The Art World: A Complex Web of Controversy and Debate

In the world of art, controversy often reigns supreme. One of the most recent examples is the case of Richard Prince, who has made a career out of being provocative and challenging the status quo. However, his methods have also sparked heated debate among artists, collectors, and dealers.

The Case of Richard Prince

Prince's latest stunt involves creating a series of artworks based on works by other artists, without their permission or compensation. He has been accused of copyright infringement and has faced lawsuits from several parties. The case is complex, involving multiple parties and jurisdictions, including the United States and Europe. In Europe, the "droit moral" law grants creators the right to receive a percentage of royalties whenever their work is sold or reproduced.

The American First Sale Doctrine

In contrast, the American first sale doctrine states that if an artist has created a work, they can sell it once and receive all the proceeds from any subsequent sales. This means that if Prince had sold his artwork in the US, he would not be entitled to any royalties. However, this doctrine has been challenged in court, with some arguing that it is unfair to artists who do not benefit financially from their work.

The Music Industry: A Similar Dilemma

The music industry faces similar challenges when it comes to royalties and copyright infringement. When a song is played on the radio, royalties are paid to the artists involved. However, this does not necessarily mean that they will receive fair compensation for their work. The lack of transparency in the art world can make it difficult for artists to know how much money they are making from their work.

The Role of Dealers

Dealers play a significant role in the art market, often acting as intermediaries between artists and collectors. However, they also have a responsibility to ensure that artists are fairly compensated for their work. In some cases, dealers may profit from the sale of an artwork without giving the artist any credit or compensation.

The Controversy Surrounds

The controversy surrounding Prince's actions is multifaceted. On one hand, he has raised important questions about ownership and control in the art world. On the other hand, his methods have sparked anger and frustration among artists who feel that they are not being fairly compensated for their work.

A Comparison to the Stock Market

One interesting comparison can be made between the art market and the stock market. In both cases, there is a risk of insider trading. Museums often purchase artworks at inflated prices in anticipation of future increases in value. This practice has been criticized as unfair, particularly when it involves wealthy institutions with significant influence over the art market.

Insider Trading: A Serious Offense

In the US, insider trading is a serious offense that can result in severe penalties, including fines and imprisonment. Martha Stewart was fined $30 million and served five months in prison for her role in an insider trading scheme involving her stock sales. The parallels between this case and the art market are striking.

The Art World's Clean Hands

However, it is also difficult to criticize museums and dealers without acknowledging their own complicity in the system. Many institutions have been criticized for their lack of transparency and fairness in dealing with artists. This raises questions about the nature of ownership and control in the art world, particularly when it involves wealthy collectors and powerful institutions.

Conclusion

The controversy surrounding Richard Prince's actions highlights the complex web of issues that surround the art market. While his methods may be provocative and challenging, they also raise important questions about ownership and control. The art world is not immune to criticism, and many institutions have been accused of unfair practices. As we navigate this complex landscape, it is essential to engage in open and honest debate about the issues at hand.

The Importance of Transparency

Transparency is key to resolving these controversies. Artists, collectors, and dealers must be willing to engage in open and honest dialogue about ownership and control. This will require a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths and acknowledge complex power dynamics. By promoting transparency and fairness, we can work towards creating a more equitable art market that benefits all parties involved.

The Role of the Artist

Ultimately, the artist is at the heart of this controversy. Their work is the driving force behind the entire system. As such, they must take an active role in advocating for their rights and interests. This may involve pushing for greater transparency and fairness in the art market, as well as advocating for better compensation and recognition.

The Future of the Art Market

As we move forward, it is essential to prioritize fairness, transparency, and accountability in the art market. This will require a willingness to challenge the status quo and confront uncomfortable truths about ownership and control. By working together, artists, collectors, dealers, and institutions can create a more equitable system that benefits all parties involved.

Insider Trading: A Serious Offense

In the US, insider trading is a serious offense that can result in severe penalties, including fines and imprisonment. Martha Stewart was fined $30 million and served five months in prison for her role in an insider trading scheme involving her stock sales. The parallels between this case and the art market are striking.

The Art World's Clean Hands

However, it is also difficult to criticize museums and dealers without acknowledging their own complicity in the system. Many institutions have been criticized for their lack of transparency and fairness in dealing with artists. This raises questions about the nature of ownership and control in the art world, particularly when it involves wealthy collectors and powerful institutions.

