Priceless ... a still from the KLF's £1m bonfire
How much is art worth? To Mexican financier David Martinez it's $140m, the price he paid for a Jackson Pollock at the start of November. If you're the KLF it's more than money can buy, which is why they burned £1m on a Scottish island a few years back.
For Swedish artist Tobias Sternberg, it's worth exactly what it says it is. His solo show at Edinburgh's Corn Exchange Gallery is his first in a commercial gallery, so he's made the price tag part of the work.
There's a laptop computer made from oak and aluminium, a leather three-seat settee hung on the wall and "meticulously crafted" ceramic window wipe mounted on glass. In each case, the price is included in the design and matches the real-world equivalent. So the wooden laptop is yours for £629, the settee for £599 and the window wipe a snip at £3.99. Most provocative is his "development opportunity", the skeleton of a house in a glass bottle which goes for "only" £199,184 just like a real house would. Sternberg says he'll rent it out at the going monthly rate if no one stumps up the full price.
Taking magazine adverts as his inspiration, he's integrated the prices as if they were part of his regular colour palette. You see the £3,000 through the glass of his conservatory, the £499 embossed on the surface of his maple leaf side table and the £99 written on his ceramic "ready to go" mattress.
It makes you wonder if you can afford to buy the work before you decide if you even like it.
Sternberg, who funds his life as an artist by working as a carpenter in London, says he's not anti-capitalist, just interested in the way we impose arbitrary values on consumer goods. He appears to have put just as much effort and artistry into his window wipe as his house, so how to justify the £199,180.01 differential?
Such questions are contagious. Every conversation at last week's private view seemed to be about money. Why are we happy to spend £10 on four drinks in a pub, but think £5 is pricy for a bottle of wine? Why do millionaires complain about the cost of cinema tickets? Was it vulgar to spend as little as £3.99 on the window wipe? Would it be ethical to sell it on for more?
In the spirit of the occasion, I have decided to take this blog entry in the opposite direction and declare that it is not journalism but art. I will bill the Guardian £30,000 accordingly unless, of course, someone would like to make a higher bid first. Any takers?
