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Thread: List of the most expensive photographs

  1. #31
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Paul - I'd say it's some of the critics who are stuck with tunnel vision and largely
    copying each other. They classify and hem things in by terminology, so I can do the
    same to their trade. Stereotypes deserve stereotyping. "Modernism" has run so amuk
    trying to come up with something new all the time that it's come full circle more than
    once. But this is what you've gotta do if you want to sell tickets to a modern art musuem venue. Everybody knows the game, even the curators (at least the one's I've
    known knew it was a game too - they were a lot sharper than the invevitable groupies). "Success" is a very plastic term. Seems like the standard some of you are
    using is pretty shallow and mercenary.

  2. #32
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Drew, you're talking about technique, not vision. Gursky uses the technique that happens to serve his vision. I haven't seen a single piece of wall text, or a review, or critical essay that trumpeted his work because of any supposed novelty of his methods. They talk about what his work shows and how it shows it. You know, art stuff.

    I don't know how his vision could be called a fad, because I don't know of anyone else who's work is terribly similar. I agree, in very general terms, that enormous prints have been a trend over the last couple of decades, but I see this fueled by some things besides fashion: 1) capability. It's easier and more affordable than ever to make a big print. 2) the shift of the center of the bluechip art world from medium-sized spaces in SOHO to the enormous spaces of Chelsea. Small work like mine in the bigger Chelsea galleries would look like a spot on the wall. 3) ambition of photographers to compete for attention against painters, who have been working wall-sized for many decades (is that a fad too?).

    FWIW, much of the new photography that I've seen in the last couple of years has retreated from wall-sized.

    I don't get your claim that big prints are "installations" that can't be collected or preserved. Have you seen Monet's water lillies? Any number of Delacroix paintings? These works could blot out the sun over anything Gursky ever printed.

    Your guess that all this work is collected by "stockmarket jerks" is indeed a guess. Those jerks are out there, no doubt, but so are serious collectors. Why don't you talk to one or two of them? Or seek out some interviews? You might find that some collectors are as passionate about photography as you are.

  3. #33
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Paul - do a little of your own homework and you'll find out just how closely I'm connected to one of the most famous muralists of the 20th century. I was given all the
    actual sets of pigments. Even the watercolor yellows don't fade after decades of direct sunlight. That's why I term extremely big photogarphic prints installations. And again, I never denied Gursky artistic legitimacy - but I do have the right to classify
    some of this as marginal to photography. It's painting via computer. And it's precisely
    because I've had so many business encounters with the ultra-wealthy that I can make
    some nasty stereotypes about them, like that most of them are skinflints but will throw
    ridiculous sums at art they perceive as trendy, even though a lot of it looks like things
    they could not afford back when they started out, but is largely passe today (perhaps
    that's at least one component to this revival of the pop art look at larger scale - in fact, I know of one of the most successful practitioners of it actually claiming this).
    But stereotypes are not universals - not all wealthy folks are jerks, and probably 90%
    of what curators do is to take care of collections, then on the side try to figure out
    how to finance it. I know the game and could play by these rules if I wanted to. Probably several people on this forum know what I mean. You choose. You gotta make
    a living somehow. You go commercial, stock, or do something else entirely and take
    photographs you really want to. Once you're married to the "fine art" scene as a career
    you give up a lot of liberty unless you're independently wealthy. Most starving artists
    ("artistes") deserve to starve. But most really good artists starve for a long time too.
    A very tiny number will get lucky. But the pricing of some contemporary work is beyond
    obscene. Heck, I can remember instances when even an AA "Moonrise" print would sell
    for tens times more at an auction than one of the established print dealers would ask
    for it at the same time. I'd hardly call that a smart investment.

  4. #34

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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    I'm reminded of the old saying that "to set record prices, all that is needed are two fools and a good auctioneer".

  5. #35
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Drew, I don't think anything can be gained by slinging around nasty stereotypes. I don't know enough "ultra wealthy" people to comment on them. If you been forced to spend time with rich assholes, I hope you at least got paid.

    But I do know serious art collectors. And I know some curators. And some art historians. And some artists, including successful ones and struggling ones, and even a few who make big prints. All I can say is that none of your mean-spirited characterizations match my experience of these people.

    Or of "the game." I know a number of people who pursue fine arts as a career, which I suppose constitutes "playing the game" as it does in any career. All I can conclude from their experience is that there is no formula that guarantees success, even for talented ones. Rules of decorum my help keep you from getting kicked out of the room, but they don't offer any kind of easy or predictable path.

