The U.S. government’s redacted photos of the most expensive album ever are art

Plus: Harry Reid’s memorial service program was literally so Nevada

Jan 12, 2022

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Hello, in this week’s issue we’ll look at…

The U.S. government’s redacted photos of the most expensive album ever are art
These were the most expensive American works of art sold in 2021
This Serbian artist imagined American Big Tech titans as religious icons
Harry Reid’s memorial service program was literally so Nevada

The U.S. government’s redacted photos of the most expensive album ever sold are art

Credit: Department of Justice, via BuzzFeed News

We now have never-before-seen photos of Wu-Tang Clan’s 2015 one-of-a-kind album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The rap group made a single copy of the album and sold it for about $2 million, making it the most expensive individual album ever sold, and making a statement about the value of music in the digital era. It was bought by “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, but the government seized it in 2018 when Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud.

The album comes in a cedar box with two CDs, a 175-page leather-bound lyric book, and a leather folder containing the certificate of rights. BuzzFeed News obtained the photos from the Justice Department as part of a Freedom of Information Act request, and you can see the full series here.

Some of the government photos were redacted with white squares due to “trade secrets,” per BuzzFeed News, including images of the CDs, song titles, and the lyric book. I lean towards more government transparency over less, but honestly, the redactions look kind of dope. These photos belong in the National Archives.

The concept of assigning artificial scarcity to a work of art that could otherwise be digitally replicated is the whole point of NFTs, and in fact, the brokers who helped crypto group PleasrDAO buy Once Upon a Time… from the government for $4 million last year told Rolling Stone they were interested in the parallels between the album and NFTs.

While you can screenshot an NFT, though, Wu-Tang Clan forbids their album’s owner from making copies, and the music can’t be released publicly until 2103.

These were the most expensive American works of art sold in 2021

Top row: “In This Case” (1983) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, “No. 7” (1951) by Mark Rothko, and “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” (2021) by Beeple; Bottom row: “Number 17” (1951) by Jackson Pollock and “Untitled” (2007) by Cy Twombly

American artists had a strong showing in 2021, making up half of the top 10 most expensive works of art of the year. Here’s the top five:

“In This Case” (1983) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which sold for $93.1 million
“No. 7” (1951) by Mark Rothko, which sold for $82.4 million
“EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” (2021) by Beeple, which sold for $69.3 million
“Number 17” (1951) by Jackson Pollock, which sold for $61.1 million
“Untitled” (2007) by Cy Twombly, which sold for $58.8 million

The only artist who sold higher than Basquiat last year was Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, whose 1932 “Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)” sold for $103.4 million.

“EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” by Beeple — real name Mike Winkelmann — is an NFT of 5,000 digital works of art that Winkelmann made daily between May 1, 2007 and Jan. 7, 2021. His later work tended to be bizarro political cartoons, like “ENDGAME,” the second-to-last piece in collage, which shows a nude Trump giving the thumbs up at the U.S. Capitol as supporters in red hats fight the police.

Beeple’s sale made him the third most expensive living artist at auction, behind David Hockney and Jeff Koons.

This Serbian artist imagined American Big Tech titans as religious icons

“St. Mr. Jerky” (2021) and “Holy Jailbird” (2021) by Aleksandar Todorovic

For his exhibition Brave New Normal World, Serbian artist Aleksandar Todorovic used Eastern Orthodox iconography as inspiration for a series of paintings exploring the power of American Big Tech.

Todorovic painted portraits of people like former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as saints, while in “Holy Jailbird” he painted “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley, who was sentenced for breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, posing behind bars in his infamous hat and a YouTube clown nose.

The work is meant to comment on online cults of misinformation and the imbalance of power between Big Tech companies and their users, according to Todorovic’s gallery.

“Golden Throne” (2021) and “St. Deep Phisher” (2020) by Aleksandar Todorovic

“Think of it as a funny house mirror — it gives the reflection of reality, but it’s distorted and it’s accentuating the parts which affect most of us in the wrong way,” he said in a statement.

Speaking of digital fun house mirrors, a new Pew Research Center poll found social media users on the furthest ends of the political spectrum are more likely to show support for a candidate online and less likely to feel reluctant to post about political or social issues than those toward the middle. 🙃

Brave New Normal World is on view at Dio Horia in Athens, Greece, through Jan. 15.

Harry Reid’s memorial service program was literally so Nevada

The memorial service for the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was held Saturday at the Smith Center in Las Vegas, and I appreciated the subtle nods to Nevada in the program’s design. It was printed in blue and silver with stars in the corners, all symbols from the Nevada state flag. Battle Born, baby.

I’m a sucker for Mormon funerals because they’re so life affirming, and Reid’s was no exception. President Joe Biden spoke and said Reid was “all Searchlight, no spotlight,” a reference to Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nev., and Brandon Flowers sang “Be Still,” off the Killers’ 2012 album Battle Born, and “Home Means Nevada,” the state song.