The Value of Art

I joke that my most recent piece of art is without a doubt, the most valuable piece of art I have ever created.

Why?

Well. Look for yourself.

When I share conceptual works with the public via Instagram, I know what to expect. I get a few messages from friends, family, and strangers explaining that they “love” it or that it “resonates with them.” My first question is always, “Why?”

“Can you elaborate?”

Very rarely do I get what I am looking for. So maybe I should stop looking.

One man called it “Egregious.” I wish more people had said that about my paintings!

I believe that my general experiences with painting paintings is the reason I swiftly transitioned away from it—and without a fight, I should add. My art is not a commodity, it’s an inquiry. It is in these modes, methods, and ideologies that I finally feel free to make art the way I think I was intended to.

Much of my art-making stems from Sol Lewitt’s sentences on conceptual art. The realization that ideas and ideas alone can be works of art changed my approach to art-making to my core. Many of my greatest works of art will likely remain in my notes app as ideas surrounded by “ ” in all capitalized letters. Maybe it’s me taking after my Dadaist predecessors and the Fluxus movement who challenged every notion I’d previously hold about my purpose, art, and existence.

I used to give the general public the benefit of the doubt when it came to the digestion of conceptual artworks, but now, I’m generally okay if they don’t get it, hate it, and walk away.

If my stance feels contradictory to previous statements about the topic of accessibility in art, it’s because I am being contradictory. You must put in the hours just like you do in any other field of practice.

Do we need more resources available to people who do want to take this step? Without a doubt!

Confusion, hate, and distaste in reaction to these fields of research and study compliment the artists ability to see what others cannot. These artists are practitioners of sight, feeling, experience, and curiosity. And I have the greatest admiration for their audaciousness.

I beg the question, are you looking hard enough? Are you questioning enough?

It’s a regular occurrence to passively hear a comment about one of the greatest art performances of all time— “why are they doing this?”

A long, passionate discussion could and has ensued. But what I have come to realize is that what we’re witnessing is another’s examination of experience. Of course we’re not going to understand it from first glance.

The want to understand is a long and arduous process.

Like they tell you in business, entrepreneurship, academia, and most everything else, the timeline for understanding seems to be unanimously agreed upon—it’ll take a while.

But when it comes to art, people expect something from the get-go. They want to get it right now. It’s like toddlers attempting to dip their hand in the cookie jar before they even have the foundation to hold them upright. The entitlement that haunts artists starts with those outside the scope of art-making. I don’t owe anyone an explanation for the reason I do some of the things that I do and yet somehow when we do give context we’re still the pretentious ones. I digress.

If you want to understand art better than you did yesterday, well, I suggest you get to work!

Bust out some finger paintings or close your eyes for the entirety of a car ride (as a passenger, of course). I promise you’ll learn something… and if you don’t, at least you tried something new. That’s what artists do day in and day out.

The understanding of art isn’t waiting around for you to catch up and artists certainly aren’t going to give you a step-by-step booklet on the discoveries of their life.

While 20 Dollar Book | $1,500 is simply 20, one dollar bills bound together, it is rationally worth more than any piece of artwork that I have ever made. Logic won’t help you get to an answer. There is no answer— just more questions.

20 Dollar Book | $1,500 has already taken me down a massive wormhole and is potentially the bi-product of 9 months of zero brushes to canvas and 9 months of looking, experiencing, talking, and being.

Some of my friends are upset by it, exclaimed their points and reasoning and others nodded it off as a privilege to do such an act. The government probably wouldn’t take to kindly to it, either.

Believe me when I tell you that I have put a heck of a lot more money towards the making of worse art.

Thank you for sticking around with me and reading my words.

I got it all from you.

See you next time,

Eli, MAXIMA