One Man’s Junk Is Another Man’s Very Pricey Sculpture

Take a look at this heaping hunk of crap:

It looks like a really bad high school art project, doesn’t it?

Well, guess how much this thing sold for? If you haven’t already seen the story, you probably came in way low…

“A large-scale metal sculpture by American artist David Smith has become the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction, fetching 23.8 million dollars at Sotheby’s in New York.

Five bidders competed for Smith’s “Cubi XXVII” which was the starting lot at a Wednesday evening sale of 54 contemporary works that brought in 114.5 million dollars.”

After seeing that this craptacular piece of junk went for nearly 24 million dollars, two thoughts quickly came to mind…

#1) Why does the government need to be involved in funding the arts when there are dopey rich people shelling out almost $115 million dollars at a single auction? If there are people who are willing to pay all that money for this jinormous welding accident and it’s undoubtedly misshapen artistic cousins, why in the world are taxpayers being asked to fund the National Endowment of the Arts?

#2) What ever happened to making art that, you know, actually looks like something? You know, art that doesn’t look like it was made by a HP Lovecraft fan on acid? The fact that a sculpture, that looks like a giant, metallic tinkertoy experiment gone wrong, sold for nearly 24 million dollars shows you how worthless much of what passes for “art” these days really is.

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