Re Izabella Kaminska & Felix Salmon on art markets:

Art always involves an idea and some tension or difficulty in expressing it, between form and content for example, between brushstroke technique and image. Even Duchamp?s* urinal involves some mental tension in seeing something mechanical as an object of art, and in mocking the idea at the same time.

Art without tension isn?t art, it?s closer to kitsch.

A perfect mechanical reproduction of the Mona Lisa would involve no tension, and be uninteresting. There?s no idea behind it.

The program that created it is an idea, and it would be much closer to art than the thing it produced.

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Duchamp?s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even is the inspiration for McLuhan?s The Mechanical Bride.