"Portrait of a Wall Street Investment Banker" Sells for $17 Million

As Jim Gust reminded us recently, the contemporary art scene often seems a weird, unfunny joke: "Beanie babies for rich people."

Here's an exception – one of those rare cases when art and reality collide, producing an aesthetic statement of unintended significance and unexpected power. Damien Hirst's pickled shark just sold at a Sotheby's auction in London for some $17 million. Though Hirst originally gave his work a different title, it's real subject is obvious:

Wall Street Investment Banker as a Dead Shark

Wealth managers have the unenviable task of explaining how the financial economy jumped the now deceased shark. See Wall Street's Unraveling for Robert Samuelson's helpful summary. For this month's transition from mortgage-derivitives mess to credit-default-swaps disaster, see the WSJ's Worst Crisis Since '30s.