A Comparison to the Stock Market

One interesting comparison can be made between the art market and the stock market. In both cases, there is a risk of insider trading. Museums often purchase artworks at inflated prices in anticipation of future increases in value. This practice has been criticized as unfair, particularly when it involves wealthy institutions with significant influence over the art market.

Insider Trading: A Serious Offense

In the US, insider trading is a serious offense that can result in severe penalties, including fines and imprisonment. Martha Stewart was fined $30 million and served five months in prison for her role in an insider trading scheme involving her stock sales. The parallels between this case and the art market are striking.

Conclusion

The controversy surrounding Richard Prince's actions highlights the complex web of issues that surround the art market. While his methods may be provocative and challenging, they also raise important questions about ownership and control. The art world is not immune to criticism, and many institutions have been accused of unfair practices. As we navigate this complex landscape, it is essential to engage in open and honest debate about the issues at hand.

The Importance of Transparency

Transparency is key to resolving these controversies. Artists, collectors, and dealers must be willing to engage in open and honest dialogue about ownership and control. This will require a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths and acknowledge complex power dynamics. By promoting transparency and fairness, we can work towards creating a more equitable art market that benefits all parties involved.

The Role of the Artist

Ultimately, the artist is at the heart of this controversy. Their work is the driving force behind the entire system. As such, they must take an active role in advocating for their rights and interests. This may involve pushing for greater transparency and fairness in the art market, as well as advocating for better compensation and recognition.

