Otherworldly assets: Contemporary art remains both surreal and lucrative

One of the most commented upon displays at Asia's biggest art show, Art Basel Hong Kong, was a video art work called Cut Suits by Fuyuhiko Takata. It featured half a dozen male models solicitously bending over each other with scissors in their hands and cutting up their suits till they end up bare chested with their clothes in tatters. It looked as if an otherwise disciplined Japanese executive had suffered a mid-life crisis and lost even his sense of propriety. In the foreground to this video, with Tchaikovsky playing as its soundtrack, was a pile of shredded suits. Every…