Peter Lik deserves our skepticism

[Ray Heath]

"Peter Lik deserves our skepticism", what, do you mean more than we should be skeptical of the Leica mystique or the saintedness of AA or the loss of our dearly beloved Kodak, or insert your own pet love/hate?

[Greg Y]

Thank you Robert L!

[Lachlan 717]

At least he's got more talent than Rockwell...

[Sal Santamaura]

At least he's got more talent than Rockwell...

I'm sometimes not very good at recognizing humor here, especially when it's not accompanied by an emoticon. If you're referring to Norman Rockwell, surely you jest.

[Tin Can]

I'm sometimes not very good at recognizing humor here, especially when it's not accompanied by an emoticon. If you're referring to Norman Rockwell, surely you jest.

I'll bet he meant the camera reviewer, Ken Rockwell.

[welly]

I'll bet he meant the camera reviewer, Ken Rockwell.

Or the actor Sam Rockwell.

[Lachlan 717]

Nup, Barry Rockwell from apartment 8 down the hall. Shit photographer. But he's still better than Rockwell.

[bob carnie]

The statement refers to resale value of prints sold... his editions are huge.... I guess if Peter L sells out an edition, very very good for him,,, not so good for someone buying #15 and thinking the value of that
image is going to go up.
I do not know of anyone that has such large editions and sell out... Ed Burtynski edition size is 15 and he does sell out. I never looked at the prices of his work on the resale market.

I do know of three Irving Penn Worker series that were purchased for 10k by a friend of mine , who resold for 140K .. Not sure how contemporary photographers with colour work will fare.

An interesting statement when according to the article last year he sold "$1.6 million worth of photographs every week." Of course he has a large overhead with the business (employees, rent, etc.) but apparently it's working out for him.

He's probably the best businessman when it comes to selling photographs, ever, and that's all there is to it.

I really don't see a problem with him myself. He is working the market. There are a lot of great photographers out there, several I could name on this forum, who if they had a lot more acumen for business or getting their work out there would probably start to really get noticed and maybe start making a name for themselves in the "art" world.

[jp]

Closest thing I can think of with an edition of 1000 is "Camera Work" and those artists are dead and famous and each print does not sell for crazy money today, but is very highly regarded as tasteful and historically important. Edward Curtis's book was an even shorter run and you can get prints from that for less than Lik prices. Camera work was comparitively inexpensive and may not have sold out often. Curtis's books were expensive and were a tough sell.

We can not dictate people's taste or Lik's business practices, much less adequately understand the art world. I think the grand lifestyle and behavior that we consider repulsive/course/lame is part of the sales pitch. So many pop-artists of the 70-80's were famous for being famous as much as their art.

[Corran]

The statement refers to resale value of prints sold

I just don't think Lik is shooting himself in the foot. Resale value of the print is irrelevant to his bottom line. Maybe from a fame/notoriety angle if that only comes from a photographer's prints gaining value over time? But who knows, maybe after he is gone they will, regardless of edition size.