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A Softening Art Market Has Hit Last Years Auction Stars
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Started by Stefanomjr,

197 posts in this topic

vodou

vodou

Posted
Posted
On 2/1/2024 at 9:58 AM, Bronty said:

Yes, that's true!    in 1907 you're riding a horse around town.    You wake up in 1947 and there's concrete everywhere and cars.    Huge changes all through the 1900s.

But hey, no worries going (back) to carbon zero yea!

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Bronty

Bronty

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On 2/1/2024 at 11:26 AM, Bronty said:

I think I've just been debunked!

Let me just say.....................   WHEW.

I have to admit I've gone from thinking.... wow she REALLY fell off to... damn I've never really considered the phrase GILF before!

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The Voord

The Voord

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Posted
On 2/1/2024 at 2:26 PM, Bronty said:

And respectfully I just don't think its the right take.

I heard this whole thing referred to as Future Shock thirty years ago.    As I understand it, its not uneasiness about our future per se - its uneasiness about our present as compared to the past that we remember as kids.    I remember going to the library, the Dewey Decimal system, having to call people on the phone, pagers, all sorts of things that are totally ridiculously obsolete now and its comforting on some level to return to that sometimes because mentally we are dealing with more change in the present than we are really equipped / evolved to be totally comfortable with.  

So, its really not a doom and gloom scenario, but that sense of future shock or nostalgia or whatever you want to call it only gets stronger as the pace of change in the world speeds up.    1840 probably wasn't that different than 1810, not much to get nostalgic about, right?   And I'm truly sure that 640 wasn't much different than 610.      However, 2020 and 1990 are very very different - worlds apart.    There's more change in that 30 years than in 500 years in a different part of our species' timeline.

I'm still waiting for Stepford Wives to hit the market . . . 

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tth2

tth2

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On 2/1/2024 at 10:26 PM, Bronty said:

So, its really not a doom and gloom scenario, but that sense of future shock or nostalgia or whatever you want to call it only gets stronger as the pace of change in the world speeds up.

I call it "Stop the world, I want to get off". 

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MyNameIsLegion

MyNameIsLegion

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Posted (edited)
On 1/31/2024 at 4:56 PM, KirbyCollector said:

I wonder if the ever-increasing need to assign monetary values to one's personal cultural memories speaks of an unspoken insecurity in our society. Culture should be vibrant and alive and forward thinking, yet we seem determined to cling to the past. Commodifying our memories is one way of permanently saying, Things will never be better than before and I can prove it ($$$). The gazillion "classic cars" being sold by Mecum Auctions speaks to the same feeling; after all, the vast majority of these cars will never be used for their original purpose (daily driving) but stored, shown or sold -- just like slabs.

Whether we are doing this as a reaction to 9/11 or the financial crisis or covid (or all combined) is up for debate. Whatever the cause, I feel it conveys a deep uneasiness about our future and the realization coming times may not be as good.

I think the fact that now we are slabbing just about everything- shoes, lps, toys, cards, games, etc to be more about the fact that once the collectibles market fabricated a commodities market for the grade itself where the object  that is slabbed is almost secondary to be.....mostly.....greed and $$$$$. Those that preserved these things unopened to begin with, as in the case of LP's and video games, hot wheels, action figures have always been there among a small core of enthusiasts, everyone else doing it with things produced now in anticipation of it being worth something when it's GRADED AND SLABBED, in the near term, and again it's mostly FOMO and greed and $$$. FOMO itself is a bit of a curious cavemen instinct, akin to hey, some resource is scarce, I better hoard some for myself and my tribe because I need/want it.  Valid if it's water or some putrid elk carcass in winter, not so much when it's Stanley Cups or Cabbage Patch Kids. 

I was going to posit a sidebar comment on nostalgia in these modern times- that slabbing and preserving thing in a pristine, unaltered state might has some existential appeal to our lizard brain in the very face of rapid, accelerating change- and that it's hits in middle age generally, but is more intensely felt in 2024, in part because so many things are so quickly obsolete, not just broken, used, played with,consumed or worn out- because in theory they can be replaced with a new copy or edition, or reprint- but no- OBSOLETE.  Compass, film camera, digital camera, game cartridge, lp, cassette, 8-track, CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-ray, calculator, books, flashlight, maps, comics, newspapers, magazines, photographs, checkbooks, etc - OBSOLETE with just my phone. If I made a conscious effort, I could digitize 30% of everything I own and it would fit in a shoebox and save an incredible amount of space.  Gen-X is the last generation to live in both extremes of this. Both my boomer parents are passed, they missed or never adopted many of the things that replaced the aforementioned. 

Yet, before he died, my dad was amused when I told him that Barnes and Noble, after 20 years of not having ANY- now had move vinyl LPs than CD's and DVD's combined.  People younger than me seem fascinated by possibly one of the most inefficient, labor intensive, manual and damage prone physical media artifacts ever created. Objectively, nothing sucks more than a vinyl LP (though I concede they do sound better in many instances, for a variety of technical reasons that I won't get into) Who saw that coming? (Gene apparently, he must have 10 storage unit's full of cr@p he hoarded in his youth or he ran a shoplifting ring of nerds, but I digress...) My only thought is the pendulum has swung so far away from physical media and objects, so much is now rented and subscribed that it has had some negative effect on our sense of object permanence, which is fundamental to forming healthy attachments.  Physical objects provide a certain comfort and stability, and is cited a lot in attachment theory and related developmental psychology concepts.  Transitional objects of attachment, such as a stuffed bunny or a favorite blanket are usually abandoned, if ever even strongly held, in healthily children, with secure environments. I don't think we ever really lose that, in some abstract way, as the familiar is innately comforting over the unfamiliar. Even those that like new things, places, people, experiences, come from some "home base" from which their security and confidence in the world in grounded. It may be family, community, their dog,  garden, home, a room full of OA or comics.

