[GhotiFish]

What an effective display of the issues I have with art.

Only a few people want these pieces, they are worthless in a vacuum. Only when shown in the context of "These pieces are by legendary artist banksy" do they become valuable treasures, in great demand.

It distresses me the number of things on this planet that are valuable because people think they are valuable, not because they have any actual use.

I suppose their value is in manipulating others. That is a form of utility, I admit.

[arrrg]

What’s your definition of “no use”? I’m quite confused by that. When I was last walking through a museum I felt tremendous joy and very much loved looking at everything. That’s a use, right? That makes those are pieces useful. It should be quite obvious that things capable of doing that acquire value.

Sometimes that gets a bit ridiculous but a blanket claim that art has no use (or, even more specifically, that Banksy’s art has no use) seems equally ridiculous.

[lmm]

>What’s your definition of “no use”? I’m quite confused by that. When I was last walking through a museum I felt tremendous joy and very much loved looking at everything. That’s a use, right? That makes those are pieces useful. It should be quite obvious that things capable of doing that acquire value.

But an original and a copy of a great picture inspire just as much joy when looking at them. Yet one is treated as far more valuable than the other. So something's funny there.

[dsuth]

Original artworks have greater value due to scarcity. It's pretty simple supply/demand - if everyone wants artwork from a certain artist, those pieces become more valuable. The same reason the value of artwork tends to spike after an artists death - no more artworks will be produced, so there is a definite cap on the amount of art.

Mayor Bloomberg's statement that he intends to target Banksy's artworks to destroy them will make them very valuable indeed, in a "last chance to see" way.

[lmm]

Just making something scarce doesn't inherently make it valuable; there needs to be some reason it's "better" than non-scarce equivalents.

[alexleavitt]

This is the entire underlying message of Banksy's film, Exit Through the Gift Shop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop

[voltagex_]

I think they make the city more interesting, and hopefully they inspire some taggers to transition from a name-writer to an artist.