    I'm just hearing one straw man argument after another, put to the service of a very prejudicial position on what is and isn't photography. This is not a line of inquiry that's going to illuminate anything; it's a tantrum.

  6. #36
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Sorry to disappoint you, Paul, but I've never been kicked out of any curator's office, nor have any of them been kicked out of my house. However, honesty and some serious spice can be a real asset. The most difficult part is keeping some of these guys
    sober (literally). Another game I don't like to play. But there are a lots of incorrect
    sterotypes out there. There's a particularly good museum venue in our general neighborhood, and what they unquestionably consider their crown jewels in the photograph collection almost never gets exhibited. Their role is to preserve it for posterity. What gets exhibited is related to public interest strategy, often traveling major exhibits going from city to city with fed funding or whatever, and also suitable for selling a sufficient quantity of tickets to add some additional cashflow. Museums dedicated to the whole ethos of modernism seem to think they need things like disembowled sharks or rotting cabbages just for the attention the controversy engenders. What inside people actually think of that stuff might not be polite to quote here. So 'scuse me if I don't worship the alleged kingmakers of the art world. And any
    one who does is definitely little league.

  7. #37
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    One trait I've seen among the people you call "kingmakers" is a grudging reluctance to play that part. Curators I've met, and others who I know through essays and interviews, feel burdened by the unavoidable power over artists that the position foists on them. They're charged with building and stewarding a collection. It's an unfortunate byproduct of this position that some individuals (like Stieglitz or Szarkowski) end up wielding such disproportionate power. This is a longwinded way of saying, I wouldn't expect you to worship anyone for curating a collection, and most of the people who do wouldn't want you to either.

    There's a big gap, though, between worshiping a person and dismissing a whole class of such people outright. Both are simpleminded positions.

    You mention a curator whose choices you disagree with. Fair enough. It's highly likely that the exhibition goals of any given institution will clash with your tastes or mine. There are always other institutions, other curators.

    In your neck of the woods you have Sandra Philips at SFMOMA, who rocks. She does as good a job as anyone I know of balancing the demands of acquisitions and exhibitions, fundraising and academic rigor, and keeping the institution accessible to a range of tastes and ideas about the medium.

    I bet that for every straw man you set up and knock down, I can name at least one actual person who is influential in the field and who doesn't fit any of your stereotypes.

  8. #38
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Last time I was in SFMOMA some of the staff ended up following me around because I could explain the featured artist way better than their official monograph could. But it was obviously someone I appreciated already, otherwise I wouldn't have attended. But I "saw" the work, rather than just its historical or demographic context, or whatever. But I'm surprised that the discussion of art is supposed to be dainty like ballet. I thought a lot of art history involved perpetual revolution, ideological warfare including stereotypes and self-ridicule of the medium, pretty much a bare knuckles game. So if I perceive the cult of Modernism as having stagnated into something virtually Byzantine in its worship of novelty for novelty's
    sake, to such an extent that is starting to become boring with cyclic repetition, it's
    my right to do it. To me photography is just as much about the hunt as the kill, and
    I'd rather spend my whole life enjoying the experience, and maybe never getting that one shot that really defines me, than pulling some geek stunt to fake it with a
    computer. It's about discovery, perception, and sharing. My rules. Gursky can play by his own rules, but I'm perfectly free to pigeonhole that as Fauxtography. Doesn't
    mean I dislike his actual images - but it is legitimate ideological warfare. If I wanted
    to paint, I would still be painting with real paint and not doing it the fast-food way.

  9. #39
    Corran's Avatar
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    I'm sorry but calling digital manipulation "faking it" is just ludicrous. I don't understand this air of superiority from doing pure darkroom work. Everyone needs to get over it. Digital is here and it is just as valid a medium as anything else. Do you lambaste every acrylic painting as faux painting because it's not watercolor? Or does your painter need to make his own out of crushed berries? Come on, where does it end? Are you shooting film? Well you're a fauxtographer because you aren't shooting wet plate collodion with your own formula. Oh and you better be making your glass plates yourself too.

    I readily admit that I am sure you have vastly more knowledge and connections in the art world than me but that doesn't matter to me. Nothing should be deemed false art because you don't like the medium or manipulation technique.
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  10. #40
    Jim Jones's Avatar
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Quote Originally Posted by Tony Evans View Post
    I'm reminded of the old saying that "to set record prices, all that is needed are two fools and a good auctioneer".
    I've been to a lot of farm and estate auctions. There it only takes two buyers and an auctioneer to make an auction. A really sharp auctioneer can dispense with one of the buyers. Considering the selling price of some art, city auctioneers might do even better.

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