Hard No

The art market hits a new low and only we can stop it.

Spectacle and opportunism are the twin engines that drive the contemporary art market, so it's never a surprise when it reaches an incredible new low as it did this past week when Johnny Depp’s debut "art" collection sold out for $3.6 million in a matter of hours.

[Note: I have a policy against writing about things that exist solely to seek attention or money and possess little inherent value. And while Depp’s work falls squarely into this category, the mechanism that brought it into the public eye is deserving of conversation because it reveals so much about the public’s relationship to art and the art establishment’s disdain for the public.]

A “gallery” called Castle Fine Art released a series of four Depp prints, titled Friends and Heroes, in a combined edition of 780. Buyers could purchase individual prints for £3,950 ($4,840) or all four for the low low price of £14,950 ($18,321).¹ Castle claims to be “UK's leading art retailer for contemporary art,” which may very well be true, but to my mind it’s less of a gallery or an art retailer than it is a series of crimes against the art world.

Castle’s roster of artists is almost entirely white and almost entirely male. And they seem to specialize in representing white male artists who rip off other, more well-known white male artists, like this guy who went to jail for forging the work of great masters and now sells his forgeries for Castle, or this guy who literally reprints old Warhol images and puts his name on them, or this guy who makes new balloon dog sculptures that rip off Jeff Koons’s old balloon dog sculptures.

So it makes perfect sense that Castle would collaborate with Depp on a series of four images that, according to BBC, Castle described in its press release as “existing ‘at the intersection of pop art and street art.’”

This, quite literally, means nothing. The only relationship these pieces have to pop art is that they callously recycle the work that Warhol did 50 years ago, without so much as a knowing wink or a clever re-contextualization. Just sad uninspired copycatting. And it has no overlap with street art whatsoever unless you count the fact that Depp used the same paint markers that street artists often do when he embellished the four images that I suspect someone else created for the sale.

I say this because we have previous examples of Johnny Depp’s art, and it looks like this:

An elephant that he painted and gave to Ellen DeGeneres on her show

If you compare the paintings he has made on his own to the work that he sold through Castle, you can see the stark difference in technique, materials, ability, and approach.

Left: a portrait of Keith Richards that Depp painted himself years ago. Right: the portrait of Keith Richards by Depp that Castle sold last week

Is it possible that Depp’s practice has dramatically matured and changed over the last few years? Anything’s possible. But it’s not unlikely that someone on Depp’s team or at Castle digitally manipulated photographs of these four celebrities (or had someone else create digital portraits of them) and then printed them out for Depp to add color and flourish to, much like a child with a coloring book. Those embellished images would then be editioned, signed, and sold to the public for a tidy sum.

Depp embellishing the images

Castle was incredibly savvy in the way that they priced these prints: not too low as to "devalue" the work,² but low enough that anyone who could afford a ticket to the Fyre festival would be able to purchase a print—essentially a glorified and overpriced autograph—if they wanted to obtain tangible proof of their brush with celebrity.

My problem with sales like this one (or this one or this one) is that they dilute the understanding of what it means to be an artist. People are so distracted by the novelty of these events—and how they overlap with celebrity, power, and influence—that they fail to ask themselves if the work is any good or has anything to say. And it’s particularly noteworthy that the art establishment chooses to promote white men who’ve made millions of dollars in other industries—and are now turning to art as a lucrative side hustle—instead of throwing their weight behind talented emerging or mid career artists who might not have the opportunity for such visibility or who are from communities that are denied opportunity.

There are few professions outside of the creative field that anyone can claim to be a part of without any vetting, certification, or proof of time spent. Imagine if I went online, bought a bunch of scalpels and some nitrile gloves and proclaimed I was a surgeon. "I practiced on an orange a few times! You should hire me for your next bypass!" Or if I grabbed a piece of paper, drew a blueprint for a house that looked something like this and declared myself an architect:

This seems absurd because we have collectively recognized means of credentialing someone to be an architect (or an electrician or a doctor). We don't have the same understanding about what it means to be an artist. Therefor, the public often relies on gatekeepers to help guide them towards people of extraordinary talent. Unfortunately, because many of the gatekeepers in the art world lead with opportunism instead of integrity, many people get fooled by exhibitions like Depp’s. They believe that anyone who sells work for a lot of money is automatically an artist, which is patently false because successful and splashy art shows can be easily manufactured with enough connections and resources.³

It’s not about me or anyone else policing who gets to call themselves an artist. Nor is it about artists needing some piece of paper or validation to prove that they are artists (many of my favorites are self taught). It’s about establishing a cultural landscape that reveres the craft of art and the people who practice it in the same way that it does for any other profession and its practitioners. Few people after having glued two sticks together, for example, would have the audacity to call themselves a master woodworker. But people regularly take on the moniker of artist, long before they have any right to, because it no longer holds any collective meaning.

Art is a value system. In addition to respecting people who devote their lives to making art, we need to give the public more reasons for buying it than the big three that popular culture has provided: money, caché, and/or status.

When we purchase art, it’s important to be honest with ourselves about why we’re doing it. Maybe a person could make money from reselling one of Depp’s pieces, but betting on an edition of 780 prints to increase in value isn't necessarily a safe bet. If folks do turn a profit from selling his prints, it won’t be because the work is exceptional in any way. It will be because of its proximity to a movie star, which is also what grants its owner caché and status.

Instead of buying art from celebrity millionaires and the art institutions that enable them, we can invest in artists who have devoted themselves to their practice and whose lives would be transformed by our financial support. And in so doing, we can alter the way the art establishment functions, what it values, and whom it lifts up.

1. A whopping 5% savings if you buy all four now!

2. Hard to do when the work has little inherent value, but you get the point.

3. Now’s as good a time as any to watch (or re-watch) Exit Through the Gift Shop.