Blog post #1: Jeff Koons and The Appreciation of Digital Art

I am very familiar with the artist Jeff Koons work and history. He has made incredible sculptures, of course his most famous being his balloon animal series. Little did I know there was a GIF created by Michael Green which looks exactly like Jeff’s balloon animal dog- but in digital art form. I had no idea there was a market for gifs, but thinking about it now it makes sense. It's amazing to think remixing a physical or digital artform into something new (but very similar) can legally make you money.

The original work and inspiration for the GIF sold for 58.4 million dollars. The gif is being sold for $5,800, and according to the article, still has no takers. This has me thinking… Why does the majority of people find value in tangible artwork versus digital? Both can take an extremely long amount of time to perfect and produce work. Digital art, in most cases, can be produced in a physical form (like prints and such). Is the main reason for people the ability to hold/touch it? I feel that to progress in the art world, which feels inevitable with the progression of technology, people need to appreciate digital artworks. Technology is only going to allow digital artists to take their works to a higher and higher level if they keep up with new technologies and applications that will continuously be created and updated over the coming years. I can't even imagine what people will be doing within the next few decades, but I'm excited for something to blow my mind.