Diamonds aren't forever

Your eyes don’t see what’s there. Your eyes only see what they want to see.

That’s the great thing about highly subjective images: they talk so many different languages. It’s something corporate consciousness cannot handle. That’s why their collections look like they do. They have to keep asking themselves: what art will endure the longest in terms of value — and have the same meaning over the greatest period of time?

In 1947 a woman called Frances Gerety, who worked for an Ad agency handling a De Beers account in the US, altered the course of advertising history with her slogan ‘A Diamond is Forever.’ It was the most successful tagline of the 20th Century, and so far nothing made-up in the 21st Century comes close.

If you look into it, though, you find out that diamonds do not in fact last forever. Over time they degrade into graphite. But good old Frances made everyone think otherwise. Anyway, ‘forever’ wasn’t about the stone. It was about the emotion involved in giving the diamond, that was supposed to be eternal love. 

Just in case you’re feeling young it’s time to consider that Surrealism has just turned 100 years old. And it still feels fresh and outrageous. Definitely not outdated. 

Perhaps old Frances should have initiated a campaign that sold bizarre art with the slogan ‘Surrealism is Forever.’ It could’ve gone along with an image of a diamond eroding in the dust. 

Andre Breton would’ve loved that.