..to want all the nation's art sold?

[MarkMarkMarkMark]

Maybe I'm missing the point ... but here goes:

It is relatively cheap to produce a reproduction of any painting that is so good it takes an expert with a microscope quite a while to decide it's not the real thing.

Why then should anyone be less interested in visiting a gallery full of top quality reproductions than in visiting a gallery full of originals? Especially if the difference is that by selling the originals off we generate hundreds of millions of pounds?

If you truly wouldn't pay to visit a gallery of reproductions that you couldn't distinguish from the originals ... what then are you paying for? Is it membership of some elitist club? Some sort of lifestyle statement? Forgive me, but isn't art about the picture? If the picture can be copied... the art doesn't go away?

Mark

you are missing the point.

YABU and totally missing the point. We're culturally impoverished enough as we are without doing the equivalent of selling off the family silver.

Spectacularly missing the point.

The originals aren't just pictures, they are a piece of history.

Brian Sewell's view

I would not agree to all the nation's art being sold but agree to Brian Sewell's idea to sell off the second rate art and works kept in storage.

art will all be digitilised soon anyway. sell it off i say....

by the way half of it look like crap, seriously if i could claim my name was x modern artist and i wiped my arse on a bit of canvass i could sell it for 40 mil just for being ironic.

what a load of shit

Agree with CerealOffender and AgainMarjorie.

As far as I can remember some works of art have been sold to raise money. Cannot remember which ones and when sorry.

Have you ever heard of revenues raised by tourism?

Would I have bothered going to galleries in New York, Italy, France or Spain for example to look at a load of reproductions I could see in a book?

Ummmm, no!

bizarre :)

to my mind if you can place something in a pile of essentially worthless identical items and shuffle them together - and at that point not one person on mumsnet would be able to identify the original ... then the original is of no more worth than the others. The image - the thing of value - has left the canvas and is common property.

Is it unreasonable to cry 'emperor's new clothes' at the people clutching hold of the copy they think is the original (quite possibly in error) and telling me it is worth millions and the nation needs it?

Mark

Snowboots fair point. There is a hell of a lot in storage.

Who decides what is second rate? Some that I think are a bit rubbish are classed as modern masterpieces by others. hmm.

A lot of the stuff was given to the nation; even if the law is changed to allow selling off, people would stop giving things in future.

Would I have bothered going to galleries in New York, Italy, France or Spain for example to look at a load of reproductions I could see in a book?

Well the reproductions in a book would be photographs and might lack something of the original (the texture of the brushwork or whatever).

But no, I can't answer you question. I suspect you wouldn't have - but I can't for the life of me imagine a good reason that you wouldn't have gone to see the reproductions hung in a gallery down the road. After all, you can't tell the difference. You're going to fly to New York to savour a non-existent distinction?

Your tastes are clearly very refined :)

Mark

There's a book here, isn't there Mark?

a couple of museums sold off all their Pre-Raphaelites because in the 60s they were regarded as worthless sentimental Victorian twaddle.

I guess it's not that the nation NEEDS it.
It's just nice for the nation to own it. I don't know.

Am sure I couldn't spot a fake. Fake's are sometimes as interesting as originals if there's a good story there and skill involved.. A cheaply done copy is just that and a bit crap. Then, anyone could tell the difference...If they cared!

I have this discussion with my greater family (some are a bit arty) and it becomes rather heated. I'm completely with you Mark. I just don't get why if experts can barely tell the two apart why not use the money to save lives, educate, invest in art colleges etc and have good copies for the rest of us to appreciate.

Problem is that if any art works are sold their are strict rules on the monies gained only being able to be used for investment in new art works. So we'd end up footing the bill for even bigger storage facilities and associated security.

Mark

Or may I call you Spot?

CAn I give you a little help with your essay here?

HAve a google using the word "historicity".

Maybe combine it with "Philip K Dick" if you want to go for extra "marks"

Anything more than that and I think a few people will be invoicing you.

kissy

TheCatinTheHighCastle

Where Mum lives theya re cutting Sn services to only crisis services (so no respite, sports etc) yet there is a huge outcry over selling the art in storage. We cannot move back as unless we neglected ds3 or were ill he'd never get a place in supported accomodation at 18.

I'd think storage art should be sold over cutting what many would deem to be essential services, but do think it would be wrong to sell off the gallery art etc. however we live in wales where museums etc are free and i think at this precise economic moment there is an argument for charging entry to galleries / museums etc to adults not on benefits to raise a few £.

Actually I think art prices continue to hit record highs - the prices reflect that art has become a commodity for the super-rich, often used as investment opportunities etc by corporations.

I'm not bashing anyone's love of art (I like a nice bit of art myself, I do) - I'm just curious about the weight attached to originals - when for me the art is portable, and reproduction isn't a dirty word when it means reproducing every single thing I am able to appreciate in an item...

Mark

I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch your name?

this is a good book on the subject

YABU. Mostly for reasons covered, but also: you know, you can't study a reproduction. It will have no history at all.

People actually do things with art, you know, they don't just gaze vacantly at it and think 'ooh ... pretty ...'.

have you come across the idea of the 'aura' of the work of art Mark?
it has been argued that although people expected the original work to become less important when reproduction became easy, what happened in fact was that the 'aura' of the original increased. The classic example is the Mona Lisa - reproduction gave it its aura and hence its ability to attract millions of visitors, rather than destroying it.

and re the art market, don't forget that selling off national collections would be the quickest way to destabilise it.