Kahn
Featuring: Amy Cappelazzo, Stefan Edlis, Jeff Koons, Larry Poons, George Condo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Marilyn Minter, Gerhard Richter, Jerry Saltz
Documentary - 98 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 23 Oct 2018
Featuring: Amy Cappelazzo, Stefan Edlis, Jeff Koons, Larry Poons, George Condo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Marilyn Minter, Gerhard Richter, Jerry Saltz
Documentary - 98 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 23 Oct 2018
When people like me, meaning lay people, approach modern art, we aren’t thinking about perspective, attitudes, or how the piece challenges us as human beings. We’re gobsmacked that this thing we would throw out of nana’s crawl space somehow costs $50 million. What does the art world see which we do not? Are they smarter than we are? In The Price of Everything, a peek behind the curtain of contemporary artists, buyers, dealers, and auction houses, director Nathaniel Kahn says they are not smarter than us, they are merely more adept at at canvassing the ‘art’ in flowery prose. The modern art market is a business and the players involved have strong motivations to keep the prices high so the art assets in their diversified portfolios do not plummet when it’s time for resale.
Building incrementally toward the fall auction at Sotheby’s, The Price of Everything hops around between a few dozen people who each have their own opinion about modern art. Jeff Koons, proclaimed the most financially successful living artist, defends his factory process, where a contracted staff paints his paintings for him. If he sat down to devote his singular time and energy to one effort, he would only produce so much. How could such a generous and creative dynamo deprive the world of his astounding ideas? Wouldn’t that be selfish? These are weighty questions and Koons’s peers and critics offer various opinions as answers. Amy Cappellazzo, a main character as Sotheby’s auction hype-woman, says she saw Koons's pieces show up recently as lobby art - a deathknell. Geriatric collector Stefan Edlis, another central protagonist, loves Koons and shows off his metal rabbit on a central pedestal in his home.
Building incrementally toward the fall auction at Sotheby’s, The Price of Everything hops around between a few dozen people who each have their own opinion about modern art. Jeff Koons, proclaimed the most financially successful living artist, defends his factory process, where a contracted staff paints his paintings for him. If he sat down to devote his singular time and energy to one effort, he would only produce so much. How could such a generous and creative dynamo deprive the world of his astounding ideas? Wouldn’t that be selfish? These are weighty questions and Koons’s peers and critics offer various opinions as answers. Amy Cappellazzo, a main character as Sotheby’s auction hype-woman, says she saw Koons's pieces show up recently as lobby art - a deathknell. Geriatric collector Stefan Edlis, another central protagonist, loves Koons and shows off his metal rabbit on a central pedestal in his home.
Is the most expensive art created by the best artist? Koons would say yes as would the peculiar set of über-rich buyers vulturing around the auctions and gallery openings. Koons is so much of a business, he even developed a futures market centered on his creations; buyers trade on what he makes in the future will be worth. It comes off so cynical it affects the art. Ed Dolman, the CEO of Phillips Auction House, offers some welcome backstory on how the art market embraced the absurd. What we know as the classics are diminishing in supply while demand continues to rise. Since there are only so many Picassos to go around, even art produced by still living artists not only became popular, they became worthwhile financial assets. Artist Larry Poons is the embodiment of how this back-and-forth selling is not only off-putting, but unfair to the creator.
When a buyer purchases a piece at a gallery for a few thousand or even a few hundred thousand dollars, they can flip the art as they would a house for millions of dollars through auction. The artist sees zero of that profit. Buyers consider it an altruistic maneuver, the artist can then sell their next products for a higher original price. It all comes off as greasy as it sounds. What was once the distinguished realm of Rembrandt and Renoir is now a luxury brand. Buyer, socialite, and all-around Real Housewives figure Inga Rubinstein says conceptual art is so in right now, “all her friends have it too.” Contemporary art is bought and sold social status in 2018. For the true art historian or amateur art appreciator, the evolving relationship between art and money should be a subject best avoided while The Price of Everything must emit a certain horror movie vibe to them.
Kahn stuffs his documentary to capacity with interview subjects. There are a few dozen names thrown up on screen eventually devolving into chaos. The one subject who comes closest to being a disappointed naysayer toward the garish enterprise is art historian Alexander Nemerov. He stares at an immense, reflective gemstone replica, made by the Koons factory of course, as if it’s a curious freak show at a third-rate circus, alternating between disgust and pity. Meanwhile, other artists such as George Condo who scribbles out charcoal eyeballs and Marilyn Minter who paints blurry pubic hair let Kahn’s camera watch them work knowing the publicity will probably add another zero onto the obscene sum they’re about to rake in from the next prospector.
Gerhard Richter, whose paintings are about to fetch Powerball level sums at Sotheby’s auction, wishes his creative offspring would wind up in a museum. This idea appalls Cappellazzo because why would he want his art stored in a storage locker at times while an octogenarian, botoxed heiress could make it the centerpiece of her third bathroom on the left? Richter is not doing his part on keeping the art stock market ticking along. He’s making waves amongst the lemming buyers who wait for certain influencers to tell them who is “hot right now” before they rush in to splash the pot with their largesse. The famous saying, “They know the price of everything, but the value of nothing” is apropos for the film’s atmosphere, but who cares, there’s money in these here canvases.
Gerhard Richter, whose paintings are about to fetch Powerball level sums at Sotheby’s auction, wishes his creative offspring would wind up in a museum. This idea appalls Cappellazzo because why would he want his art stored in a storage locker at times while an octogenarian, botoxed heiress could make it the centerpiece of her third bathroom on the left? Richter is not doing his part on keeping the art stock market ticking along. He’s making waves amongst the lemming buyers who wait for certain influencers to tell them who is “hot right now” before they rush in to splash the pot with their largesse. The famous saying, “They know the price of everything, but the value of nothing” is apropos for the film’s atmosphere, but who cares, there’s money in these here canvases.
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