Line Art 2008

A bit behind but my notes for this entry got lost in one of my suitcase’s many document sleeves and I just found them this weekend.

I went to Line Art, a auction in support of LGBT Youth at the AGO.

I was insanely excited because I found out that one of my teenage heros, Micah Lexier, was auctioning a piece and I was determined to bid on it.

Of course, the pending economic doom dampened the spirits quite a bit. Most of the people at the event stayed around the cash bar didn’t even bother going into the auction room. Even those that ventured in the auction room seemed more subdued. In the past, just about anything was bidded on past the point of assessed value regardless of how good the piece was, but this year, a good percentage of the pieces were sold for below assessed value. Not that I think that it’s a bad thing. I’ve been waiting for a correction in the art market for a while to broaden my collection and, really, some of the pieces to be auctioned were aethetically challenged.

Of the 21 pieces I managed to stay for (the auction was taking forever as getting bids from the audience was like pulling teeth), 15 (or 71%) sold for under assessed value. The net yield only met 69% of expected yield.

I didn’t end up staying to bid for Micah Lexier. The piece he submitted was a piece of 8X10 printer paper with the words “He Loves Me. He Loves Me Not.” printed in caps. It just reeked for lack of effort. It was just so sad to see an art hero commodifying himself.