To me, it looked like a child's crude attempt at a mosaic. About a dozen small square tiles of different colours. Glued to the wall in a geometric design vaguely resembling a face with two square eyes.
It stood out in the otherwise empty and dingy Paris flat. Once my home, I was moving back in, after nearly 20 years away. My tenants, three young single men, were showing me round before they left.
"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the cluster of tiles.
"That's by Invader," my tenant replied. "He's a street artist. He's like a French Banksy."
I quite liked Banksy, but the young man must have seen that I didn't appear overly impressed by his French counterpart.
"You must leave this," he said earnestly. "One day it will be worth a lot of money."
Being British, I nodded politely - but inwardly I chortled at the notion that a few tiles stuck on a bedroom wall could ever be considered a work of art.
[...] It was bigger, but otherwise similar to the one I'd unceremoniously stripped out of my flat.
Invader was a global phenomenon, famous in New York, Hong Kong, London, and of course Paris.
Then came the real blow. To my horror, I learned that one of his works had sold for more than €200,000 (£178,000; $233,000).
So, I had this guy named Claude staying in my place who painted a picture on the wall...what was his name, dear? Oh, right, Monet. But I wanted the room painted fuchsia so I told the painters to get rid of it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 05 2017, @03:36AM
I could see how someone who is unable to string together a coherent thought in writing might find individualism scary. But here's my take. If we all fend for ourselves most of the time, even if it is impossible to do so all the time, then that means less work and less need for a social safety net to handle. And frankly, you'd have to be pretty poor off before it makes sense for someone else to be wiping your ass for you.
You might find this odd, but I think the same thing of the people who advocate social safety nets when they could be taking care of their own lives without unnecessary assistance from society. It's just an excuse to screw other people over.