"Everyone around is waiting for him to die," the woman said.
I froze in shock.
“His paintings will immediately go up in value,” she explained.
The conversation took place about 20 years ago during the Venice Biennale. At the time, I worked in the wealth management industry. Contemporary art was one of the few places where my clients' interests and mine overlapped.
She published an art magazine, knew the inner workings, and knew everyone involved — who created, who promoted, who sold, who bought. I listened with my mouth open as she walked me through the shadow side of collecting.
All that aesthetics, harmony, and beauty, it turned out, had a flip side.
At that moment, we were talking about a famous musician who also painted. Sadly, alcohol, drugs, age, and illness had accelerated his decline. He had only weeks, perhaps days, left.
And while, on the surface, crowds sipped prosecco and celebrated the vitality of the art filling the pavilions, deep below, a pack of sharks circled and fought over the creative body of a dying artist.
The race was to buy his work before the moment X. Every tactic was fair game. Money was lying on the floor, waiting for someone to pick it up. But not everyone knew the secret. And timing meant everything.
Back then, I was simply stunned by what I saw. Now I understand its meaning.
Not only a creator's life — even his death is generative.
He creates new value with his entire being. From beginning to end.
Everyone else can enjoy the fruits of his work, collect them, or resell them. They can also ignore them, criticize them, or even destroy them.
But there is one thing they cannot do: Create the way only he could.
That's why when it seems the creator is gone — he lives on among us.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
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