Well, much has been reported since the pastel and oil version of The Scream by Edvard Munch was sold at auction this week. No matter how you feel about the final hammer price of $120 million (with buyers premium) or the piece of art itself, it is certainly one of the most iconic images ever committed to canvas by any artist anywhere.
As far as looking at it as a piece of real estate, the $120 million dollar price tag certainly becomes even more remarkable when you examine it in even more finite terms: at 38 x 23-1/4 inches or 744 square inches of canvas, it comes out to around $161 thousand per square inch (about the size of a stamp); or, for those of us who use the metric system, that is 1889 square centimeters which comes to almost $64 thousand per square centimeter (which is, well, 2-1/2 times smaller than a square inch)!
To be honest, it does not surprise me.In fact, I embrace it. You might not be able to set foot in this piece of property, but it is wall property none-the-less. No tenets. No triple net. No leases. No late rent. No property taxes. No broken leases. No build-outs. No permits. Nothing but real estate that you hang on a wall. It is anything but a mistake!
Although I realize that it is only a painting. I mean you cannot sleep with it (without hurting yourself), you cannot eat on it (with hurting it), you are not going to find the cure for cancer or any number of other maladies with it, you are not going to solve world peace, so the question begs to be asked. Why?
Well, the condensed answer is simple: It is all a matter of possession. Nothing more and nothing less. And if in fact the expression holds true and “possession is nine tenths of the law”, then for a collector, it is the epitome of acquisitions. This purchase of Munch’s, The Scream, is nothing less than eleven tenths of the law.
And for the collector, who battled it out via telephone bid with eight others for twelve historic minutes, this, of course, is the bottom line.
Durerpost 