1 HN user recommended this explainer1 month2021–2022score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Used to explain why contemporary art is expensive for money reasons rather than art reasons.
A Wendover Productions video on how the art market works, arguing that prices are driven by wealth, storage and tax mechanics rather than artistic value.
“Good time as ever to plug Wendover's recent video about how the art world works.” (HN, 2021)
Good time as ever to plug Wendover's recent video about how the art world works. [this video] Seeing Sotheby's attach its name to NFTs confirms every suspicion i ever had about NFTs.
Explains how the art world works and why prices are inflated.
I mean you are right, but that texture is doing a lot of work, since the Mona Lisa is about $850 million, and my solution is $0.0001 million, and indistinguishable at 15 meters. But either way, this doesn't distract from the main thrust of my point. Art is expensive for Money reasons, not art reasons. [this video] [link]
Supports argument that art prices reflect money, not art.
> The people doing contemporary fine art with their audience are unaffected. It's not a particularly well hidden secret that the contemporary fine art is really not about the art or the artist. [this video]
Cited for claim that contemporary fine art is not about art.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
3 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes