Jeff Koons is a well known artist whose sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58.4 million, making it the most expensive piece of art ever auctioned.
As a social commentary on this, Michael Green created a gif depicting a very similar balloon dog to Koons’s but this one is seen collapsing which he titled Balloon Dog Deflated. Although it did not sell on eBay, Green had some interesting points on the value of digital art in this “new” age. The gif of the balloon dog deflating symbolizes how the tradition of modern art will deflate and make way for digital art. He claims that “the museum is the internet” and that the value of paintings has deflated because of this new era we have found ourselves in.
I partially disagree with Green’s statement. I think that digital art is more accessible and therefore can circulate faster and easier but in my opinion that does not make it more valuable than physical art. Yes the new museum is the internet, but the huge quantity of art in this museum takes away from a truly curated experience and it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the quantity of media. Furthermore, there is something innately unique in being able to touch a beautiful object, feel its texture and temperature, and see how it can react to its surroundings. Certain paintings have completely different qualities in person based on how the light hits them than if they were digitized and sculptures similarly have a more unique user experience than photos. Therefore, I believe that the presence and importance of physical art will not deflate as they have a different kind of value than digital art.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/here-is-the-most-expensive-gif-of-all-time/379556/
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