Somewhat Troubling

In Newcity Art's blog, I found an small article about a peculiar fund raising technique happening at the Art Institute of Chicago. Individual 'dots' in Seurat's La Grande Jatte are being 'adopted' for $10 each. I suppose this is something like having a star named after you; you retain some unseen tie to the star, but can't actually hold it or have it or really even be sure someone else hasn't also named it after themselves. I have to wonder, is there a time-limit on this adoption? If the museum ever decides to sell the painting (highly unlikely, but let's consider it), what happens to the dots? This brings to mind, albeit tenuously, Rindy Sam's kissing of a Cy Twombly painting, then attempting to claim it a collaboration. It's startling how little control over a work of art an artist retains once it's hung on someone else's wall.

Obviously, the Seurat example is one of creative fund raising and little to worry about. Perhaps I am so struck by it because I am in the middle of reading I Sold Andy Warhol (Too Soon) and have a head full of talk of monetary and ownership considerations in the art world. This is not to say that I'm not a bit disgusted by the book; Richard Polsky's protestations that he's merely going with the flow- that the art world is leaving good dealers *cough*middlemen*cough* like him behind and what can he do but sell paintings like oil futures- are a bit too much. He expresses lament over the state of his beloved art world and it's pursuit of monetary over cultural gain, all the while a little too careful to compare his lowly hotel rooms with those of his clients. And as a side note, the digs at his gold-digging ex-wives are as unnecessary as they are ugly. Who cares, anyway? This book, ostensibly about the art world, is at it's core a book meant to alleviate Polsky's guilt over joining the race to break records at auction-houses.