Reading Blog Assignment #1

This article was very interesting and quite surprising to me. To start off, I am very surprised that Koon’s original piece, Balloon Dog (Orange), was sold at auction for upwards of $58 million. I am first surprised that somebody was willing to pay this much for a piece of art from an artist that is still alive and perhaps has not created the same name for himself as many artists from decades/centuries ago (at least to my knowledge, I have never heard of Jeff Koon before, but he most certainly could be absurdly famous). I was also surprised that it was the most expensive piece of artwork to ever sell at auction in general. When it comes the GIF, this is where things got even more perplexing. I understand what Green is trying to say with his art, that traditional art is dead (deflating in) with the rise of digital media and that we as a culture are switching to digital mediums that have completely changed the way that we view/distribute art. I see the point he is making; however, I think it simultaneously devalues his own art. After all, I can view this GIF as many times as I would like and hear the background on the piece without ever purchasing it. I guess this is kind of his point, but it gets confusing. I wonder if Green actually expects anyone to purchase his GIF for the listed $5,800 or if he only priced it this way to prove a point. I guess we’ll be able to see if anyone ever actually makes the purchase. I personally do not see any valid reason to purchase it when one could simply copy and paste it into their clipboard.