Nostalgia is not the same as collecting, though they often overlap. the former is emotional, the later is is more compulsive. They have therapy and meds for both. Or you can slab all your cr@p. In a world that is getting smaller, more virtual, more crowded, with scarcer resources and more rented and subscribed services over actual goods, that is going to trigger some psychological reaction multiplied times just about everyone in some subtle and sometimes unsettling ways. Maybe this is just an early tell of the eventual "Behavioral Sink" of our society, as coined by Calhoun over 60 years ago.

Behavioral Sink

Edited by MyNameIsLegion
because CR@P is a legit word to use goddamnit
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ShallowDan

ShallowDan

Posted
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On 2/1/2024 at 9:26 AM, Bronty said:

I heard this whole thing referred to as Future Shock thirty years ago.    As I understand it, its not uneasiness about our future per se - its uneasiness about our present as compared to the past that we remember as kids.    I remember going to the library, the Dewey Decimal system, having to call people on the phone, pagers, all sorts of things that are totally ridiculously obsolete now and its comforting on some level to return to that sometimes because mentally we are dealing with more change in the present than we are really equipped / evolved to be totally comfortable with. 

 

abesimpsonwithit.png

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KirbyCollector

KirbyCollector

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On 2/2/2024 at 4:52 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

My only thought is the pendulum has swung so far away from physical media and objects, so much is now rented and subscribed that it has had some negative effect on our sense of object permanence, which is fundamental to forming healthy attachments

The increased digital censoring/deletion of older media now deemed offensive due to changing tastes has led me to retain and even add to my Blu Ray collection. It is one way of saying, No, the things which helped form me aren't horrible -- and by default, neither am I.

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PhilipB2k17

PhilipB2k17

Posted
Posted
On 2/2/2024 at 4:52 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

I think the fact that now we are slabbing just about everything- shoes, lps, toys, cards, games, etc to be more about the fact that once the collectibles market fabricated a commodities market for the grade itself where the object  that is slabbed is almost secondary to be.....mostly.....greed and $$$$$. Those that preserved these things unopened to begin with, as in the case of LP's and video games, hot wheels, action figures have always been there among a small core of enthusiasts, everyone else doing it with things produced now in anticipation of it being worth something when it's GRADED AND SLABBED, in the near term, and again it's mostly FOMO and greed and $$$. FOMO itself is a bit of a curious cavemen instinct, akin to hey, some resource is scarce, I better hoard some for myself and my tribe because I need/want it.  Valid if it's water or some putrid elk carcass in winter, not so much when it's Stanley Cups or Cabbage Patch Kids. 

 

We're grading and slabbing everything -- except the planet we, live on, which we still treat as a massive garbage dump.

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PhilipB2k17

PhilipB2k17

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On 2/2/2024 at 8:49 AM, KirbyCollector said:

The increased digital censoring/deletion of older media now deemed offensive due to changing tastes has led me to retain and even add to my Blu Ray collection. It is one way of saying, No, the things which helped form me aren't horrible -- and by default, neither am I.

It's happening across the political spectrum. Families in Florida are drawing pants on cartoon childern's book gnomes.

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KirbyCollector

KirbyCollector

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On 2/2/2024 at 8:50 AM, PhilipB2k17 said:

It's happening across the political spectrum. Families in Florida are drawing pants on cartoon childern's book gnomes.

I'm speaking more of childhood favorites like the Bugs Bunny cartoons (sexist, offensive due to humor mocking physical traits, accents etc)... the original Star Trek (sexist)... Disney movies like The Swiss Family Robinson (offensive Asian stereotypes)... one of my favorite Westerns no longer airs with a scene b/c it is deemed stereotypical, they just deleted it and provide no notice... and on and on. 

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delekkerste

delekkerste

Posted
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On 2/2/2024 at 4:52 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

I think the fact that now we are slabbing just about everything- shoes, lps, toys, cards, games, etc to be more about the fact that once the collectibles market fabricated a commodities market for the grade itself where the object  that is slabbed is almost secondary to be.....mostly.....greed and $$$$$. Those that preserved these things unopened to begin with, as in the case of LP's and video games, hot wheels, action figures have always been there among a small core of enthusiasts, everyone else doing it with things produced now in anticipation of it being worth something when it's GRADED AND SLABBED, in the near term, and again it's mostly FOMO and greed and $$$.

I just like to own cool stuff.. :sorry: 

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PhilipB2k17

PhilipB2k17

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On 2/2/2024 at 8:56 AM, KirbyCollector said:

I'm speaking more of childhood favorites like the Bugs Bunny cartoons (sexist, offensive due to humor mocking physical traits, accents etc)... the original Star Trek (sexist)... Disney movies like The Swiss Family Robinson (offensive Asian stereotypes)... one of my favorite Westerns no longer airs with a scene b/c it is deemed stereotypical, they just deleted it and provide no notice... and on and on. 

Right. And the same thing is happening on the other end of the spectrum, which was my point. Censorship of all kinds is growing across the board.

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