Quote:
Originally Posted by bomber317
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Art is very subjective...It took an outsider's expertise to put pieces in that made sense and worked for both of us. ...
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As is the outsider's expertise. See, you and your wife did finally agree on what art to buy for your house after listening to the advice. The public does not have that luxury. Most of the time, it is the taste of a person (politician, bureaucrat or both), who is in power to authorize its purchase. Even when so called art experts are added to the selection committees, the decisions are still heavily affected by their personal tastes or lack thereof.
The classic example of the art expertise subjectivity comes from New York, where a few entrepreneurial art gallery owners in the mid-XX century have made themselves very financially successful by becoming the gatekeepers of the new American abstract art. They've heavily promoted unknown (thus, cheap) young artists that rooted their work in Bauhaus and Russian avant-garde to the rich buyers. Rich buyers promoted it further to their friends and then further to the public institutions, which accepted the work as donations-in-kind, exhibition loans and other tangible and intangible benefits to the benefactors. The PR machine went full–circle. The initially unknown and unrecognized artwork became expensive and "standard", while people who started the machine and made it standard became the "experts".
During Renaissance, artists including Michelangelo and da Vinci had to present their work commissioned for public display to the public and subject themselves to its evaluation even though the work itself was commissioned by royalty and/or clergy. It was often done in competitions. Coincidentally (or not), this is when the world's best and most time-proven artwork has been produced.
I also don't have the right answer, that I think will work 100%, but I do believe in collective wisdom and goodness when it comes to public spending. Perhaps, naively.