I visited some art galleries during Art Basel Miami weekend, which is like the CES or AVN Conference for artists. I’m no art connoisseur, but I’m a creative, and I like seeing the stuff these visual creatives come up with.

Just like in anything else, there’s levels to this shit: artists get to set up and display their works in galleries in different areas of town based on who the higher-level (which I suppose equals higher-selling and better-known) artists are. I was at a middle-level-artist gallery when I saw a piece that had been created with acrylic paint on canvas, priced at $26,000.

In the past, I’ve asked artists how they determine price for their stuff. I never heard the same answer twice. To me, artwork pricing is just like pricing for anything else: once you’re past cover-my-expenses level, numbers are arbitrary.

Price is merely a story.