About originality in art

Many deviants around here seem to think that if they have seen a type of work before then that means it's not original. So by that reasoning, if someone comes up with the weirdest thing in the world, than that makes him original and therefore better than the one that drew something that has been done before.

I'd like you to consider this for a while. Humanity has been around for thousands of years, almost anything an artist might think of drawing, has been drawn before. If an artist draws a portrait of a girl, that is so "unoriginal" you can literally find hundreds of thousands of such drawings. 

Then should an artist stay away from drawing portraits?

Is an artist's work less valuable?

Consider this for a moment. There was an artist (if i can even call him that), that pooped in a box, and made an art show about it. He was definitely original and his work is very valued. There was another artist who put a shark in a tank and sold it for $12.000.000 dollars, (yes it's not a typo, that's 12 million american dollars) that is the most expensive "artwork" sold in the modern era. 
here's a link
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phys…
many have asked about this shark in a tank and the poop in a box so let me give more details here, the shark is dead, decaying in the formalin solution tank, they replace it every 5-10 years or so. The poop in a can was actually more poops in more cans, each being sold at around 100.000 EUROS, here's a link www.oddee.com/item_98781.aspx in a list along with other "original" artwork being sold, also here's the wikipedia article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%2…

So by this "originality" reasoning, pooping in a box is more valuable than drawing a portrait.
Coming up with the weirdest shit you can think of, has more value than drawing something beautiful.

I will have to disagree.

Just because a subject matter is popular, doesn't mean it becomes less valuable. 
Just because something is more original, doesn't mean it has more value. 

An artist should draw what matters to him/her regardless of if it has been done before or not. If an artist wants to draw only fanart, then that is who he is, he is being true to his inspiration and there's nothing wrong with that. 

And that is my 2 cents on the subject.

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Please note that I am not referring to any particular comment and this is just a random example. I just get these comments on a regular basis and i thought i might say a few things about it. So please don't feel targeted if you left a comment like that recently. You're not alone, everybody does it.