Mark Leidhauser has held in his hands more great works of art than any king of pope or Medici ever did. A senior curator at the National Gallery, he oversees the framing of the paintings...
"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"
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Ha ha!
ReplyDeleteCrap is a good word - I could think of a few other words to describe that kind of work.
ReplyDeleteJust put Kelly's name into Google images. Many, many of his designs online, all pretty much the same. "One trick pony" is the expression that comes to mind (and an unimpressive trick, at that).
ReplyDeleteSomething else that came to mind:
"$Five Million?! You're. Effing. Kidding. Me."