Review: The Price of Everything

Artist Larry Poons on his way to his studio to paint in The Price of Everything

The art market is a fickle one, and it's just like the stock market -- it's a combination of experts who proclaim who's hot and who's not, fueled by media coverage and those who follow, wanting to get a piece of the action with lots of money involved.

Meanwhile the one who makes the actual art -- the artist -- continues to be the starving artist... well the ones who consider themselves purists.

That's the crux of The Price of Everything, a fascinating documentary by award-winning director Nathaniel Kahn.



We don't actually get to see Kahn, but we hear him periodically asking people questions -- how much is art worth? Is it really worth that much? Who's to say its value? And why did you buy it?

He talks to all kinds of people, including Amy Cappellazzo at Sotheby's who has masterminded an upcoming auction and she is so pleased with herself as she shows off the final proofs of the catalogue that will go to print.

Cappellazzo admits she is most excited about the chase; getting those pieces together. Now she's coasting and expect the sale will surpass US$100 million.

George Condo painting with an oil stick on canvas

Kahn talks to some of the artists whose works are featured in the upcoming sale, like George Condo, Gerhard Richter, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, and Marilyn Minter.

We watch Condo create a painting from start to finish, building a base of thick colours all over the large canvas before drawing faces with a thick oil stick. Part way through working on the painting, he paints over half the canvas to repaint it over again, showing that artists are constantly working through their paintings -- it's not perfect the first time they put paint to canvas.

Meanwhile Minter's work is so intricate that it looks like a photograph of a woman behind a shower stall, insinuating sexual undertones. She laughs when people realize one of her paintings is actually someone's vagina and then have second thoughts of buying it. Nevertheless, she says money-wise she manages to get by without compromising herself.

Nigerian-born artist Crosby says she produces 12 works a year, but when the film was shot, she had a newborn baby, which cut down her production to about six to eight pieces. While she would like to make more art work, she feels she can't just churn them out -- they wouldn't have the same depth in terms of technique or meaning.

Jeff Koons explains how he works on all his pieces

However these artists contrast with Jeff Koons, who has a number of people working for him in a massive studio, at least two people working on each painting -- painstakingly copying masterpieces -- but the twist is adding half a shiny sphere to the work so that the viewer gets to be a part of the painting.

When Kahn asks Koons if he really is working on each piece, the American artist claims he is, having set up an intricate system of paints that he instructs his artists on how to apply them... he also says there is no way he could finish so much work unless he had help.

Others also suggest Koons knows how to play the game, able to sweet talk people into buying his work, from paintings to sculptures to his collaborated Louis Vuitton bags. He even manages to sell art futures -- how about buying a piece of art he's working on now that will be available in three years? Some collectors snap that up.

His star continues to rise, and he is the complete opposite of Larry Poons, a relatively reclusive artist who seemed to drop off the art world's radar several years ago so some people thought he wasn't even alive. But all he wants to do is just focus on his work -- he doesn't want to get involved in the dirty business of money. He lives a very simple life in the country, holed up in his studio painting very long canvases.

Wealthy art collector Stefan Edlis in his New York apartment

Many years ago he had a specific style of doing dots and gets annoyed that people only like this style and don't think artists can evolve to do other things. Poons keeps saying how he wants to be like Mozart and Beethoven.

Meanwhile Kahn also visits art collector Stefan Edlis and viewers can see his stunning collection of art all over the walls of his New York apartment. Kahn asks him how much some works were when he bought them. The usual refrain is around US$10 million. And how much are they worth now? Oh around US$100 million. Uh huh.

It's hard to tell if Edlis really is an art lover or he strictly looks at his art collection as good investments that happen to look pretty on his walls. He keeps track of them on an Excel spreadsheet.

A Jew originally from Germany, Edlis even has a statue called Him that is a mini version of Adolf Hitler in a brown tweed jacket kneeling, his eyes looking up to the right. Kahn asks Edlis about acquiring the statue, but he doesn't seem to care about the meaning behind it. Or is he trying to make Kahn feel silly for asking that question?

And then there's the art historians who are mortified by the business of art, and these works should really be in museums which are more democratic. Jerry Saltz, an art critic agrees, and says that each time he goes to an art auction he feels it will be the last time he will ever see the work in person because they will be sold and then never see the light of day, either because they are hung on someone's wall or worse kept in storage for no one to admire.

And after an exhilarating evening at Sotheby's seeing art works go for tens of millions of dollars, they really do end up in a non-descript suburb that has a giant storage facility -- for artwork.

Poons finally gets another showing, an art dealer who perhaps thinks the artist is undervalued and wants to make some money off of him. The paintings themselves are a gorgeous play of colour, mostly pastels, but again, what are these works really worth?

The Price of Everything
Director by Nathaniel Kahn
1 hour, 38 minutes