One of the first lines in the article reads, “Like any art - and like anything else, really - it’s worth what the highest bidder says it is.” I love this explanation of why such high bids and prices should be justified. Something that may not speak to you might speak to another person. It’s the whole “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” cliche. I feel like one day the balloon dog GIF will find a bidder that either is enthralled by the message behind the GIF or they just think it would be cool and funny to be the owner of a $6,000 GIF that they don’t even have exclusive access to. I’m a fan of art in all mediums and I’m interested to see how property of / exclusive access to digital artwork will be monitored in the future because I think that’s something that sets tangible art apart from digital art. Hypothetically, if you had a wiener dog and you wanted to see some wiener dog artwork, of course, you could just Google “wiener dog art” and scroll through the results. The proudest wiener dog owners might even want to take this a step further and purchase a personalized portrait of their pup on Etsy or maybe a more generic print that just features the same fur color. Others might prefer saving an animated GIF to further “capture the essence” and bring the dog to life. Maybe they’ll use it as screensavers around the house. People buy art and display it in whatever way suits their preferences and if they want to spend $6,000 dollars doing it, then that’s their prerogative. While I don’t think tangible artwork will be out of style any time soon, I do agree that digital art and interpretations deserves just as much respect.
- alle6041
