Speaking of satire, this isn’t one. I know it sounds like a satire, but it isn’t. It also sounds like it could be one of those tongue-in-cheek bite-sized science fiction stories Isaac Asimov used to write, but it isn’t one of those, either.
It’s real.
Let this quote suffice: “Salvatore Garau has sold his latest invisible sculpture” (https://wamu.org/story/21/06/01/italian-artist-sells-invisible-sculpture-for-real-money/). For $18,000. Not make-believe money. The buyer gets a certificate.
Of what? Idiocy?
Paying $18,000 literally for nothing. Once upon a time, this would have been called a sin: incontinence. Having more money than is good for you and not knowing what to do with it–so you waste it. Squander it.
I think it’s probably still a sin; and probably carries its own punishment, too.
This world is growing more grotesque by the day. It is too much for my little pea brain to wrap around, so I
don’t try. I just read things I know are true, and the rest ..nah. I don’t know how you handle all this, but I have to salute you for your ability.
It’s a little easier to bear, now that I have a new book to work on. Anyway, the Lord didn’t put me here just to show cat videos.
Showing cat videos is a mitzvah (a good deed).
Didn’t Hans Christian Anderson write a little story about something similar called The Emperor’s New Clothes?
Yes, he did.
My thought exactly.
This is a recurrent scam in the “art” world. In the 1960s, the big thing were canvases painted all white and called “white on white #10” or some other number. Some of these were actually hung in museums and/or sold for thousands of dollars. And then there’s the “found art,” which is usually a pile of salvaged junk. And of course we remember the toilets and urinals that were mounted on slabs and exhibited as “ironic art.” I always laughed when some museum janitor was punished for throwing some of the “art” away, thinking it was part of the trash.
I almost threw out my art teacher’s fiberglas “sculpture,” while helping him clean up. “Where do you want this junk?” I asked. He laughed and said, “You know it’s junk and I know it’s junk–but it’s going on display at the gallery this weekend.”