#anyway if theres any money laundering going on i promise you its not on the artists end

[spitblaze]

I'm 100% convinced modern art is just a way for rich people to launder money. "here's a sock I glued to a banana, $10k". Nothing weird going on here.

Now hold on a second, that's a great example- first, we need the context that artists, unless they are doing commissions, generally don't sell their art directly to collectors, it often goes through an intermediary, through art dealers and auctions.

So that begs the question- is that sock on a banana meant to just earn the artist some quick cash? Or is it there to say something to the art dealer, who's going to take a full half of the cut on average despite doing nothing but acting as a middleman? Is it meant to say something to the only people who could afford such a thing, the ultra-rich, and will treat it as an investment, rather than art, as they so often do?

Do you remember Banksy's shredded painting?

[ID: Banksy's 2018 painting Girl With A Balloon, which famously had a shredder concealed in the frame. It is half-shredded, and two gallery workers dressed in white, with white gloves and navy aprons, are calmly holding the frame. End ID]

What was the context of that? Just to get a reaction? Or was it saying something about ascribed value, or how art is treated after it's purchased by private collectors? Is this still valuable after it's been shredded? The auctioneers certainly thought so, because they put it back together, ruining the point of the whole thing.

Money laundering is such an easy answer, but the amount of artists who feel positively about their art being bought for millions and then squirreled away and sat on for value are...vanishingly few, to say the least. Remember what I said in my original post about the vacuum? About how so much ready-made art, the kind that people hate so much, is often about the fetishizing of commodities? Sure, it's always nice to get a paycheck, but do you think the same artist who makes art about that would be happy to have their own works treated the same way? As cool things to be bought and sold and looked at sometimes, rather than something the many can enjoy and contemplate?

The answer when you see something stupid being sold at ridiculously high prices is often one of three things: One, it could be that it's something that perhaps you don't see the value in, but is in fact a sort of masterpiece in the traditional sense, a piece that one makes to show that they have mastered a medium.

[ID: Jeff Koons's 1986 Rabbit, a three-foot-tall metal sculpture meticulously sculpted to look like a mylar balloon shaped like a rabbit with a carrot, rather than stainless steel. It was sold at auction for 91.1 million. End ID]

This rabbit may not look very impressive to you sitting there, but you have to take into account what it took to made this, the skill that went into this, the years of training and trial and error, and the ascribed value that other people see in it-the amount of people who see this, see themselves, feel nostalgia for their childhood, come away with meaning. There's a lot more here than just a metal rabbit, and the age specifically adds value- would the Mona Lisa be as valuable as it is if it weren't from the Renaissance? There’s also plenty of art that, while not necessarily technically impressive, conveys a narrative and emotional weight so heavy, that others can’t help but empathize and ascribe it with high value based on it’s meaning alone. You may need the artist’s own words to help you reach this point, but finding something deeply emotional in otherwise mundane objects is a great experience. A book full of words you can read is often more valuable than a book full of words you can’t, after all.

The second thing that it could very easily be, is that the artist is making fun of the people who are actually seeing real profit, and the whole business of art buying and selling.

[ID: Maurizio Cattelan's 2019 Comedian, a ripe banana duct-taped to a blank white wall. End ID]

As I said at the start, the average commission an art dealer will take is 50%- and that's at the beginning, when the artist hands over their work. Every time the work changes hands after that, the artist will rarely see a dime. The people who are making money here aren't the artists. In fact, up until recently, the ultra wealthy were using the purchase of art for tax evasion- if you were an artist, and your art got sold for millions years after you had initially sold it for maybe a few thousand after days of thought and labor and years of experience and training, only to know it was bought for tax evasion and wealth accumulation, wouldn't YOU get pissed? The banana itself was a mockery of this whole thing. Who would buy a banana for 120k? Who on earth would justify tax fraud and investment in a fruit taped to a wall? While that in and of itself is the joke of the piece, it was lost on many of us who aren't billionaires, simply because most of us don't have the context.

And don't just take my word for it, here's a whole article full of art-world context most people don't have, here's several articles about the banana.

And while we're at it, bc of course it always comes back to capitalism, here's a summary Marx's general formula for capital, which is promise is relevant and will help you understand why rich people pay mad money for this shit.

