Celebrity art was in the news this week when film star Brad Pitt made his debut as a sculptor. Art by movie actors is rarely worth mentioning, and low resale value makes it a lousy investment.
For example, Butterfield and Butterfield, an L.A. auction house has reported that movie actor Anthony Quinn prints, which he sold for $2,000 apiece, resell for as little as $10.
Why celebrity art rates low in the marketplace
A secondary market is based on exhibit credits and reviews. Quinn didn’t have any of that. But as of now, Pitt does. Nine of his sculptures debuted at Sara Hildén Art Museum in Finland, a treasure house of modern art, racking up great notices.
The Guardian’s leading art critic, Jonathan Jones tagged Pitt “a very fine sculptor.” One caveat. Jones saw Pitt’s exhibit online, Finland being too far off his beat. It’s off of mine, too.
But from where I sit, while I see what Jones sees – “finely wrought, intelligent reflections” – I don’t agree with what says the reflections represent: “American violence.”
Jones makes his point by calling attention to a large frieze that Pitt titled “Aiming At You I Saw Me But It was Too Late This Time.” What you see are men shooting each other to smithereens.
Jones contends that the fragmented body parts of the raging fighters “expressively conveys the way violence literally destroys the self.” I’d go farther.
As I see it, the frieze is a picture of Pitt aiming the gun at himself over and over. The savage state of broken forms that speak of violence is really about self-destruction.
Anxious introspection
Pitt seems to think so, too. As he told the Finnish publication Yle: “For me, it's about self-reflection... getting really brutally honest with me and taking account of those I may have hurt and the moments I've just gotten wrong.”
His wall sculpture together with his remarks kicked up a memory of a 1998 fantasy film “Meet Joe Black.” Pitt played Death who takes the human form of a young male named Joe Black, who was recently killed in an auto accident.
Pitt reveals his identity to a newspaper publisher (Anthony Hopkins) who is fated to die of heart failure. Death promises to extend his life if he will guide him about life on Earth.
Death takes a holiday
Living as a human, Death falls in love with Hopkins’ daughter who had fallen earlier for Joe Black. When Death tells Hopkins he intended to take his daughter with him when he leaves Earth, Hopkins questions a love based on deceit, pointing out that his daughter doesn’t know that Black is Death.
It's at this point that Death does what amounts to soul-searching and decides to leave Hopkins’ daughter on Earth, and bringing Black back to life for her, as well.
Pitt’s frieze “Aiming At You I Saw Me But It was Too Late This Time” seems to be an illustration of Death’s wrenching introspection, his critical thinking about the correctness of his motives. I’m left to wonder if Pitt is aware of the tie-in between his sculpture and the movie.
