Does Art Belong to the Rich?

People like to describe works of art as "priceless" but actually most stuff can be bought. In Sotheby's spring auction on May 3rd (NY time), Pablo Picasso beat Vincent van Gogh again by his Dora Maar au chat (Dora Maar with Cat, 1941), which, sold at the price of USD95.2 million, became the second most expensive art after Garçon à la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe, 1905) by the same cubisit artist. The latter was priced USD104 million two years ago. Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, bought by a Japanese gazillionaire in 1990 for USD82.5 million, ranks the third. Such valuable paintings went to covert safes or walls of private studies, out of the public sight forever.

In contrast to the prosperous private art collection, quality public exhibitions, which used to be a tradition in China, are shrinking. Mr. Yu Qiuyu commented on one of the bonus questions for the 12th National Young Singers Contest last night, "Great pity that you (referring to one contestant) failed to tell the other two famous grottos besides the Mogao Caves, which are representatives of public art displays in ancient China. Most works of art were collected by either the royal or the wealthy, and the mass found no other access but Buddhist places to fine arts. Therefore, I think we all should thank Buddhism for giving us such an opportunity of public art education." Hope I wouldn’t have to pay to view the art possessed by some businessman one day.