You'd never know it from the market today, but according to the Guardian's Jonathan Jones, art and money do NOT go well together.
That's his explanation for why Damien Hirst sucks so bad these days--because he has 100 million pounds--and he's sticking with it. Same thing happened to Dali and Warhol, the chumps. Got all caught up in the money and the fame and the trappings and neglected the art.
OK... never mind that alongside his sellout portrait factory, Warhol did make interesting and even important work throughout his career. And never mind that Dali was the diametric opposite, a fraud who exploited his early influence and flooded his own market with counterfeits and crap. Who IS Jones' idea of an artist who doesn't let making a ton of money bring his art down?
The most brilliant concealer of wealth was Picasso. From his 30s onwards, the modern master could afford the best studios and houses. But when we look at his painting of his studio on his Cannes estate we don't think of him as rich in the same vulgar way as Dali. This is because Picasso lived for work...Uh-huh. Because with only 10,000,000 ceramics and that Frankie Goes To Hollywood album cover, the Cannes Estate Period produced some of Picasso's most important works.
Do rich artists make bad art? [guardian]
