Billionaire superyacht owner's children pelt onboard Basquiat painting with cornflakes

The Morgan Library and Museum has three Gutenberg Bibles. It is not hard to imagine a near future in which, for some reason, cash-strapped, the Morgan agrees to sell one of them to some billionaire for an ungodly sum of money.

But fine, not that. Priceless art goes on the block all the time. At least four Modiglianis have sold at auction in the last decade for prices in excess of $50 million. It’s fair to assume that some insane billionaire isn’t cornering the market on Modiglianis through shell corporations with the intention of destroying them, but it isn’t impossible, either. Once you’ve bought it, you can do any damned thing you want with it.

2 Likes

If you really want art and culture to not be traded as a commodity, then you have to end capitalism as a system that endlessly commodifies everything it comes into contact with.

15 Likes

I’m no art historian, but I imagine Basquiat would have approved of the kids throwing cornflakes and disapproved of the billionaire toting this “investment” around in a yacht.

9 Likes

…is that for real

1 Like
  1. What does one need with a ‘super’ yacht that a normal yacht can do?
  2. Why the hell is any work of art of significance in a private collection? To steal a phrase from Dr. Jones…
7 Likes

His kids had thrown their cornflakes at it over breakfast on his yacht

It was later reported that one of the cornflakes bore an uncanny resemblance to Ayn Rand and is now hanging in the Basquiat’s place on the superyacht’s wall.

6 Likes

Oh the Humanities… Meanwhile, In Dharavi some little kid is shitting her guts out and will not live out the night for want of some clean water and $4 worth of antibiotics…

9 Likes

I thought Kellogg invented cornflakes to be so dull as to kill any emotional stirrings of their eater. These were probably some rich person cornflakes that had been sprinkled with caviar and high quality cocaine, with the milk subbed out for champagne.

3 Likes

I can imagine the mess. We’ve given up on our carpet. Once the 8 month old is old enough to stop puking on it (in a few years) we’ll replace it all.

2 Likes

I would be terrified just having a painting worth that much sailing around on the ocean. I would seal it in a waterproof case. Heck, I think maybe I’d give that money to charity if I was considering spending it on a folly for the wall of my breakfast bar.

3 Likes

If they think so little of the painting I am willing to take it off of their hands for free.

2 Likes

Mona Lisa Skeet Shoot - !

5 Likes

For the most part, especially when you’re talking about something less than half a millennium old, what is “art of significance” is more or less synonymous with art that people want to try to compete with museums to buy. Museums won’t win all those bidding wars.

On the wall of the room where I type this are half a dozen works of staggering creativity and brilliant execution, created by yours truly. Objectively, their “significance” would make a brave man weep at the mere sight of them. But unfortunately neither museums nor yacht-owners are interested, the philistines.

7 Likes

If they wanted cornflake-themed art they should have stuck with Basquiat’s friend and sometimes-collaborator Andy Warhol.

11 Likes

John Kellogg was a weirdo on several subjects. Masturbation and sex were very bad and needed to be avoided (Kellogg himself never had sex with his wife). Foods with actual taste to them were a cause of sexual desire, so his flaked cereals were designed to be as bland and uninteresting as possible. His brother Will, being more of an entrepreneur, added sugar to make them more popular, and this created a rift between them. The brother won the battle for control over the company and so today’s corn flakes are a lot less tedious to eat than the original.

John Kellogg was also an aficionado of mastication - the idea being that you chew each mouthful hundreds of times, then spit out what’s left, and never, ever swallow anything. (if you do this, food mixes in with your saliva, which you swallow automatically without conscious thought, so Kellogg fooled himself into thinking he wasn’t actually eating any of the food).

So besides being bland and boring, the other key concept to the cereal flake was that it was supposed to be something crunchy that you could chew and chew and chew. You were not supposed to add liquid to it, because that would soften it, which was bad.

John Kellogg was also very obsessed with bowel movements, hence his penchant for making cereals out of whole grain. And I’ve probably forgotten several other kinds of quackery that he was all in on. If he had lived today, he would probably be writing ad copy for Gwyneth Paltrow’s web site.

TL,DR: everyone today is eating their corn flakes totally wrong. Eaten properly, corn flakes will cure you of masturbation, perversion, and constipation and ensure you don’t ever have any sexual desires. Also, for maximum good health and pure living, don’t forget to spend five minutes chewing each mouthful of food. ETA: remember, proper mastication prevents masturbation!

http://www.museumofquackery.com/amquacks/kellogg.htm

ETA: clarified which Kellogg I’m talking about, as suggested by @Brainspore.

11 Likes

We should probably specify which Kellogg we’re referring to in these discussions. It’s like saying “Wright and his brother started an airplane company together.”

For the record: John Harvey Kellogg was the health nut who invented cornflakes, Will Keith Kellogg was the businessman who actually founded the company that bears their family name.

5 Likes

I used to wonder how long it took wealthy people (who didn’t inherit anything) to feel comfortable spending large sums of money without fear or considering what else those funds could buy. When I got the orthodontist’s bill for braces, all I could think was, “Geez, that money could’ve paid for a car.” So, I was terrified of damaging them.

2 Likes

I’m a Scruffy in the “art world.” Rich people do this shit all the time. From boogers to dog piss. Wiping off the flakes probably did more damage in the long run, unfortunately.

1 Like

“Societies” do spend large amounts of money for museums and galleries to care for valuable artworks, the problem is even if they spend lots, they can’t possibly own all the art. Unless societies will also ban the private sale of art (goodbye starving artists, hello starved and dead artists) then wealthy private citizens willing to pay more and more for art, will only drive the cost of keeping valuable works out of private investors hands higher and higher.

You’d effectively be draining the public purse because someone wealthy wants to own something.