[pollyannaish]

But aren't you comparing apples to oranges?

I completely agree regarding his business practices. I feel the exact same way regarding Beanie Babies and other assorted over-hyped and meritless "investment buying opportunities." While I am not sure that there was any illegality involved (this is from the LA Times after all) there is very little doubt that his work will not pad people's bank accounts in their retirement and to market anything in that way is really misleading. It is hard to predict what will appreciate. But one thing you can predict is that it won't be something everyone was told to "save because it will be worth something someday." That just screws up the whole law of supply and demand and defeats the purpose.

If you want your art to be valuable, it has to be timeless, excellent...and rare.

That said, if a card, bookmark, t-shirt, calendar, mug, reprint or original is bought because it brings a person joy...it most certainly is art. And to say someone is tasteless because they like that kind of decoration in their lives is unfair and elitist.

So...I stand by my original post. I don't care for his style and never have. People buying his stuff as an investment were, frankly, idiotic. But if you like it and it brings you joy...I respect that.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "And to say someone is tasteless because they like that kind of decoration in their lives is unfair and elitist."

I don't think it is either unfair or elitist to objectively compare two different art objects and conclude that one has lasting merit and one is kitschy crap, or to draw conclusions about the taste of the person who prefers the kitsch. There is, for example, a vast qualitative distinction between, say, a Cezanne landscape and anything by Kincaid.

As I see it, the problem is one of arts education. We don't give our kids the basis upon which to make sound aesthetic judgments. If this country was doing right by its children, giving art the place it deserves in most grammar and high school curricula, con-men like Kincaid wouldn't have a chance.