The Future of the Art Market

As we move forward, it is essential to prioritize fairness, transparency, and accountability in the art market. This will require a willingness to challenge the status quo and confront uncomfortable truths about ownership and control. By working together, artists, collectors, dealers, and institutions can create a more equitable system that benefits all parties involved.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up everybody Ted Forbes here from The Art of Photography and as promised in this video we are going to talk about the high-end Art Market and last week I did a video and we talked about how the gallery World works with photographers and a little bit of the way that's set up and originally I was going to talk about all this and I realized it was a lot because today's topic is very confusing it's very complicated I don't claim to understand the whole thing and so the best thing I'm going to do is give you I'm going to try to give you as neutral an overview as possible because this is controversial as well uh this ties in with a show that I did a couple weeks ago on Richard Prince and that was a very controversial topic that a lot of blogs and a lot of people doing video work covered um and it was controversial for a number of reasons but I won't repeat everything that was in there but what I saw people asking in a lot of the comments is one you know who is this guy why come how come we've never heard of him and two who is buying this work and paying so much for it and it occurred to me that a lot of people don't understand how the high-end Art Market works and I'll admit I didn't understand it my first year at the Dallas Museum of Art I started seeing how this worked and I'm going to warn you now that a lot of the information that I'm going to give you here will challenge some of your core definitions of what art means to you because what we're doing is we're talking about how it starts selling for not just money but big money and this is a world that most artists don't know I mean this is the world of Andy Warhol and this is the world of the best of the best well arguably the best of the best but the most famous of the best I think is a better way of putting it and it is very complicated and it's also not talked about a lot the media does not cover it um unless there's a lawsuit or something fairly controversial like Richard Prince's story but they really don't cover it much in depth however I did look up some numbers and I've got some notes on this uh I found an article on Bloomberg and this will blow your mind last year the high-end Art Market was a $ 54 billion business that is billion with a b54 billion business and that's pretty significant the US market was about 22% of that it was the line share of that and I want to talk about what this is who some of the players are and hopefully make some sense out of this because it really is a world of Investments is what it is uh the art that you're going to see here and it includes both photography and more traditional mediums like painting or sculpture um whatever ends up being high-end and these are works that are usually sold through high-end dealers to museums or they could be sold through auction houses like subbies or Christies um or even you know it comprises the art fairs that are really popular now like Art Basel and that's another big business under itself the art fairs make a ton of money just leasing those booths to dealers I mean that was in the billions last year and so that's what you're dealing with and it compri it is comprised of both artists that are alive now and creating work uh artists photographers and as well as and like I said last week when we talked about the gallery world you also have playing in the same yard there the Vintage photography market and it's the same with the Art Market so for instance a lot of these really high-end works that get sold for the millions and millions um end up being works that are more nostalgic historic Legacy so for instance last year one of the biggest works that sold was uh there was a triptic that was a warhall piece that was Prince that of Elvis and uh that particular silk screen sold for 81.9 million so that's kind of what's being traded but it's not just people who are deceased um they living artists like Gard Rector Andre gersy um Thomas Tru there are a lot of people that are highly collected that get into this dollar figure now who are the people buying this well this is the weird thing because in the last few years and it's been snowballing for a while now um art has become a viable investment opportunity for certain people so if you figure people who have made their money in various Industries it might be Oil Business it might be the construction business but they've made a fortune and they're at a point in their careers and their lives where they want to start investing their money in something uh most of us know the traditional ways you would invest money which would be in something like the stock market in the US or perhaps there's financial investments you could do um there's venture capital where you can invest in startup businesses but these are people that are looking for ways to invest some of their money to let it work for them the Art Market has become part of this landscape in a big way um art I'm sure for a number of reasons it is uh you know there there's there's a certain thing about being in the art world that makes one look cultured I'm sure that has a little bit to do with it some people genuinely like art um i' I've known collectors that I've worked with when I was in the museum world that were great people they had interesting collections it costs a lot of money to keep a collection and you have to uh hire special people to move things you have to hire conservators to keep up with work cuz sometimes it's very fragile especially with modern art and so anyway these people have started investing and this is where it gets a little hard for people to understand sometimes and it was part of what I struggled with is that you think a collector would collect work because they love it and actually it's that may have something to do with it but people collect work like they would invest in the stock market so for instance somebody who invests in stock would not invest in a company because they thought their logo was beautiful or that they like the name of the company they invest because they want to see a return on that investment one day completely understandable but that's where it starts challenging what makes art special because all of a sudden it has a dollar value that's assigned to it that can go up or down depending on what the Market's doing so that's what makes it a little hard to understand for some people so um the whole idea is that if you're a collector you would invest in an artist this is an extreme generalization but maybe a living artist so one day when they've passed away um it's it increases in value and you could potentially sell it one day to either make room for other parts of your collection or to make money off of your investment so that's essentially how it works now where it starts to get a little hazy here is that you have to understand unlike the stock market the Art Market which is big money is unregulated the stock market is regulated so there's laws and rules around what you can and can't do that can result in criminal activity if you misuse those laws the Art Market doesn't have any of that and I'm not saying that collectors are bad people