The breeding of money

Donald Kuspit on contemporary art in Artnet:

By way of introduction, I want to quote some lines from the tenth and final Duino Elegy of Rainer Maria Rilke. Describing the “booths” in a fair — let’s call it an art fair — “that can please the most curious tastes,” he asserts that there’s one “especially worth seeing (for adults only): the breeding of Money! Anatomy made amusing! Money’s organs on view! Nothing concealed! Instructive, and guaranteed to increase fertility!”

I will suggest that the irrational exuberance of the contemporary art market is about the breeding of money, not the fertility of art, and that commercially precious works of art have become the organ grinder’s monkeys of money. They exist to increase the generative value and staying power of money — the power of money to breed money, to fertilize itself — not the value and staying power of art. —Donald Kuspit

One thought on “The breeding of money

  1. suburbanlife

    This is a great post Jan! I have read the article by Kuspit. Great deal of truth in it.
    A really funny photo in our saturday paper this morning. In the New Homes section are a series of illustrations showing the latest and greatest in bathroom design. The photo I am mentioning had a contemporary painting by Canadian painter, Graham Gillmore, hanging on the wall above the bathroom sink. Now this painter is avidly collected by the “fashion-conscious” collector, new money, or as you will. The irony is that such a work, bought for @$6 – 15,000(Can), is promoted to decorating a lavatory, and most readers of the paper may be largely unaware of this queer juxtaposition of big money and art as a toss-off object. The art object in this case has more to do with the power to dispose of money and at the same time make the art-work despensable. Money rules!


    Hi Suburban, long time no see, yes Money rules! Which reminds me of a blog I occasionally read: We make money, not art.

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