Nelson Diaz in his studio
New York Artist Fights Rising Prices and Forgoes Auction Houses for eBay, Starts Bidding at $1
Nelson Diaz, an artist in New York's SoHo neighborhood, is angry at the art market. Prices have spent years climbing ever higher, effectively pricing all but society's wealthiest to the side. It has become increasingly difficult for a middle class (or even "merely rich") collector to bring the aesthetic into his life, and Diaz has had enough. Inspired by a conversation with Francis Bacon, who has had a salient influence on Diaz's work, the artist has decided to defy convention, aiming to sell a series of paintings for as little as possible.
On June 15, 2008, Diaz flipped the switch on his first eBay auction of the summer, putting Self-Portrait with Pipe, 2008 #1 under the virtual gavel for the outrageous starting bid of ... $1. To date, six paintings have been made available for auction through eBay, with the sixth still pending as of this writing. Each piece in the series is rendered in Diaz's signature mathematical style, making truly desired art available to a larger field of collectors for a change.
For Diaz, a single painting requires a substantial time investment. Instead of creating in wild spurts and turning completed works around nightly, Diaz plots tens of thousands of points on a particular image and applies advanced calculus techniques to present the subject in four dimensions. This intricate process limits his ability to produce a large body of work. Some paintings can take months to complete. The Self-Portrait with Pipe, 2008 series does fall into a less complicated category of Diaz's work, but it still reflects his propensity for non-Euclidean thinking and would resonate with his collectors.
Quite simply, there is a market for Diaz's work. This isn't a case of an unaccomplished "fringe" personality trying to attract attention. Diaz is an accomplished artist. He has been awarded the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation prize and The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation grant for painting. His work has been exhibited at the Interstice Cameo Gallery on South Beach, the Museum of Modern Art in Fort Lauderdale and the Anne Berthoud Gallery in London. And, his paintings can be found in the New York Academy of Art and Eileen Guggenheim Collection.
With both his background and the sheer effort required to create a single painting, the high prices typically commanded by Diaz are unsurprising. But, the money is not at issue for him. There is a larger dynamic at play in the art market--commoditization--and Diaz is concerned. After seeing a late 1970s triptych by Francis Bacon fetch $86 million at Christie's in New York on May 14, 2008, Diaz truly understood that the art itself no longer mattered.
With art prices getting out of control, Diaz has decided to fight back. In selling his paintings for as little as $1, Diaz is making a profound statement about the art market and is sacrificing a substantial amount of income. To the artist, it's worth it. He would like to see art hanging on the walls of more homes and hopes to help the process along. Today's collectors--investors, really--are making art a commodity, he explains. "People are more interested in buying art just to have it than acquiring pieces that mean something to them."
Throughout 2007 and into 2008, sales records were set repeatedly. Prices have climbed aggressively, effectively forcing the merely wealthy out of the art market. Works by Francis Bacon, the artist who has had the most influence on Diaz, went for $245 million at auction in 2007, according to ArtPrice.com. This made Bacon the third-highest selling artist of the year.
According to Diaz, Bacon would not have been happy with the news. He spent 48 hours with the quirky, reclusive genius in 1985. Then a student of mathematics and budding artist, Diaz had long admired the bacon's work and wanted to share his non-Euclidean geometric interpretations of Bacon's paintings.
More than anything, Diaz learned that art should be appreciated for itself, rather than as a tool of commerce. In fact, he remembers Bacon saying, "It is amazing that people buy my work. It is stupid. They only buy it because the market tells them it's worth something. But, in reality, to me, they're totally worthless." If Bacon were alive to see the $86 million price tag on his work, Nelson believes, he would be offended.
As a nod to his mentor--and to protest the state of the art market--Diaz will auction 10 versions of his painting "Self Portrait with Pipe, 2008," using eBay instead of the major auction houses. The purpose of starting the bidding $1 is to send a message to potential collectors, and Diaz hopes that the prices will not run to high. "The point is to make art affordable," Diaz says, "not to find a new way to make it unattainable."
Tom Johansmeyer
Tom Johansmeyer is a Manhattan-based freelance writer. He covers art market conditions, emerging artists and the recent intersection of fine art and adult entertainment. His work appears regularly in AVN Online, DTM and TraderDaily.com. Tom has also written for Boston magazine, Penthouse, Newsweek Europe and Cigar Report.
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