Art World
The Art World Reacts: Watch Important People Freak Out About the $450 Million da Vinci on Social Media
The Internet went a little bonkers. What else did you expect?
The Internet went a little bonkers. What else did you expect?
Brian Boucher ShareShare This Article
If you’ve been in a coma since last night, you’re waking up to the news that a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, the last one in private hands, smashed every record and sold at Christie’s New York for the indescribable sum of $450.3 million.
But while you’ve been snoozing, the world has been tweeting and Instagramming. We’ve combed through the social platforms for some of the best reactions from the art world—from awed to salty to witty—and beyond. Here’s what we found.
Museums would love to have bought the painting, but we all know that their acquisitions budgets probably fall tens or hundreds of millions of dollars short. So online, they did what they could, at least by way of commentary.
One museum cleverly summed up the challenges museums face in the post-Salvator Mundi era.
This is why we can't have nice things https://t.co/xdpxYhYzqh
— CMOA (@cmoa) November 16, 2017
And why wouldn’t he?
Before the sale, Christie’s Loic Gouzer, one of the proxy bidders, went to a Halloween party…
… and, after the sale, Gouzer got a ride from… who?
Whether haters or experts, there are plenty of people, in and out of the art world, who (figuratively) aren’t buying it.
For some reason, Hollywood funnyman Seth Rogen has opinions:
Shits fake yo
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) November 16, 2017
Artist and MacArthur “genius” Nicole Eisenman is so not feeling it:
400,000,000$ Fck twit big game art hunter wins fake Duh Vinci
— N. Eisenman (@corncub) November 16, 2017
Some called on comparisons to various art-world-famous artists and artworks to bring the joke home.
The art world’s other favorite restoration gone wrong came to many people’s minds:
Da Vinci's Salvador Mundi sold for 400 million dollars!
Posted by Joaquin Carter on Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Christie’s promoted the painting with footage of awestruck visitors who waited in line to see the thing; one observer compared the sometimes-tearful reactions to Marina Abramović’s staring contest at MoMA:
Maybe Christie's created all the #Leonardo hype just to shoot that publicity reel of 'awestruck, dumbfounded' viewers. It's very moving. Their astonished eyes, so real. It's very Marina. Hey, maybe it's all just an Abramovic performance! "The Artist is Way Absent, Still You Cry."
— Paul D'Agostino (@postuccio) November 15, 2017
The always-opinionated New York magazine scribe Jerry Saltz had some thoughts, and others had some thoughts on his thoughts.
Saltz went so far as to, for some reason, malign the Christ by face swapping him with Saltz’s fellow reality TV star:
An ARTnews writer animated his weariness with a certain someone’s hot take:
When I have to endure another 1,000-word "I'm not an expert, but…" take on 'Salvator Mundi' pic.twitter.com/ud1CwTMP8x
— Alex Greenberger (@alexgreenberger) November 16, 2017
Curator Benjamin Godsill, formerly of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Phillips auction house, had a message for Saltz:
Hey, Jerry: pic.twitter.com/sqoaEsKqBV
— Benjamin Godsill (@mrgodsill) November 16, 2017
What better way for the visually oriented denizens of the art world, or the Internet-obsessed ones, to react but by meme-ifying?
One observer posited that while the world is in disbelief and awe, Salvator Mundi himself is pretty chill:
$450 Million?
*Takes a long drag*
Yeah, sounds about right.
*flicks back hair*#davinci #SalvatorMundi #450million #worldauctionrecord pic.twitter.com/P3SxcAAZOB
— luke matthews (@lukenm_) November 16, 2017
“Meme artist” Charles Lutz finds inspiration:
Here’s one of your favorite TV painters and one of your most beloved art-restoration memes, in a single post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbjo6xSnKAF/?tagged=salvatormundi
The man who instructed his followers to sell all their belongings and give their money to the poor had plenty of opportunities to weigh in via his many clever proxies.
William Shakespeare drops some wisdom:
But truly, if thou art rich enough to spend $450mil on a picture of Jesus, thou mayst not quite grasp Jesus's priorities.#SalvatorMundi
— William Shakespeare (@Shakespeare) November 16, 2017
WWJB (What Would Jesus Bid?):
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbjrEE1BvNd/?tagged=salvatormundi
Plenty of people had plenty to say about the price tag. Some were skeptical; others just plain went nuts, believing the sale to be a sign of the End Times.
The punsters at a certain Gotham tabloid must have been up late cooking up this take:
Tomorrow's cover: A painting recently discovered to be an original Leonardo da Vinci was sold for $450M https://t.co/syX2n1kl6X pic.twitter.com/RGsFiH6X21
— New York Post (@nypost) November 16, 2017
New York artist Caitlin Cherry pointed out a sobering comparison:
Another from Godsill, who made the link with the other major financial story of the day:
The day after a painting sells for $450 million seems like a good day to pass a tax plan that massively favors the 1% no?
— Benjamin Godsill (@mrgodsill) November 16, 2017
If you do some calculations, says this observer, there’s a feminist point to be made by comparing the Savior of the World with Leonardo’s other majorly famous work:
We need a serious talk about gender pay gap…
— Miss M (@ams_syd) November 16, 2017
This young art historian was inspired to imagine, honestly, what we’d say is the best birthday party in the world.
Something I’d spend my 450 million on instead of a Da Vinci: Beyoncé holding an intimate concert for my birthday while Barbra Streisand personally makes me an omelette made with Judy Garland’s ashes served on Ryan Gosling’s bare chest
— William J. Simmons (@WJ_Simmons) November 16, 2017
That’s all we’ve got for now. Come at us in the Facebook comments with more.