Modern Art (game)

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Modern Art
Designer	Reiner Knizia
Publisher	Mayfair Games
Players	3-5
Age range	10+
Setup time	5 minutes
Playing time	60 minutes
Random chance	Low
Skills required	Hand management, bidding

BoardGameGeek entry

This article is about the bidding game. For the artistic movement, see Modern art.

Modern Art is a bidding game designed by Reiner Knizia and first published in 1992 by Hans im Glück in German. Players bid on works of art by five different artists; at the end of each round, they then sell their art. More popular artists' works are worth more, and the value carries over into future rounds.

Although the game is played entirely using cards, a board is used for scoring, so the game is sometimes referred to as a board game.

[edit] Rules

Each player is dealt a hand of cards, which are works of art that the player may offer for sale. Players then take turns selling works of art from their hand. There are several auction formats; the one used is determined by the card offered for sale.

As soon as a fifth work of art by a particular artist is offered for sale, the round ends (the fifth artwork is not sold). Players then sell purchased artwork back to the bank -- the more paintings of an artist that were sold in the round, the more that artist's paintings are worth. Only the three most popular artists' paintings are worth money; the others are worthless. Ties are broken by a fixed artist precedence. The game has a board to keep track of the value of a given artist's painting. Each artist occupies a column. The leftmost artist is always preferred in case of ties. The number of paintings in the deck reflects this; with the leftmost artist having the fewest paintings, and the rightmost artist having the most paintings.

The game is played in four rounds. In the second, third, and fourth rounds the value of paintings at the end of a round depends not just on how the artist did in that round, but can carry over from previous rounds as well. Players are dealt additional cards in the second and third (but not fourth) rounds.

The player with the most money at the end of the fourth round is the winner.