From Edward Fullbrook Over the weekend I read two articles (1, 2) in The Guardian about market-value. One concerned the painter Bansky, the other a truffle hunter in Croatia. I’ve been fan of Bansky for twenty years, beginning when he was a local graffiti artist in my part of town. A couple of years ago one of his paintings, Girl With Balloon, was auctioned at Sotheby’s in London for £1.1m. As soon as the auctioneer’s hammer fell, Bansky’s canvass “passed through a secret shredder hidden in its large Victorian-style frame, leaving the bottom half in tatters and only a solitary red balloon left on a white background in the frame.” Here is the one-minute video. That shredded painting has been retitled “Love is in the Bin” and will be auctioned again at Sotheby’s in October when
Topics:
Edward Fullbrook considers the following as important: Uncategorized
This could be interesting, too:
John Quiggin writes Machines and tools
Eric Kramer writes An economic analysis of presidential immunity
Angry Bear writes Protesting Now and in the Sixties and Seventies
Lars Pålsson Syll writes The non-existence of economic laws
from Edward Fullbrook
Over the weekend I read two articles (1, 2) in The Guardian about market-value. One concerned the painter Bansky, the other a truffle hunter in Croatia.
I’ve been fan of Bansky for twenty years, beginning when he was a local graffiti artist in my part of town. A couple of years ago one of his paintings, Girl With Balloon, was auctioned at Sotheby’s in London for £1.1m.
As soon as the auctioneer’s hammer fell, Bansky’s canvass “passed through a secret shredder hidden in its large Victorian-style frame, leaving the bottom half in tatters and only a solitary red balloon left on a white background in the frame.” Here is the one-minute video.
That shredded painting has been retitled “Love is in the Bin” and will be auctioned again at Sotheby’s in October when it is expected to sell for between £4-6m.
Assuming it does sell for four million and a bit, that is three million pounds that six seconds of shredding added to market-value wealth and to this year’s GDP. More than most of us add in a lifetime.
The other market-value article was a first-person account by a Croatian truffle hunter, Giancarlo Zigante. In his late twenties he took up truffle hunting, a mostly night-time occupation, to supplement his income as a tool-maker for the medical industry. He fell in love with truffle hunting and soon was earning enough money to give up tool-making.
Giancarlo had been happily living the truffle hunter’s life for twenty years, when one night in 1999 after leaving his house with his German pointer at 2:OO AM, he and his dog dug up by far the biggest truffle Giancarlo had ever seen
“I weighed the truffle straight away and knew I had something special on my hands. It weighed 1,310g. In the morning I spoke with Guinness World Records, who confirmed that it was the biggest truffle ever recorded. I could have sold it for €1m and made my fortune, but I knew instantly that I didn’t want to do that. It’s great to be rich, but I felt the truffle could have more impact if it was shared. The truffle was found in Istria and should be consumed here, not sold to a rich person abroad.
I invited 200 people from Istria to a feast, on me, and we ate it between us. The night was very special; an amazing atmosphere. Even the president of Croatia was there. Every white truffle tastes amazing – but this one was different.”
Giancarlo today holding a sculpture of his truffle
So it was that that one million euros of market-value never came into existence. By eating instead of selling that ruffle. Giancarlo and his friends lowered Croatia’s per capita GDP.
