Thread by @jholbo1

I feel ambivalent. Let me count the ways.
1. This is insane. The artworld is, in a speculative, financial sense, insane. It is insane to pay 15 mil for this. This annihilates the proposition that these prices index artistic worth in any real sense.

cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/…

2. But it's not like we don't know finance is driven, in part by 'bigger fool' dynamics. There's no reason to be surprised if an investment takes leave of 'fundamentals'. Does it reflect badly on the artist if their art flies off and partakes of such nonsense?

3. The artist himself is ambivalent. nytimes.com/2019/05/15/art…

4. He's not getting the 15 mil, so don't ask HIM for it back, for the guy who did the Simpsons original. 15 mil is going to someone who was smart enough to buy this thing, way back, planning to flip it later. And that bet paid off.

5. It's also not his fault that the NY Times is too dumb to notice that it's not a mash-up of the Simpsons and Sgt. Peppers. It's a straight swipe OF a mash-up, just with X eyes and those bone things.

6. It 'adds luster to a career'. Shudder. Again, there you have it. 15 mil is total Emperor's New X's For Eyes. Obvious speculative bullshit that should make the Artworld cringe by association. Should not add luster to anyone's career. But the artist didn't ask for this, exactly.

7. The idea of doing the X's for eyes thing, nearly a century after Duchamp and Oldenburg, is not original. And straight up swiping - tracing - is not virtuosity. So we have: no new idea, no demonstration of skill.

8. Nevertheless, as street art, say, the X's for eyes motif could work, serially. It seems Kaws faces the following dilemma. He's an artist who can thrive in the existing Artworld financial ecosystem, but it makes a late capitalist mockery of anything authentic in his work.

9. On the other hand, artists have been working for vicious, rich asshole patrons for centuries. Nothing new there. It would be a lot to ask the guy to starve when he doesn't have to starve.

10. Next point. You aren't allowed to sell pirate Bart Simpson t-shirts. I couldn't write and draw and publish Batman comics, just with X's for eyes and everything else the same. I'd be sued so fast I'd have X's for eyes.

11. But obviously there's a long tradition now of Modern artists doing this kind of thing. I'm actually a bit unclear about the legalities. Why is this OK, in the eyes of the Mouse and the law?

12. I don't really get why Kaws hasn't been sued into the ground. Just because he makes only a few high-end tokens, not mass-produced types? Whatever. He's in a position to do something genuinely good. Namely, push the envelope on IP law.

13. I wouldn't be the first time that rich 'respectable' people have been able to push a legal line, effectively, defending their right to do something that lesser folk would get in trouble for doing. And then, with precedent established, there's trickle down civil rights.

14. It would be nice if the avant garde Artworld could really be a speartip of artistic freedom - fair use! - on the mashup, re-use, appropriate front. Dunno if that's possible.

15. You know, now I think about it, the way to go would be for someone else to take Kaws' X-eye characters are run with them, making further derivative works. And if the Mouse sues (Disney/Fox) then use this as your defense: I didn't copy the Simpsons/Mickey. I copied Kaws!

One final thought about this. @LairdBarron's "X's For Eyes" is first-rate. goodreads.com/book/show/2777…