um I think the vast majority of them because they earned their wealth not by being stupid they were very smart uh a lot of people came from nothing and they do great business and they're doing it as an investment and most people are ethical however when you have an unregulated industry and this is controversial because some people say regulate some people say don't um when you have an unregulated industry it certainly opens the door for people who want to behave in a less than ethical fashion and I'll give you a cple cou examples of where this becomes controversial so in photography terms um in the '90s there was a German collector by the name of Hans Gro and he was starting to collect work by living artists living photographers and he would get stuff at very low prices because he was promising that what he would do is as soon as the collection got to be a certain size is that he would build a museum to house the collection in and it would live on that way and what happened was in the late '90s the new school of German photography this includes people like Thomas stru this includes Andress gersi this includes uh you know that school of German photographers started getting hot and what he did is he actually took a gersi print a very large print done in Paris um and sold it through christe's when that market was at its peak and all that stuff had gotten very hot and collectible and he sold the piece for it was well over a half a million dollars US it was actually 400 something I didn't put that in my notes so I think it was 432,000 which is a lot of money and at that time it set the record for the highest price ever paid for a photographic print and that was a gersy piece and he set that record a couple times you probably heard his name before in doing that but he's hot he's part of this German aesthetic that was popular in the 90s still continues today and it just that was an example of a market that got hot and a sale got hot now here's the problem with that is that Gro had more than open opportunity to I mean it's his piece he can do with it what he wants so he was able to sell it that's free market the the problem is is that he was getting this work at a really low price telling people he was going to build a museum which he never did and so you kind of start to wonder what the ethics are sometimes and I know that it may be more than just black and white and I don't know what his side of the story is there's a lot of reasons why one doesn't actually build a museum but when you make that youro for collecting work and the way that you get lower prices on things I think it becomes a question of Ethics at that point so that's one example there was another example um that actually was uh around the same time I think probably a little later but there was a New York collector who bought an Andre Curtis print and he bought it from a dealer and paid $275,000 for this print and it was a print from uh ca's uh Paris period which is kind of known as being the most collectible the most rare and a couple years later the estate came out and said that they cataloged all the work and that actually wasn't from that period at all so the guy immediately sued the dealer who sold it to him and then this whole thing ensued it got caught up in the courts now this this is not a criminal lawsuit this is just a civil I'm suing you because you were misleading and an agreement was reached but it was a no speak on both side so nobody ever really knew what happened to it but that's the that's one of the things about it is that that there's no pricing structure to this Market um if if you feel like you can get $8,000 million do whatever is astronomical and somebody's willing to pay that then so be it and the problem is is that you have a lot of dealers who line up and this and a lot of things get traded and the price goes up what's interesting is the artists aren't ever really part of that on a direct level so gersy wasn't part of that sale that was a piece he sold that somebody else resold to somebody else and this is what can be very controversial that a lot of people who are artists can take issue with you know if a song is played on the radio a royalty is paid um artists aren't necessarily part of these sales um and that's kind of it's not cut and dry but you could see the similarities and maybe some of the differences too now this is true in the US and there's there's two Concepts that are in play there is the American first sale Doctrine which basically states that if you have something you've created you can sell it once and once somebody's purchased that that's the only time you can make any money off that transaction or that sale whereas in Europe it's a French word it's the Dau which basically means the right to follow and in Europe every time a piece gets sold or resold the original Creator gets some chunk of that so that's a big difference between the way it works in Europe and the way it works in the US and like I said I'm am not an expert on this and I don't know enough of the details so this is a very generalized way of of looking at that the um the first sale Doctrine in the US was challenged back in 2012 in California court and it was declared unconstitutional that you could continue to make money off of something you sold once and you know all these are legal opinions of course but you can start to see where the controversy and all this comes into play um you know there's a lot to this and you can certainly see how somebody like Richard Prince comes along and makes a career out of being controversial and shocking because he's competing against warhall and other people and print sells for a lot of money and it's his responsibility to try to keep his career on the upswing now even though an American Artist might not make resales when something gets popular like that you they do benefit from it in the sense that if they're hot then the work that they're currently selling will increase in price too so it's not like they're missing out completely on it and this is where something gets really strange here and I have a comparison to the stock market to make on this um with the museum World a lot of times museums that deal in Contemporary Art will do what they call a mid-career retrospective for a living artist when this happens generally because it's a major exhibition that will travel and tour the value of the work increases dramatically and we've seen this over and over again typically people who are on the Board of Trustees know about these in advance the museum wants them to buy one of these pieces for a number of reasons hopefully they will donate it to the museum they will at least display it there but they're getting a good deal by buying it early if this happens in the stock market boys and girls this is known as insider trading and one can go to jail for this Martha Stewart had that happen a couple years ago and so it's really difficult to kind of see how this works sometimes I'm not saying that that's in the wrong it happens all the time but museums hands aren't clean either I'm curious to know what you guys think this is a very controversial topic and I'm happy to discuss this further so please leave a comment and let me know what you guys think as always if you enjoyed this episode please remember to like it and share it with your friends and as always subscribe to the art of photograph for more crazy controversy episodes like this one this one's really kind of out there and I'm not sure there's an easy answer for it I have some more things I