Riley RaubacherWriting Arts- Section RileyNovember 04, 2013Simon Leclerc

Capital and Cultural CapitalArt and money have always been closely linked together. Many of the most famous Rembrandt's paintings portrayed the wealthy ''mcnes'' that sponsored the artist. In these days, the tacit exchange between the money and the art was one of posterity; only the richest would have the privilege to see their face lives through times. In modern days, the fine arts market is still populated and ruled by the 1%, willing to speculate millions of dollars on the smallest canvas. Capital is more than ever intrinsic to cultural capital acquirement. However, the stakes have changed and posterity isn't so much at the center of the money and art dialogue anymore. So what keeps this market running and the billionaires entertained? According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, taste is linked to economic class system. ''Taste classifies and it classifies the classifier.'' Cultural taste is used as a barometer to gauge one's social class or as Bourdieu puts it: ''Art and cultural consumption are predisposed (...) to fulfill a social function of legitimating social differences.'' In other words, being wealthy isn't quite enough to sustain a social position and the belonging to a social group needs to be validated by cultural competence.However, cultural competence is a somehow abstract concept that many high capital producer prefer to interpret as the seeming of cultural competence or cultural proximity. One famous example would be the Diego Rivera's painting commissioned by business man John Rockfeller, where this latter wasn't as much interested in what the painting represented as what adding the Rivera's signature to his collection would bring to his status. Another example of a cultural competence misinterpretation would be the case of the Four seasons' restaurant in New York, based in the Manhattan's skyscraper. In the late 50's, the restaurant would commisionned artist Mark Rothko to produce a series of painting in exchange of what would be the equivalent of over two millions dollars today. Rothko eventually refused the offer. He had always been closer to a certain communism ideology and seeing his painting hanged in a ''chic'' expensive restaurant in exchange to a whole lot of money seemed like going against his own convictions. He himself thought that spending that much money on food was a non-sense and looked down on institution such as the Four Seasons. Obviously, the restaurant didn't give much care about these beliefs; what they wanted was really just the privilege of having the name of the most famous american painter of the time associated with theirs. Cultural capital acquired through cultural proximity. Everybody who is familiar with Rothko knows how wrong of a place a restaurant is to admire one of his painting. The fact that a chapel was built to contain his last pieces of work shows the irony of this situation. How could have someone thought that rush hour business people were the perfect audience for a work that begs for silence, slowness and contemplation?

Rothko was lucky enough to be able to refuse this counter-natural association while he was living. Pablo Picasso didn't have that chance. The Picasso's restaurant is located in the famous Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. Other than being a fancy award-winning restaurant, it also contains many famous Picasso's paintings, hence the name, purchased by multi-billionaires Steve Wynn. Wynn is the entrepreneur behind some of Las Vegas most well-knowed hotels including the Mirage, the Wynn and the Bellagio. He also happens to be an art collector with a penchant for Picasso. Here is a manifest case of a misunderstansding of what cultural capital should be and represent, and a clear example of a misappropriation of an artist's initial thought. Everybody knows that Picasso a great cultural capital; Steve Wynn knows this for sure, and he also knows that Picasso is one of the most expensive artist. This fact is even probably one of the main reason Wynn loves Picasso so much. Here is a situation where Wynn uses a great cultural capital in order to create capital. Through the display of Picasso's work in this restaurant, it allows this latter to enhance its reputation, attract swell and wealthy customers and inflate the price of their plates. But really, no one of these customers gives a crap about any of these paintings because no one can arguably enjoy a piece of art when its hanging on a wall next to your wife chewing her ''spanish-french meal''. People like to go there because they like to feel the fake Picasso's ''aura'' and telling to themselves what a chic and artistic moment they are experiencing. The saddest irony in all of this is that Picasso himself was a convinced communist and would have probably never imagined seeing so many of his works gathered in Las Vegas, the brightest beacon of capitalism. In a letter sent to french newspapers in 1944, the artist explained why he joined the french communist party. He explained that he had always try ''to fight'' by means of his painting, in a ''revolutionnary'' attempt to make men more ''free'' and more ''lucid''

The truth is, hanging painting on a restaurant wall has nothing to do with art. In fact, that's probably the best way to make them lose their ''revolutionnary'' cultural capital because by doing so, you reduce these masterpieces to mere decorations. In the same letter as above, Picasso wrote that he is proud to say that he never considered his painting as a distraction or as a simple trinket. Steve Wynn might be a big fan of Picasso,but he probably haven't read a lot about his idol's views on art because he is doing the complete opposite of his precepts. Absolutely every restaurant has, by definition, the primary function to sell food. Even for a restaurant called Picasso; its first purpose and its only reason to be is to sell food. Everything that is not directly related to the food is secondary and is only there to enhance the food experience. It is sad to say, but the Picasso's masterpieces aren't exceptions and are only peripheral distractions that help to increase the food sales in a blatant artistic vision's betrayal.