Art for art’s sake, money for God’s sake MEM BE RS’ CO NTRI BUT I ON
by Member, Geoff Todd AM In a time when a digital artwork sells for a record $69 million at Christie’s first NFT (Non-Fungible Token) auction, and while I am still quite sure I cannot tell anyone what “Art” is, I could not resist illustrating Ari Lun’s essay, Art Hoax, on how the art world may have been duped by dealers and others from the early twentieth century onwards. Could it be happening again? Recently in Art Industry News, David Hockney, who as a living artist has achieved the world’s highest auction price for a painting, spoke about NFTs, calling them “silly little things” for “crooks and swindlers”.
When art students in the late sixties and early seventies, Marcel Duchamp was presented as one of the great artists of the time - and off we students went in the pursuit of ‘Conceptual Art’. Late in the seventies, English translations of Duchamp’s many interviews were finally printed in books that did not find their way to art schools, but happily out-of-print copies can now be found on the Internet. Reading Duchamp’s cynical comments about his own art, about American society and, of course, recognising his self-portrait With My Tongue in My Cheek for what it really might be, reinforced my need to bring Ari Lun’s essay to public attention in an accessible way that I found stimulating and could share with others.
As a former art lecturer and teacher, craft adviser in Arnhem Land, and an artist who has worked mostly outside the mainstream, I don’t feel so For me Art Hoax was fun and by using cut paper, bad about my cynical view of the art market after glue, ink and pens, while avoiding the computer, reading Hockney’s comments. I attempted to make my own statement through 28
