Art world pricing is the famously opaque system by which a small mechanical bird can carry a $15,000 figure while a similar piece sits at $2,000. Scarcity, the artist’s reputation and the object’s history all feed the number. Clarkson’s story collided with that opacity head-on: she read the tag as an invitation to buy, the store read it as context for a display piece, and the misunderstanding powered a feud.
(vagueonthehow / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0))
Mentioned in: A Singing Bird, a $15,000 Price Tag and a Very Public Spat: What Kelly Clarkson’s Shop Feud Says About Fame