In early 2011, a version of Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players" was sold for about 259
Million USD. Adjusted for inflation, that's an equivalent of 274 million USD today (2015).
That is a lot of money. The second most expensive painting ever sold (as of 2015) was Jackson
Pollock's No. 5, which was sold in late 2006 for about 140 million USD. That's an equivalent
to 165 million USD today.
Very often, when people look at this painting, generally what they say is "I could do that."
Man, if I had a nickel for every time somebody said that, well then I'd be rich enough to
buy this Jackson Pollock. Why is art so expensive? This is a very tough question and it's kind
of entangled among so many different interdependent factors.
First of all - the art market - it's highly speculative. It's kind of like the stock market.
If somebody could explain exactly why certain stocks go up and certain stocks go down at
certain times, what to invest in, what's not good to invest in. If there was a simple answer
to that - then we would all be rich. But of course there's still some trends and some
general principals on why some art works are more expensive than others.
Art is a very scarce resource. Generally when an artist makes a work of art - it's one of
a kind - like a painting. Thus individual works of art more valuable than mass produced
products, like those thing you buy from Walmart that say "Made In China."
This, also made in China, but this is one of a kind.
So in general, things that are unique often have a higher value in our society. You can
always build another million dollar home, but you can't really paint another Monet.
Because Monet's dead. And this a reason why sometimes an artist's works will become more
valuable when he or she dies. Because they're not really around to produce more, which makes
the works that they created while they were alive kind of a limited resource that can't
be further produced.
You can however still discover lost artworks - but that's a topic for another time.
So the value of art is often driven up but those who invest in it, kind of like the stock
market as well. If a buyer sees value in a particular work of art, they may choose to
put money into it, and then this may or may not cause other people to feel the same way
about that particular artwork and then in turn drive the demand up even further. And
similar to other aspects of the financial market, certain people have a bigger voice
and certain people are more influential, and certain voices have more power to be able
to drive up the prices of certain artworks.
Some artists also become famous. And fame can often drive up your salary. But why do
famous artists get paid more? I don't know. Why does Jennifer Lawrence get paid millions
of dollars per film while an unknown actress might only get paid a few hundred dollars?
Does it really mean Jennifer Lawrence is hundreds or thousands of times better than any other actresses?
Not necessarily - because the relationship between price and value is seldomly a linear
one. It's almost always a power law distribution.
Some artworks also have historical significance. For instance paintings of kings, popes, and/or
historical events like French Revolution.
Some artists, as well as their artworks were on the forefront of historical as well as
intellectual movements. And many of these artworks may have been the driving force behind
historical change. And that is definitely valuable.
It's easy for us to look at the art world and deem it as something superficial or subject
to the whims of rich and famous people. And maybe sometimes that's what it is. But what
we sometimes forget is that these artworks - like Jackson's Pollock's no. 5, or Paul
Cezanne's Card Players are not in fact the most expensive artworks in the world. Many
artworks - like those held by large museums and institutions, very often on public display,
are in fact priceless. Because they have been deemed by society to be important artifacts
of human civilization.
You can argue something like the Mona Lisa as these paintings that are just boring old
paintings of people and landscapes. But there are people who have literally risked their
lives and died protecting these artworks, protecting artifacts of our collective cultural heritage.
And that's priceless.