The Art Of Exploring Absurdity

In one of the funnier moments in “How to Draw a Bunny,” a 2002 documentary about the artist Ray Johnson, Morton Janklow, the literary agent, recounts how Mr. Johnson offered to sell him some collages featuring the agent’s silhouette writes Randy Kennedy in the New York Times. A price was named. Negotiations ensued by mail. New prices were proposed, and collages came and went like produce on a grocery scale. At one point Mr. Johnson announced that he had emblazoned images of Paloma Picasso on some collages, and that “Palomaization” meant, of course, that he would have to double his prices. After more than a year of frustration Mr. Janklow finally understood: Mr. Johnson, who died in 1995, had never intended to sell the collages. His letters, works of art in their own right, had just been his eccentric way of exploring the basic absurdity of attaching a dollar value to something as spiritual as art. Today such a gesture would probably be received with more incomprehension than frustration. The art world is surfing on an international wave of money arguably higher and wider than any seen before. Art fairs — which have changed the market, drastically speeding it up and super-sizing it — are proliferating, from Shanghai to Istanbul to Dubai. And artists, even those still in graduate school, are more aware than ever of the market’s insatiable hunger. (For full source and article click the Headline) Irish Art