TL;DR- I promise you, the artists who make socks on bananas that sell for huge amounts of money know it's bullshit just as much as you do, get much less money out of it than you think, and they're doing it on purpose to piss off the ultra-wealthy that only want the art to add to their dragon-hoard of investments and tax fraud.

[mikiruma]

okay i'm snapping what the hell is saints row about. who's the dude with the giant titties you keep thirsting over and who's the mcdonalds emo. i need some answers bc i don't know shit.

ill edit this w a readmore bc it got Very wordy and im on mobile but i promise you. this series is a mess, i live for it, i could go ON abt it for days but this response was long enough fhwkfhejhfnd

1) so basically the premise in most of the games is like. you are a member (leader as of sr2) of a street gang (the third street saints!) and though the story is tweaked slightly for each installment, the overall goal is the same- control different neighborhoods in your city, squash the other gangs, be badass. i *call* it a grand theft auto clone but tbh i havent played gta, the gameplay's similar enough though. the first two games are more uhh... grounded? than the later 3? the plotlines are darker, deaths & events are more fucked up in a heavier/moral sense, etc etc. but the last 3 are way more silly i think. the entire series is kinda packed with crude/sexual humour and essentially responding to a punch with a flamethrower, but it goes over the top in the newer games which is.. why i always liked em lol.

but its just funny in general to think of the plot progression. oh i witness a gang war so im recruited in a gang whose current leader... wants to end gang violence. oh that leader tried to kill me and arrested/killed everyone else so i am going to go apeshit on this city until i find him and kill him back. oh somehow we are international celebrities and do crime as publicity stunts, i am gonna ask mayor burt reynolds to help us with this zombie invasion. oh now i am president of the united states, time to get the earth blown up by an alien warlord and do it with whats left of my gang every survivor plus an ai in a ball.

ive seen Some Shit abt the general timeline but tbh ive always tried to piece it together like. ok these games take place in/around whatever year they were released. besides sr4 which would be... 2019 if my math is correct? i just felt like mentioning that bc i am not touching any canon timeline

OH ALSO the main reason i even got into the series. i literally bought sr3 because of the character customization. the body mods could.... use a lot of work imo but what you can do for your protags face is BANANAS... and changing voice pitch in sr4 was fun too bc male 1 was ok for my boss but having it just a teensy bit higher REALLY made it

tldr; i cant help you there i am just along for this ride

2) im assuming you mean johnny gat not bc theres any competition but like. theres so many dudes like that in this game

his role is actually pretty consistent in that he stays a lieutenant, and hes one of the rare characters (besides. the protag i think?) who's been in every single game. he's the designated badass of the saints and is really good at coming up with plans that involve lots of guns or blowing stuff up. if i typed everything i liked abt him right now this post would be a mile long but trust me he is an excellent man, even tho he might be the scariest motherfucker ever and i probably would be afraid of him irl, he fully deserves that. hes loyal to the saints and his boss which i absolutely respect. still bitter abt sr3 "killing" him bc cmon. he cannot die. does that count in the spoiler? its the literal first mission after u customize your character so i dont think so// whatever ive been posting untagged spoilers for the other games bc theyve been out for a decade

3) IM STILL LOSING MY MIND OVER THAT SJSDHADDHSI mcdonalds emo.... thats his legal name now....

but seriously matt miller is like. one of my fav characters from sr3. he's the leader of one of the rival gangs, the deckers, and they specialize in hacking & money laundering and stuff like that. matt specifically is 16 in his debut game which is really funny to learn bc imagine being a ballsy ass kid repeatedly nae naeing the us government because you can.

anyway i like him bc instead of killing the other gang leaders like usual, u just fight him in a vr world and ur both sick ass dragons and he decides "actually i dont wanna go brain dead. ill give u either weapons or car discounts" then he fucks off back to england. then it lets him come back for sr4 and yall are friends now :D yes yall tried to kill each other but whats past is past. i would be his friend irl honestly hes great. also im still firm on the autistic matt train bc of how often he shares his love for nyte blayde & im WEAK over the boss eventually getting into it as well