Auctioning art is now part of art, imho. Auctioneers and buyers are part time artists. It is quite meta but fits well with the postmodern world we live in. Art as aesthetic creation is finished, commodified, and soon to be produced by robots.
As for the prices, people can allocate a lot of money to a token, as long as other people still believe in it. Cryptocurrencies take this abstraction to the max. Art is more traditional than cryptos.
I am personally very cynical that there is even a shred of value to high-market art sales. It's all a game for the upper-rich. But your "children are starving" comment is off. People have different motives to spend money, a starving kid's has a motive and so does a rich person's who wants to be the buyer of a piece. Both are respectable, human needs, but we are much more likely to relate to the kid. This doesnt mean its somehow bad to have the other.
As for the prices, people can allocate a lot of money to a token, as long as other people still believe in it. Cryptocurrencies take this abstraction to the max. Art is more traditional than cryptos.
I am personally very cynical that there is even a shred of value to high-market art sales. It's all a game for the upper-rich. But your "children are starving" comment is off. People have different motives to spend money, a starving kid's has a motive and so does a rich person's who wants to be the buyer of a piece. Both are respectable, human needs, but we are much more likely to relate to the kid. This doesnt mean its somehow bad to have the other.