Practice 1

2025年09月26日

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Practice 1

Guess the meaning of the following highlighted words by synonyms and associations.

1. The shape chosen to figuratively represent Churchill’s solidity, reflected a remark that Churchill made, “I am a rock”.

2. Churchill is shown scowling, which makes him a bit threatening, slightly slumped forward, surrounded by gray, brown and black tones.

3. Unlike her gregarious sister, Jane is a shy, unsociable person who does not like to go to parties or to make new friends.

4. Tom is considered an autocratic administrator, because he makes decisions without seeking the opinions from others.

5. The results of epochal events such as wars and great scientific discoveries are not limited to a small geographical area as they were in the past.

WHEN ART BECOMES A COMMODITY

[1] Today’s art is finance driven. The creation of artistic style equals the creation of a brand, i.e., brand Andy Warhol. Such finance driven art over the last few decades has shown truly incredible growth by becoming a new asset class that produces more profit than any other known asset class today.

[2] The best contemporary artists like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, two of the highest priced, are owners and directors of “art factories” which typically create pieces without the artist ever touching them. The artist develops the concept and presents it to his team of technologists, assistants, and manufacturing experts. Most often a computer model is pre-made of the planned piece. The concepts for many pieces are represented not by sketches or drawings by the artist, but by an object he or she may select from a store or any other place he finds them.

[3] Jeff Koons for example, who has a 1,500 square meters’ factory in Chelsea with 90 regular assistants,likes to find souvenir items from gift and toy shops and style these pieces into extravagant pieces using the latest technology. Thus the tiny toy becomes a 2.5 meter shiny stainless steel object which can be sold for tens of millions of dollars. Such art factories are extremely reliable in their production and can consistently turn out branded products. Art galleries and collectors vie for such pieces even though their prices are astronomical. Today even lesser known artists maintain factory-style production, with their pieces booked in advance in massive quantities.

[4] Collectors happily buy in, expecting double triple or quadruple multipliers in subsequent sales, which no other commodity market can generate.

[5] While astronomical prices for art have been around for decades, today business opportunists have commodified art as never before — dealers who see art only as a means to make profit. In this new world, art trading globally is in excess of US$66 billion and growing exponentially, as more institutions become involved. Art is no longer bought for appreciation but rather bought for resale.

New Words and Expressions

Andy Warhol 安迪 • 沃霍尔（波普艺术的倡导者和领袖）

incredible /ɪn pagenumber_ebook=24,pagenumber_book=15 kredəbl/ adj. 难以置信的；极好的