want to say but I'm going to wait till another episode to do that but I want to hear what you guys have to say first once again guys this has been another episode of The Art of Photography see you guys in the next video laterwhat's up everybody Ted Forbes here from The Art of Photography and as promised in this video we are going to talk about the high-end Art Market and last week I did a video and we talked about how the gallery World works with photographers and a little bit of the way that's set up and originally I was going to talk about all this and I realized it was a lot because today's topic is very confusing it's very complicated I don't claim to understand the whole thing and so the best thing I'm going to do is give you I'm going to try to give you as neutral an overview as possible because this is controversial as well uh this ties in with a show that I did a couple weeks ago on Richard Prince and that was a very controversial topic that a lot of blogs and a lot of people doing video work covered um and it was controversial for a number of reasons but I won't repeat everything that was in there but what I saw people asking in a lot of the comments is one you know who is this guy why come how come we've never heard of him and two who is buying this work and paying so much for it and it occurred to me that a lot of people don't understand how the high-end Art Market works and I'll admit I didn't understand it my first year at the Dallas Museum of Art I started seeing how this worked and I'm going to warn you now that a lot of the information that I'm going to give you here will challenge some of your core definitions of what art means to you because what we're doing is we're talking about how it starts selling for not just money but big money and this is a world that most artists don't know I mean this is the world of Andy Warhol and this is the world of the best of the best well arguably the best of the best but the most famous of the best I think is a better way of putting it and it is very complicated and it's also not talked about a lot the media does not cover it um unless there's a lawsuit or something fairly controversial like Richard Prince's story but they really don't cover it much in depth however I did look up some numbers and I've got some notes on this uh I found an article on Bloomberg and this will blow your mind last year the high-end Art Market was a $ 54 billion business that is billion with a b54 billion business and that's pretty significant the US market was about 22% of that it was the line share of that and I want to talk about what this is who some of the players are and hopefully make some sense out of this because it really is a world of Investments is what it is uh the art that you're going to see here and it includes both photography and more traditional mediums like painting or sculpture um whatever ends up being high-end and these are works that are usually sold through high-end dealers to museums or they could be sold through auction houses like subbies or Christies um or even you know it comprises the art fairs that are really popular now like Art Basel and that's another big business under itself the art fairs make a ton of money just leasing those booths to dealers I mean that was in the billions last year and so that's what you're dealing with and it compri it is comprised of both artists that are alive now and creating work uh artists photographers and as well as and like I said last week when we talked about the gallery world you also have playing in the same yard there the Vintage photography market and it's the same with the Art Market so for instance a lot of these really high-end works that get sold for the millions and millions um end up being works that are more nostalgic historic Legacy so for instance last year one of the biggest works that sold was uh there was a triptic that was a warhall piece that was Prince that of Elvis and uh that particular silk screen sold for 81.9 million so that's kind of what's being traded but it's not just people who are deceased um they living artists like Gard Rector Andre gersy um Thomas Tru there are a lot of people that are highly collected that get into this dollar figure now who are the people buying this well this is the weird thing because in the last few years and it's been snowballing for a while now um art has become a viable investment opportunity for certain people so if you figure people who have made their money in various Industries it might be Oil Business it might be the construction business but they've made a fortune and they're at a point in their careers and their lives where they want to start investing their money in something uh most of us know the traditional ways you would invest money which would be in something like the stock market in the US or perhaps there's financial investments you could do um there's venture capital where you can invest in startup businesses but these are people that are looking for ways to invest some of their money to let it work for them the Art Market has become part of this landscape in a big way um art I'm sure for a number of reasons it is uh you know there there's there's a certain thing about being in the art world that makes one look cultured I'm sure that has a little bit to do with it some people genuinely like art um i' I've known collectors that I've worked with when I was in the museum world that were great people they had interesting collections it costs a lot of money to keep a collection and you have to uh hire special people to move things you have to hire conservators to keep up with work cuz sometimes it's very fragile especially with modern art and so anyway these people have started investing and this is where it gets a little hard for people to understand sometimes and it was part of what I struggled with is that you think a collector would collect work because they love it and actually it's that may have something to do with it but people collect work like they would invest in the stock market so for instance somebody who invests in stock would not invest in a company because they thought their logo was beautiful or that they like the name of the company they invest because they want to see a return on that investment one day completely understandable but that's where it starts challenging what makes art special because all of a sudden it has a dollar value that's assigned to it that can go up or down depending on what the Market's doing so that's what makes it a little hard to understand for some people so um the whole idea is that if you're a collector you would invest in an artist this is an extreme generalization but maybe a living artist so one day when they've passed away um it's it increases in value and you could potentially sell it one day to either make room for other parts of your collection or to make money off of your investment so that's essentially how it works now where it starts to get a little hazy here is that you have to understand unlike the stock market the Art Market which is big money is unregulated the stock market is regulated so there's laws and rules around what you can and can't do that can result in criminal activity if you misuse those laws the Art Market doesn't have any of that and I'm not saying that collectors are bad people um I think the vast majority of them because they earned their wealth not by being stupid they were very smart uh a lot of people came from nothing and they do great business and they're doing it as an investment and most