BEAUTY is in the eye of the beholder they say, and nowhere is that more the case than in the art world. I’m not giving much away when I say I’m not really an ‘arty’ person, and I don’t know a great deal about the art world, although I’ve learned a fair bit in recent years. I’ve talked a lot about mima and the role it has to play in Middlesbrough’s present, and more importantly in its future, and it’s abundantly clear that art is as important as ever in our society.

Art exists for all sorts of reasons – to entertain, amuse, inform and bring comfort and, yes, sometimes to perplex, confuse and unsettle the viewer.

I can’t say I like or even understand everything I’ve seen, but then isn’t that what it’s all about? Some weeks ago I mentioned that I’d attended the preview of the current William Tillyer exhibition at mima. It’s a fantastic showcase for the talents of an artist who is both local and up there with the very best. His work is collected by the likes of Tate, Charles Saatchi and David Bowie, and has been shown in galleries and museums around the world.

His works range from recognisable landscapes from this part of the world to huge abstract pieces, but they’re genuinely accessible and some of them are truly beautiful. It’s certainly caught the public’s imagination and the exhibition is proving to be one of mima’s most popular to date, with visitors coming from all over the country to see it.

Then there’s the art that’s simply confusing or perplexing and that I’m less comfortable with – I was in the Baltic not so long ago and was puzzled by the presence of a discarded packing crate, only to be informed that it was actually one of the exhibits. It may be meant to challenge or have some other deep and hidden meaning, or then again it might just be a packing crate – but I don’t mind admitting that I just don’t get it.

And that’s not to mention the knotty question of what these works are actually worth – and I’m not sure the old cliche that any object is simply worth what the buyer is willing to pay really covers the way the art world works.

Only this month a work by Francis Bacon sold for £89m. I’ll just repeat that - £89m, and a world record into the bargain. To put that into some kind of perspective, that’s £22m more than Middlesbrough Council will be cutting from its budget over the next three years.

It’s a mind-boggling sum of money, and it’s beyond me to explain how or why any individual would be willing to pay that for a painting, even if – as in this case – you get not just one, but three paintings for your money.

Of course that’s at the stratospheric end of the art world, but paintings selling for the price of a large house in the country are not uncommon these days.

I was at an event in London recently talking to a leading figure in the art world when the conversation turned to a painting on the wall, which would sell for £500,000. That’s a long way short of £89m, but it’s also a long way out of the reach of most of us.

But surely the most important thing is that these works should be accessible to as many of us as possible, and not hidden away as giltedged investments by the rarefied few with pockets deep enough to be able to afford them.

And I do know one thing – in Middlesbrough we will continue to have the chance to see original works by some of the biggest names in the art world, and we can do so for free. Now that really is priceless.