Friday, November 16, 2018

"He knows the price of everything... and the value... of nothing." Flawless.


This is a Friday night coda, of sorts, to my earlier ones -- on Banksy. One reviewer said -- of this new HBO documentary -- that it is like "an onion, in that the more you peel away its layers. . . the more you want to. . . cry."

As I sat just now on the couch, with tears rolling down my cheeks, I so hoped the doc (just finished in 2018) would close with Banksy's perfect commentary / performance art. Alas, it does not. But you may imagine it -- as a flawless epilogue.

From just one review:

. . . .[W]e meet Richter [the artist] himself, a super-cool dude who doesn’t want his work to end up in penthouses. . . . He wants them in museums. [Another, a dealer] taking this on board, says museums hoard half their treasures in basements, which she compares to “cemeteries”. She and Richter, both articulate, treat what happens to paintings as a matter of life and death.

It makes your heart race.

[We also, perhaps most poignantly, meet] Jewish collector Stefan Edlis, who discusses, among other things, his affection for a Maurizio Cattelan sculpture called Him. Edlis has the patient air of a “schmuck” (his word) who always gets the last laugh. It’s a pleasure to make his acquaintance. . . .


Do take the time to watch it on demand, or in its "live" airing -- on this Saturday night. I would only ask that you keep Banksy's satire of it all, firmly in mind, throughout. Onward.

नमस्ते

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