How Much Is Too Much?

There is some fantastic artwork on display along the corridors at work this month.

One piece that I particularly like is a detailed painting of a cow which has been placed upon a flat green background. A tremendous amount of time must of gone into painting the cow and this is contrasted by the simple wash of colour around it which serves to grab your attention as you meander on by. The vibrancy of the colours used really makes the piece stand out from the rest of the artwork on display, which must be said, is also of a very high quality.

I stopped to look at the prices of the work on display and as I had suspected, Id be looking at around £700 to purchase one of the pieces. £700 for a beautiful piece of work, but for something that I have no connection with other than it pleasing my eye.

Also, if the artist is unfortunate enough to end up dead and enough people decide that the picture looks nice, the price will go up again and again until we have a piece of art now priced out of reach of the average consumer and so costing publicly funded galleries millions to hang on their walls. The cost would of course be justified by art critics and the like declaring that for us to lose this piece of art would be a crime to the public.

I struggle to understand sometimes why artists can justify such large amounts for their work.

I am fully aware of the amount of time and passion that goes into producing a piece of art. I understand that for a 'professional' artist there are costs of material, studio rent etc to take into account as well, but still, how can you place such immense value on an image that serves no purpose other than an aesthetic one?

On the flip side of this there is the music industry where an artists music can now be purchased for a mere 79 pence as a download. The value of a piece of music is near non existent due to the wide availability of it across budget formats. Could a musician demand thousands of pounds for a single, exclusive pressing of vinyl?

I believe musicians need to rethink how they make their music available. We need to rethink the value we place on our work before we remove value altogether. Similarly, I'm starting to think that the visual art world needs to do the same, otherwise perhaps it is in danger of pricing itself out of the reach of its potential customers.