Christies, the international auction house, set a record record. A painting by Picasso went for 179 million dollars (that’s 176 followed by six zeros), casually setting the record for the highest amount paid for any art object sold at an auction ever. The sale led to a flurry of media reports about global inequality and the Unfairness of Life in general (mainly by those of us that don’t have 176 million or a Picasso or both).
This news sounds wonderfully historic – a moment that you will tell your children about with pride and smugness — until you realize that the last such record was set in November 2013, and the one before that in February of the same year. I follow sales like these for two reasons. The first is that I love art, and am always happy that someone would spend that kind of money on a painting rather than a jumbo jet outfitted with a personal bowling alley. The second is that auction sales like these tend to give you a sense of how the world economy is doing, in broad strokes. When the last recession hit (I shall tell children when I’m old) the art marker suddenly seized up, as people were less likely to spend on speculative investments like Rothkos than concrete ones gold or trophy wives. Why spend on a painting whose legacy you can’t guarantee (this is true of anything made after 1960)?
It comes down to basic economics, really. There are a limited number of Picassos in the world because he’s, well, dead. But there are an ever-increasing number of people who want them and (perhaps more relevantly) can afford to buy them. In essence, a Picassso is never going to be a bad investment. (This is why dying is the best thing an artist can do for his career.)
Will art museums in the oil-and-gas-rich Gulf countries be nude-free zones?
But this sale was different. It took about 5 minutes after the hammer hit for people to speculate as to who the mystery buyer was (it’s common practice not to disclose buyers of works this expensive, to protect against theft as well as envy). Most tongues wagged that it was the Qatari sheikh who had bought it and what a shame that was since the beautiful piece will be locked up now in a repressive ivory tower where no one can see it. It showed a nasty and frankly racist view prevalent in so many places, the Keep-your-hands-of-our-culture kind of racism. There were actual op-eds in major newspapers preaching earnestly about this.
There are two things that make this whole story funny. One is that the painting (titled ‘Women of Algiers’) is based on another piece painted by Delacroix as a homage to his favorite place, Morocco, and therefore it’s kind of debatable as to whose “culture” it fits in with. The second is that the Sheikh of Qatar is not the mystery buyer after all, and was being blamed for nothing. Still, the op-eds didn’t really apologize and pretended that nothing really happened.
I resent the assumption that conservative value systems are exclusive to the Arab (read: Muslim) states. When Fox News reported on the sale, they decided to blur out the nipples of the Picasso figure in case they offended someone with the idea of nipples. Now I don’t know if you’ve seen a Picasso painting or not, but you’d be hard-pressed to tell a nipple from a foot. Still, Fox censored the image at the same time as blaming the Sheikh for being an Evil Stealer of Freedoms.
A painting by Picasso
I will concede this: the amount of Western art currently residing in the Arab gulf does lead to the logical question of where it will be displayed. Can deeply conservative societies build public museums with the (mostly Western) world’s greatest treasures because they can afford them? Are they doing this to stimulate the minds of their populations (*choke*) or to flaunt their purchasing powers? The Louvre is opening in Abu Dhabi soon; so is the Guggenheim. The Qatari royal family’s collection of art is earmarked to form a major museum. Will these be nude-free zones? In societies otherwise deeply uncomfortable with the display of human figures (let alone the actual human body), what is the fate of these works? Is the fact that the Sheikha of Qatar owns dozens of masterpieces of modern art a sign that eventually Qatar will be an art-appreciating culture, or does it only confirm that she has a sh**-load of money?
It’s a question I often find myself asking in relation to Pakistani artists. Are we the kind of country that can display a Shakir Ali nude or a Saddquain figure in public without feeling embarrassed, or worse, saying those artists are not “Pakistani” (read: conservative) enough?
The long answer is argumentative but the short answer is No. We don’t have public museums mainly because we are not a museum-adoring public. So most of our best pieces are in private collections and will remain so until they are eventually, inevitably sent abroad.
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