Encountering artists, collectors, and auctioneers, The Price Of Everything looks at the complex and contradictory questions about the value of money for an artist, and the value of art for money. Meet the art world ensemble featured in the film, out in cinemas & on demand tomorrow.
Jerry Saltz
To begin introducing some of those featured in the film, Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic for New York Magazine, believes that art matters “as much as religion and Mozart”, and has cultivated a social media following becoming an irreverent populist persona through reality TV appearances and provocative Instagram posts. In this documentary, Saltz is critical of how the art world can live with its hyper marketing and excess.
Larry Poons
In the 1960s, Larry Poons rose to prominence as an abstract painter with his Op-Art dot paintings that were widely collected and featured alongside high ranking artists, such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Franz Kline and Frank Stella. Poons has faced both praise and critique for moving away from his signature style into a more expressive style of painting.
Amy Cappellazzo
Current Chairman of Global Fine Arts at Sotheby, Amy Cappellazzo was previously at Christie's Auctions for 13 years where she rose to head of contemporary art, and co-founded the Art Agency Partners. She has invented a new model for a full service art advisory and is known for unconventional thinking that has pioneered a paradigm shift in approaches to selling art in a market undergoing an era of rapid changes.
Marilyn Minter
Artist Marilyn Minter emerged in the New York Art scene in the 1970s, known for her photography and painting. Her work “Pretty/Dirty” opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Houston, and arrived at the Brooklyn Museum in 2016, it explores and brings attention to beauty and the female body in American culture.
Stefan Edlis
Stefan Edlis and his wife Gael Neeson are routinely mentioned on lists of the world’s most influential and important collectors. Edlis was born in Austria and escaped Nazi Germany through emigration to America at the age of 15. After serving in the Navy, Edlis became a successful businessman and has been buying art since the 1970s. In 2015, Edlis and Neeson donated 42 pieces of contemporary and modern art to the Art Institute of Chicago, valued at more that $400 million.
George Condo
Having emerged from New York in the 1980s East Village art scene, George Condo is now highly regarded in coining the term “Artificial Realism”. This describes his hybrid incorporation of historical art references from European Classicism to American Pop. Condos work has spanned to be a talent for major museum retrospectives, as well creating for the album cover of Kanye West.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, a Nigerian born artist, was named a MacArthur fellow in 2017 and was awarded this accomplishment through the creation of collage paintings that often feature domestic interiors. Referencing the history of the African diaspora, these are labour intensive pieces and therefore Akunyili Crosby creates only a few dozen works a year. Subsequently they have been highly sought out by museums and collectors, and in 2016 her piece Drown (2016) was sold at auction for five times its estimated price.
Jeff koons
Arguably the most successful artist of our time both in terms of financial reward and the creation of iconic figures and works of art, Koons works out of a former factory in Chelsea with more than 100 assistants, in a like manner to Andy Warhol’s fabrication process. Fearless in his approach to art and the market, Koons regularly collaborates with commercial brands including Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Kiehl’s, Louis Vuitton and SnapChat. His sculptures routinely sell for tens of millions of dollars to high-profile collectors around the globe.