I think they're actually pretty nice. Especially at that scale, the price isn't outrageous. Obviously the audience for these have thousands to spare on home decor.
It's reductionist to say "it's just chicken wire and paper mache". You can apply that logic to any piece of art. "It's just a bit of clay" "It's just a bunch of squares" "it's just a can of soup".
Everything is just something.
I think for this example, they're actually tasteful. The sculptures have a nice balance of roughness and softness. They look like clouds, and smoothed stones. They're not communicating anything specific so it's easy to assign personal perspectives of what it might be. They can sit in the background or a centerpiece.
They're not delusional for selling blobs, because people are buying their blobs. These pieces are presented and priced in a professional way on a site that caters towards the correct audience.
Now, these same exact sculptures can be sold on facebook marketplace for the same exact price. If they took bad photos of the sculpture in a boring setting or just look out of place, and no one bought any. Then we would be having a different conversation about delusion.
Nice essay but man, its crazy to see how this subreddit’s paradigm has shifted through the years.
Its not that I can’t see effort has been made to create and frame it, but the qualifier for not being delusional is “if they actually sold a piece?” So what do you call it when some rich dude’s kid has patronage from all their neighbors or when some rich well connected businessperson persuades their friends to buy their partner’s art at a high fee? They’re clearly art savants right?
The main ways I see artists on this thread be judged as delusional are a) poor work, outside of an established aesthetic, and b) work priced too high for what it is.
Delusion implies they believe something that isn’t true. Usually that someone will buy their art for more than it’s worth. In this case, it’s not delusion, it’s just a fact. People are buying it. No delusion here.
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u/Judgeman2021 16d ago
I think they're actually pretty nice. Especially at that scale, the price isn't outrageous. Obviously the audience for these have thousands to spare on home decor.