people are ethical however when you have an unregulated industry and this is controversial because some people say regulate some people say don't um when you have an unregulated industry it certainly opens the door for people who want to behave in a less than ethical fashion and I'll give you a cple cou examples of where this becomes controversial so in photography terms um in the '90s there was a German collector by the name of Hans Gro and he was starting to collect work by living artists living photographers and he would get stuff at very low prices because he was promising that what he would do is as soon as the collection got to be a certain size is that he would build a museum to house the collection in and it would live on that way and what happened was in the late '90s the new school of German photography this includes people like Thomas stru this includes Andress gersi this includes uh you know that school of German photographers started getting hot and what he did is he actually took a gersi print a very large print done in Paris um and sold it through christe's when that market was at its peak and all that stuff had gotten very hot and collectible and he sold the piece for it was well over a half a million dollars US it was actually 400 something I didn't put that in my notes so I think it was 432,000 which is a lot of money and at that time it set the record for the highest price ever paid for a photographic print and that was a gersy piece and he set that record a couple times you probably heard his name before in doing that but he's hot he's part of this German aesthetic that was popular in the 90s still continues today and it just that was an example of a market that got hot and a sale got hot now here's the problem with that is that Gro had more than open opportunity to I mean it's his piece he can do with it what he wants so he was able to sell it that's free market the the problem is is that he was getting this work at a really low price telling people he was going to build a museum which he never did and so you kind of start to wonder what the ethics are sometimes and I know that it may be more than just black and white and I don't know what his side of the story is there's a lot of reasons why one doesn't actually build a museum but when you make that youro for collecting work and the way that you get lower prices on things I think it becomes a question of Ethics at that point so that's one example there was another example um that actually was uh around the same time I think probably a little later but there was a New York collector who bought an Andre Curtis print and he bought it from a dealer and paid $275,000 for this print and it was a print from uh ca's uh Paris period which is kind of known as being the most collectible the most rare and a couple years later the estate came out and said that they cataloged all the work and that actually wasn't from that period at all so the guy immediately sued the dealer who sold it to him and then this whole thing ensued it got caught up in the courts now this this is not a criminal lawsuit this is just a civil I'm suing you because you were misleading and an agreement was reached but it was a no speak on both side so nobody ever really knew what happened to it but that's the that's one of the things about it is that that there's no pricing structure to this Market um if if you feel like you can get $8,000 million do whatever is astronomical and somebody's willing to pay that then so be it and the problem is is that you have a lot of dealers who line up and this and a lot of things get traded and the price goes up what's interesting is the artists aren't ever really part of that on a direct level so gersy wasn't part of that sale that was a piece he sold that somebody else resold to somebody else and this is what can be very controversial that a lot of people who are artists can take issue with you know if a song is played on the radio a royalty is paid um artists aren't necessarily part of these sales um and that's kind of it's not cut and dry but you could see the similarities and maybe some of the differences too now this is true in the US and there's there's two Concepts that are in play there is the American first sale Doctrine which basically states that if you have something you've created you can sell it once and once somebody's purchased that that's the only time you can make any money off that transaction or that sale whereas in Europe it's a French word it's the Dau which basically means the right to follow and in Europe every time a piece gets sold or resold the original Creator gets some chunk of that so that's a big difference between the way it works in Europe and the way it works in the US and like I said I'm am not an expert on this and I don't know enough of the details so this is a very generalized way of of looking at that the um the first sale Doctrine in the US was challenged back in 2012 in California court and it was declared unconstitutional that you could continue to make money off of something you sold once and you know all these are legal opinions of course but you can start to see where the controversy and all this comes into play um you know there's a lot to this and you can certainly see how somebody like Richard Prince comes along and makes a career out of being controversial and shocking because he's competing against warhall and other people and print sells for a lot of money and it's his responsibility to try to keep his career on the upswing now even though an American Artist might not make resales when something gets popular like that you they do benefit from it in the sense that if they're hot then the work that they're currently selling will increase in price too so it's not like they're missing out completely on it and this is where something gets really strange here and I have a comparison to the stock market to make on this um with the museum World a lot of times museums that deal in Contemporary Art will do what they call a mid-career retrospective for a living artist when this happens generally because it's a major exhibition that will travel and tour the value of the work increases dramatically and we've seen this over and over again typically people who are on the Board of Trustees know about these in advance the museum wants them to buy one of these pieces for a number of reasons hopefully they will donate it to the museum they will at least display it there but they're getting a good deal by buying it early if this happens in the stock market boys and girls this is known as insider trading and one can go to jail for this Martha Stewart had that happen a couple years ago and so it's really difficult to kind of see how this works sometimes I'm not saying that that's in the wrong it happens all the time but museums hands aren't clean either I'm curious to know what you guys think this is a very controversial topic and I'm happy to discuss this further so please leave a comment and let me know what you guys think as always if you enjoyed this episode please remember to like it and share it with your friends and as always subscribe to the art of photograph for more crazy controversy episodes like this one this one's really kind of out there and I'm not sure there's an easy answer for it I have some more things I want to say but I'm going to wait till another episode to do that but I want to hear what you guys have to say first once again guys this has been another episode of The Art of Photography see you guys in the next video later\n"