{"id":1859,"date":"2015-12-23T21:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T21:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=1859"},"modified":"2015-12-23T21:00:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T21:00:53","slug":"a-social-experiment-could-destroy-a-picasso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/a-social-experiment-could-destroy-a-picasso\/","title":{"rendered":"A Social Experiment Could Destroy a Picasso"},"content":{"rendered":"

When given the opportunity to own a Picasso, most art lovers would jump at the chance \u2013 but what if you were offered the opportunity to own 1 \/ 150,000th of a piece of a Picasso? The popular sarcasm-laden card game Cards Against Humanity (CAH), touted as a \u201cparty game for horrible people,\u201d is putting the fate of a signed Picasso print in the hands of its fans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The subscribers of CAH\u2019s recent Eight Sensible Gifts for Hanukkah<\/em> promotion will vote on whether to 1) donate Picasso’s Tete de Faune<\/em> to the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) or 2) laser-cut the artwork so that each subscriber can receive a piece of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the promotion, fans pay $15 and receive eight gifts throughout the month of December. Among the other gifts were socks and an NPR membership. For the seventh gift, their website states<\/a>:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe used the money for the seventh night of Hanukkah to purchase <\/em>T\u00eate de Faune, an original 1962 Picasso. The 150,000 people who subscribed to our <\/em>Eight Sensible Gifts for Hanukkah now have a chance to vote: should we donate this work to the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, or should we laser-cut it into 150,000 tiny squares and send everyone their own scrap of a real Picasso? Voting opens on Saturday, December 26th and runs through the end of Thursday, December 31st. When voting\u2019s over, we\u2019ll post the results here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Art Zealous reached out to CAH, and was told that they have \u201cno further comment\u201d on the matter. We also reached out to the AIC, but have not yet received a reply.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CAH, a Chicago-based company that started as a 2010 Kickstarter, is known for their publicity stunts \u2013 at once purchasing an island off of Maine. This new stunt simply seems like another sensationalist attempt at attention-grabbing. While the original Picasso in question is 1 of 50 signed lino-cut prints, only worth about $14,000, the company is still using a work of art as a social experiment in selfishness \u2013 determining whether its customers are willing to cut up a work of art just to own a piece of it (even at a diminished value and without the context of the work as a whole), or whether they will value the artwork enough to enrich our museums with it for future generations to appreciate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Earlier in the promotion, CAH showed its appreciation for culture by stating that it\u2019s NPR membership gift was \u201cone tiny step toward keeping Americans from getting even dumber in a time when public funding for education, arts, and culture is at a historic low.\u201d Instead, this experiment reeks of self-gain. \u00a0Acknowledging this possible museum donation as an option seems like dangling meat in front of a circus lion to make it do tricks. It only serves to negate the company\u2019s supposed generosity, if only there hadn\u2019t been a publicity stunt attached to it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, only time will tell. As of the new year, either the AIC will have a new donation or the world will have 150,000 new \u201cart collectors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When given the opportunity to own a Picasso, most art lovers would jump at the chance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,11,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}