The 6,000,000 Issue

By the accredited correspondent of the BKN News

New York, 13 feb 2011 (BKN).—An agent invested yesterday the total sum of USD 6,000,000 in artworks which were bought for an important anonymous collector.

The transaction took place in the finantial center of New York. The agent chose and acquired six items among twelve offered to him and payed no less than a million dollars each.

The twelve most remarkable items to be sold were:

1. The Coming of the Storm (L'approche de l'orage), by Hyppolyte Boulanger (1871). Lit. Robert Hoozee (Paris-Bruxelles, Bruxelles-Paris, 1997).

2. Polyhymnia, by Hans Hofmann (1963). Artist's statement: "When I paint, I paint under the dictate of feeling or sensing, and the outcome all the time is supposed to say something. Painters must speak through paint, not through words. It is not the form that dictates the color, but the color that brings out the form." Lit. Dennis Earl Fehr & Giselle Borzob

3. ADonald Judd: Stark (1965). Lit. Minimalism vs. Academic Art

4. Gadging (Los amordazamientos, 1972-4), by Alberto Heredia. Lit. Iconoteca, Alberto Giudici & Natalia March

5. Saint Moses (Chiesa di San Moisè, behind Piazza San Marco and Palazzo dei Camerlenghi), Venice, 1668

6. A modern house. Minimalistic style. View over the Mediterranean Sea.

7. Dead Mask of William Blake, plaster head, 1827

8. The prehistorical limestone statuette known as the Venus of Willendorf (22.000 BCE). Lit. Christopher Witcombe & Stephen R. Berlant (The Journal of Prehistoric Religion, 1999).

9. Garden Dwarf carrying a Pot, from Mirabell (Bastionsgarten, historic Zwergelgarten, Zwergengarten, Zwerglgarten, Zwergenpark, Mirabellgarten, Schoß Mirabell), Salzburg, 1716. Lit. The Lost Dwarfs

10. Jugendstil eartenware Vase, by Max Läuger (1898). Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Lit. V&A

11. Poster for Job Cigarettes, by Alphons Mucha (1896). Lit. Artchive & Artcyclopedia

12. Birds' Head Haggadah, Hebrew manuscript illumination, Germany, 13th century. Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Lit. IMJ, Yale & Jeremy Norman; see also BibliOdyssey & Richard McBee

Transaction Time. As requested, the agent observed carefully a projection of twelve slides with the above-presented items, while taking notes to subsequently indicate the six items he selected and to payed a total of 6,000,000 dollars in cash. Once the deal was over the agent declared to be very pleased.

Too Good to be True. However, a major problem surfaced as soon as a colleague posed some questions to the agent once the operation was closed. It became then clear then that the agent did not know which type of collection the anonymous collector who had sent him to New York was intendeding to build. According to the words the agent pronounced befor leaving the Big Apple, the criteria he used to choose the selected items depended basically on the value the item in question might reach one day in the market, its formal and/or symbolic properties, the agent's personal taste, and associations, preferences and preconceptions of his own. What the agent did not consider at the moment of purchasing the items was that they were not necessarily artworks, but... educational slides. The agent declared then having had a "wonderful time," today he is well aware that he lived the worst nightmare of his life.

Ref. Image, Preference, Preconception, Price, Personal Experience