Artifice Traditional Geocache

ar·ti·fice - ˈärdəfəs

noun - clever or cunning devices or expedients, especially as used to trick or deceive others.  outright fakery

synonyms - trickery, deceit, deception, duplicity, guile, chicanery 

For reference purposes, the definition of art, according to Merriam Webster is:

 something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings.

 

These were created with imagination and most importantly, skill, and are beautiful:

 

Pietà, by Michaelangelo Buonarroti in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome, Italy

 

 

Mercy: David Spareth Saul's Life, by Richard Dadd, Getty Center, Los Angeles, California

 

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Artifice

 

 

 

The Scripps Turd at Scripps Research Institute, San Diego

Alas, the public didn't think this was art.   Nor did philanthropist Edythe H. Scripps, and so "The Turd" was moved in 2001. "I’ve been trying to get rid of that thing for years,” Scripps said to the Union-Tribune in 2001. “I’m certainly glad to see it go.” Thus, the sculpture was moved to a less conspicuous place on the east side of the Scripps Research Institute, on the corner of John Jay Hopkins Drive and General Atomics Court. Moving the sculpture to the office park cost a lump sum of $40,000.

 

 Forms Attitude by Gelatin, Rotterdam

 

Sick artists with their sick artifice

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Basquiat died of a heroin overdose, a noteworthy exit for an artifist and former street graffiti sprayer.

Interchange by Willem de Kooning

$300,000 in 2015

No. 17A by Jackson Pollock

$200,000 in 2015

Consider No. 5 by Jackson Pollock

Sold in 2006 for $140 million

False Start, 1959 by Jasper Johns

$80 million - 2006

 

by Cy Twombly

Leda and the Swan by Cy Twombly

$52,800,000

Woman III, 1953

Willem De Kooning

$137.5 million

2006