Art for artists’ sake
The latest, February issue of Elle magazine includes a short article on how many artists these days are catching on to the shady practice of ‘flipping’ (The Art of Revenge: Why Some Artists Won’t Sell Out, Literally, to Deep-Pocketed Collectors by Megan Deem, page 138). Like ‘house flipping,’ artists today also face buyers ready and willing to ‘flip’ their recent purchase for much more. The article mentions a few notable artists, namely Damien Hirst and Ryan McGinness, and how they’re now in the habit of either being more selective with regards to whom exactly may bid on their work, or drafting agreements that would ensure a split of the profits should the buyer indeed decide to sell.
I’d like to think that people rich enough to drop thousands of dollars at a time for art work are classy enough not to do something like that but a little voice in my head keeps telling me to stop being naive: even wealthy, hipster art-buyers are just as capable of being greedy and being total jerks, if not more so. Though I don’t imagine they’d post it up on eBay; they’d probably sell it for cash, under the table, to a friend of a friend of a friend of the owner of a vintage, mid-century furniture store, or something uber-hip like that.
It’s good to know artists these days are becoming more pro-active and business-minded; the stereotype is that art and commerce can’t mix, but the reality is that they do. Besides the named artists, who, are already wealthy (compared to most artists) and well-established, I’m sure there are scores of ’starving artists’ who are starting to really think about the business of art, to whom their work will go to and where it may ultimately end up. I know that I’ve thought about my work retaining its character and integrity, regardless if I ever sell a piece or if it simply stays with me, but I’ve never thought about art ‘flipping.’ It seems so silly to do so because how can a buyer/”flipper” be sure that the artist is well-known or respected enough to garner more interest and, therefor, higher bids? In addition to being a wealthy jerk, I guess you’d also have to actually know a thing or two about the current art world.
“Men will fuck mud.”
…In the same issue of Elle magazine is a feature article on Heidi Fleiss, the former ‘Hollywood Madam’ (the article is also available online for a limited time on the Elle website under ‘In the Magazine’). Before I realized it, I got sucked into Fleiss’ strange and, arguably, distorted world. These days, she’s managed to escape the meaty fists of Tom Sizemore and has set up camp in some shithole in Nevada called Pahrump (no offense, Pahrump-ians but you do have legalized prostitution and you’re way the hell out in the desert – sorry, that doesn’t sound like paradise to me). Her new business venture? A male brothel in the sex-for-money-friendly county where nearby Crystal, NV is located. I honestly don’t know where a pimp would find all the dough to buy the land, etc., and I don’t think I’d like to know, but Fleiss is placing her hopes in a laundromat she’s named ‘Dirty Laundry’ – apparently, it’s the only one for miles and will help bankroll her stud farm (her estimate is $30K a month – do laundromats take in that much a month???).
Besides pimping, Fleiss is now enjoying single life with her parrots and many, local-area, quasi-friends, many of whom she personally helps out financially, which I guess is a little redeeming. But what really drew me was how funny the article is: without trying whatsoever, the article really is hilarious. Granted, the context has humor already built-in (a pimp living alone in the desert with her parrots decides to open a male brothel – the next, big sitcom?), but Fleiss herself is surprisingly entertaining, pointing out things in such a matter-of-fact way.
She refers to another, aging, smarmy brothel-owner as a “the 200 year old pimp” (this guy owns 3 brothels himself, one of which is called ‘The Cherry Patch Ranch’), and, when trying to justify her belief that Crystal, NV, can transform itself with the introduction of just “four or five fancy houses,” leisurely remarks “They’re all kind of weird here, but these people will go. Like this guy here, someone needs to kill him.”
I should probably credit the writer here at this point as many of her descriptions added to the laughs: I’m not sure if Ariel Levy meant for her piece to be so funny, and either way, it was well-written. I don’t know but the thought of a brothel joined alongside a prostitution ‘museum’ is even funnier when Levy describes how the said ‘museum’ consisted mainly of “old newspaper clippings about prostitution.” The absurdity makes me laugh out-loud.
I should note that there was a news blurb sometime back about how Mike Tyson was hired to be one of Fleiss’ studs: forget it, it was a total hoax, though I actually believed it when I first heard about it. Maybe it’s because Tyson is a convicted rapist of a meathead….? But no, he’s not one of studs for sale for those crazy few who would actually want to be anywhere near him…
And this just in from the Land of the Lonely…
Hmmm, more evidence that being lonely is not good for you. Loneliness not only ‘breeds [a] belief in the supernatural,’ telling, related, linked-article titles also proclaim that ‘Loneliness kills‘ and, on the up-side, that ‘Anger is good for you.’ What if you’re angry and lonely….? When you think about it, one could inform the other, but they’re just as uncomfortable to deal with…
