Einstein has his equation, I’ve got mine
My new girlfriend and I were walking through Marshall Fields during our first trip away together. I was called to Chicago on business and we decided to make a weekend of it. Strolling down Michigan Avenue, we drifted inside.
I’d never heard of Christian Laboutin.
Art is a funny thing
Red is my favorite color. Fire engine red. As my girlfriend stopped to peruse dress shoes, I picked up a pair of high heels with shiny red bottoms. Christian Laboutin’s label. Twelve hundred dollars.
For a pair of shoes.
Working class
I come from a family of truck drivers and mechanics. The most I’ve ever spent on a pair was one hundred dollars, and I expect those two objects to last until the day I die. Of course, I had to ask what made a pair of Laboutin stilettos worth that kind of dough.
No answer satisfied, especially when I was introduced to the appropriate dress, jewelry and bag required to complete an ensemble. Ten grand could get swallowed up.
I looked at her silently, with a deadpan, as if she was asking me to jump off the roof of the Sears tower.
MOMA
While I don’t know fashion, I do know art — from cave paintings to Basquiat. Kindergarten drawings to Andrew Wyeth. Until that day in Chicago, the two worlds didn’t intersect. But, the Laboutin line at Marshall Fields was presented to buyers in precisely the same way as any small sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art.
There’s no explaining the value of art, but I like to wrestle with the idea.
Crossing over
I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of defining the precise line over which an artwork crosses from being a object to an asset. In a culture where money is everything, that line is magical. In a culture where sex sells anything, the line contorts. In a culture where the trajectories of money, sex and objectification easily intersect, anything can become a fetish—and does.
Einstein ain’t got nuthin on me.
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