With Japan on the brink of nuclear meltdown after the loss of life and tragedy of an earthquake and tsunami, it seems more than superfluous, absurd and insensitive to speak about art, but things march on. Even commodities, which along with art have been the recent darlings of the marketplace, have taken a swift hit in the aftermath of the unfolding Japan crisis. At the risk of being macabre, I have long felt that there would be a terrorist plot involving surgical dirty bombs, biological or nuclear, in a city such as London or New York, and wondered what the ramifications would be for physical works of art so exposed. Now in Japan, such a scenario is upon us; we know the horrific, unspeakable effects of radiation on the body, but what of the implications for objects? The upside, from what was reported on CNN is that there was neither death, nor long-term illness recorded from the Three Mile Island core meltdown in 1979. In light of the unprecedented daily global uncertainty, I can only believe art will, even in the face of such human catastrophe, continue to be coveted as voraciously as of late.
Kenny Schachter