Gawker
Modern art is more or less indistinguishable from prostitution, but every now and then something happens to make that relationship a little less symbolic and a little more literal. Emperors Club, the high-priced call girl outfit that provided Eliot Spitzer and countless other wealthy elites with classy sex, also hooked the same wealthy clients up with classy art. According to Artnet: "As it turns out, the company that ran Emperors Club VIP, the Emperors Publishing Media Group, also runs a parallel website titled Emperors Club Contemporary Art." Millionaires and billionaires who signed up with the service would supposedly gain access to "exclusive auctions" of works by folks like Jeff Koons and Andrew Wyeth.
Some of the artists mentioned on the Emperors Club site (which is still live, and which is amusingly identical to their whoring site) were contacted by Artnet. They had no clue they had awesome seven-diamond profiles on this escort service's art page. They also weren't too surprised, of course, because, yeah, making it as an artist pretty much already is whoring.
Success is about sex appeal and convincing rich people to spend considerably more money than reasonable people might expect on you. For the buyers, it's not about the pleasure of the act or the object itself so much as the power, and the status.
All of this is patently obvious of course, which is why that one artist actually auctioned herself off for sex, that one time. Right? Was that a real thing, or an "art" thing? Or did we see it in some bitingly satirical movie?
Artnet News [Artnet via Artforum]
Comments
Emperors Club: the gift that keeps on giving.
I just ordered a Titian.
$2500 for a Keuhner, $5000 for an Olson.
Are we sure they didn't mean Jeff Poons and Andrew Hymenth?
So life DOES imitate art?
Budget option: $800 for a Kinkaide
"For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys. Nice racket. Great town, New York."
--Woody Allen, "The Whore of Mensa"
How much to pee into Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain?"
I think that if I were a prostitute, I would incorporate art into sex by letting men play Connect-the-Dots with my freckles.
For the most discerning Emperor's Club art patrons, British Pop Artist Allen Jones's early '70s living room set (chair, table, coat-rack) made from lifelike nude mannequins in fetish gear:
[www.phinnweb.org]
For Elliot Spitzer, Italian conceptual artist Pierro Manzoni's canned shit (1961):
[home.sprynet.com]
[I can't post images because I am a dumb.]
No Tracey Emin?
@flossy: Allen Jones' mannequin set dates from 1969. It was the inspiration for the milkbar furniture in A Clockwork Orange.
I figure it's a sure thing that the Koons and Wyeth works being offered were (respectively) a Cicciolina and a Helga. A really niiice Helga. Nothin' nice about Signora Staller.
@mladen: Whoops! I was close, at least. And I have a feeling you're right in your speculation.
Wonder what diamond-level of membership qualifies you to bid on witnessing Dash Snow blow himself.
(Heavy breathing) I'm calling about your rates for the "Double O'Keefe"...
The best service that the Emperor's House has is their Gold Membership Exclusive Office Supplies Division. For a $25,000 yearly fee, they'll bring you staples and tape whenever you need it.
Perhaps the art in question is primarily thousands of reenactments of 'Seed Bed' ?
They told me that blow-up from the Tijuana 8-Pager with Popeye doing Olive Oil was a Lichtenstein. Lying bastards!
@yetimike: Perhaps the art in question is primarily thousands of reenactments of 'Seed Bed' ?
With interludes for "Meat Joy."
The thing is, you only got four hours with the artwork before it hopped in a cab.
For me it IS the pleasure of the act and the object itself. I guess that's why I never graduated from whore to "art buyer".
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