Modern art, Britney Spears hair and Brad Pitt's facial tissue...

I love art, especially contemporary art. One of my favorite painters is Barnett Newman and the National Gallery in Ottawa has one of its paintings...Voice of Fire (the title)...and it is just splendid! This special painting is nothing more that two vertical lines surrounding a red one (you can see it here). The museum purchased it in 1989 for 1.8 million (CDN). Is that too much for such a simple painting (although it is 18 feet tall)?

Maybe yes....but...maybe not! It depends! Some people would not spend a dime for it. After all, all this money could have been used for social housing, homeless people, shelters....biomedical research! On the other hand, this is the price to pay for a "Barnett Newman". Why? Because there is a market for it! Still not convinced?

Let me give you a little (and disgusting) example!

You follow someone and that person blows its nose and throws the facial tissue on the ground as he walks...are you going to touch that dirty facial tissue? Chances are, you are going to stay clear of that piece of softened cellulose with goo in it. BUT WAIT....that person in front of you is...YES...Brad Pitt! If you have just a bit of marketing brains, you are going to sell it on eBay (if you can prove it comes from Brad...maybe you can extract DNA from it). That SAME facial tissue now has a market potential! You understand? Sure you do! That is probably why you are not surprized by the fact that poor Britney's (boo-hoo) hair is now on sale on the internet...for a million bucks MINIMUM.

That's a lot of money for some keratin that grew in a head full of water....but that's just me!

Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelljsmith/9658510/