[ross hamilton hill]

I agree Julie, really I couldn't give a damn about Emin's work, nor the prices paid for anything, except perhaps haircuts and coffee. I couldn't see much else of her art on the net, and what I did see wasn't impressive, that style of drawing which is technically inept but very emotive I find ok but no more than that. I think found art is a tradition, no diferent to surrealism or hyper-realism. In the art world these days there is no 'movement' that dominates the way say abstract expressionism did in the post-war era. I think corporations and the impossibly rich buy art in the same way people buy gold (97% of gold is horded, not used for anything) I don't think this is any more bizarre than anything else in this crazy world. I do think painting is terribly challenged by other representational mediums and this drives artists to find new ways of making art, hence the installation, which is public but often temporary art. It is in a way a new art form supported not by a buying public but often by government and public gallery sponsorship. Ultimately the market place, no matter how ignorant in the short term, is the final arbiter.
Sorry I got the prices wrong, sloppy research on my part, the highest price paid for a Modigliani was 'Nude Sitting on a Divan' (1917) ($68.9m) (2010) It is rare for his paintings to be auctioned.