Slow life

Art is the drug

Alex James

13 October 2007

Alex James's first column for The Spectator

In Miami, there isn’t a single billionaire who isn’t in the clutches of one or more art dealers. An edgy contemporary art collection is de rigueur and it is impossible to go for dinner in any of the big houses without first being marched around a static carnival of death and genitalia. There, the rich people use art as a weapon to beat each other with and they all make money out of it, too. Back at home, we’re not quite at that level, yet. One of our neighbours who owns several large houses was beginning to feel that maybe she lacked an art collection. She told me she’d been to a few art galleries and couldn’t believe how expensive art was. Then she’d gone to another place where it was really cheap, and you could hardly tell the difference. Some of the pictures were massive, too, and still really cheap. She’d bought loads. This was a very refreshing attitude, but the art world is all about money, and accumulating art is really just speculating on pretty things.

The great thing about art isn’t money. The great thing about art is art. I stick all the invitations on a big wall and stare at the images. The art world is a bubble that will surely burst, but in the meantime let it whirr: I’m very happy just looking at it.