MODERN ART

My association with the game Modern Art resembles the 5 Stages of Acquisition according to Ferengi culture.

INFATUATION: This was on my radar for years. Something about the simplicity of its auction mechanics just fascinated me, and I began the long, slow dance of...
JUSTIFICATION: Earlier this year CMON released a beautiful new edition, but still I prevaricated until Shut Up & Sit Down gave it a glowing review and I knew that I must act while it was still in stock for a reasonable price on Amazon...
APPROPRIATION: I bought it on Amazon. Sorry FLGS.
OBSESSION: That SU&SD review went up on 9/29/2017, and I've got multiple plays under my belt since then, teaching it to several appreciative groups of both hardcore and not-so-hardcore gamers. I bought high quality over-sized sleeves for the Art cards. I'm thinking about buying a gavel. A GAVEL.
RESALE: Far into the future, if ever. Maybe someday if they announce a new edition...

Of all the games I wanted to write about when I started this blog, this is the one I've owned for the shortest amount of time, played the least (though I've played 3 different editions of it now), and wanted to gush about the most. But mine is not the excitement of Stage 4, mine is a loving appreciation for a beautifully executed game.

GAMEPLAY
There are painting cards from 5 different Artists and each Art card has 1 of 5 different type of auctions on it. Everyone starts with 100k.
Each player takes a turn by auctioning a card from their hand. Auctioneer gets the money (or pays the bank if they bought it themselves), and buyers place the purchased Art card in front of them.
When the 5th Art card comes out of any artist, it is not scored but rather ends the round.
The paintings by the 3 most popular Artists are valued 30k, 20k, or 10k on the scoring board. Players sell those cards for money from the bank. YOU GET NOTHING FOR PAINTINGS BY THE OTHER TWO.
You get new cards (variable for player count) on the 2nd & 3rd rounds, but none on the 4th and final round.
The person with the most money at the end of the 4th round wins.

The tricksey part is that the value builds from round to round, so say an Artist's work has been the 3rd most popular every round - at the end of the 4th it would be worth $40k for each painting you sold from that Artist.
But again, if an Artist wasn't popular that round, YOU GET NOTHING!
After the first quick round, you can actually witness the cognition of the players around the table, glancing at their hands, looking up at the scoring board, and the down at the table to see what's out there right now, calculating values, bidding, frequently over-bidding... jockeying for advantage in a entirely subjective market that they're creating as they go.
[oh please go watch the Adam Ruins Everything clip about the Fine Art Market on You Tube]

By far my favorite little moments in the game are the BBG-inspired house-ruled flourishes preceding every auction that we've implemented in the games I run, where the auctioneer pulls the Art card from their hand dramatically announcing the {Style of Auction} for, say, Ramon Martins' Skinny DTF Buddha, or Sigrid Thaler's Sad About You, or Manuel Carvalho's Finger-Blast-Superstar... it goes on and on, players interpreting the Art in hand and giving it a name, a wonderful window into your friends' psyches that everyone would have been better off without probably.

Quick Hits:
Theme: Art Gallery Auction Extravaganza!
Gameplay: Jump on the bandwagon buying/selling Art. Get Money.
Components: {version we played was dated and ugly} *UPDATE* CMON version is outstanding quality!
Replayability: Gameplay was excellent, and the mechanics are a wonderful commentary
Rulebook: *CMON* outstanding

Link to Modern Art on BGG