No. 5, 1948 (click to enlarge)The basic free market model of supply and demand is pushed to the limit in the case of the price of art pieces. Just how much will someone pay when the supply is only one, i.e. when the piece is one of a kind? Especially when the artist was truly one of a kind?

Last week the Jackson Pollock painting No. 5, 1948 was sold at auction for $140 Million, the most money ever paid for an Americanpainting.(Click here for story)

This stunning number is now going to color the debate on the validity of the Pollock paintings discovered earlier this year and claimed to be possible frauds because they were not fractal enough. (See my previous post on this controversy.) Given that computer software can regularly produce fractals with the same fractal dimension as any of Pollock’s paintings,determining if a painting is an original Pollock or a computer-generated image should bea concern for anyone with $140 Million to burn.

This situation suggests that a lucrative, niche career-op exists for anyone who can discern the difference -a fractaconsulter.