Buying power

Wednesday, 16th August 2006

If the above description is akin to a portrait of the buyer, we are introducing a category of person, who, in order to create a particular impression about himself, goes to great monetary lengths to buy what in fact cannot be bought. The appreciation of any art elevates someone to the class of the truly cultured, which is comprised of the relatively few who have been significantly touched and transformed by art. Does this mean that our buyer, like a forged painting, is an impostor? Or has he accidentally stumbled upon the true worth of his fortune, and understood that its numerical value will not alleviate him of his mediocrity? And thus, so fearing his insignificance, he purchases something of great significance, such as a costly original artwork, in a desperate attempt to associate himself with what is eternal in the work.

Perhaps he has come to the understanding that all things that come into being must pass, that only art, or created things, endure, along with the hallowed names of their creators — which makes his purchase a confession that he longs for immortality. This being the case, our portrait of the buyer is in fact a group portrait that excludes no one, the only difference being that the former has the means (the resources) to act on what is universal in the human condition: our longing for significance, which, ironically and existentially, lies outside the realm of purchase.

Not unlike the groupie, who unconditionally proffers her ovaries to the great rock musicians of our time, the art collector proffers his coffers to the world’s greatest art productions. Both are paying their highest respects to the principle of creation, and for this reason alone deserve our grudging admiration because they have the courage to act on dreads and desires that are the stuff of the species.

If we could dictate our individual destinies, the first choice of most would not be to be a rich someone, but to be a significantly creative someone, who can play God with a small ‘g’, who can create — out of nothing — that special art or music or literature that will resonate for all time. ‘To be someone’ (as Tracy Chapman sings) is a primordial longing that speaks to each and every one of us, and, in the context of our individual make-up and situation, we do what we can.

Since the buyer is constitutionally limited to the purchase of created things, and all of the above represents what he is buying or buying into, at $137 million, I would say he’s getting the deal of a lifetime.