List of the most expensive photographs

[paulr]

Do you lambaste every acrylic painting as faux painting because it's not watercolor?

Anything that's not fresco is just a lazy attempt to deceive the gods.

[Drew Wiley]

Read my lips... I never called it "false art" or anything like that. Nor have I ever depreciated digital technology as a tool. And in the case of at least Gursky, I have
repeatedly recongized his exceptional skill at composition per se. Let me use an
analogy. A museum venue might have a photo curator and a contemporary painting
curator. They probably cannot afford another staff member, let alone another wing
to the facility. So you've got two barns, one for donkeys and one for horses. Someone gives you a mule...what do you do with it? If you put it into the horse barn, it doesn't make it a horse. But I wouldn't be as contemptuous about all this if
it wasn't for the theme of the whole thread about astronomical pricing. A damn C-print digitally generated then serially cranked out by machine??? It's not even a unique piece. It's all about decor and owner status (conspicuous consumption).
No way this thing is going to be around for an Antiques Roadshow appraisal in fifty
years. It will get changed just like the curtains.

[paulr]

No way this thing is going to be around for an Antiques Roadshow appraisal in fifty years. It will get changed just like the curtains.

Just like Warhol's prints from the early '60s, and DuChamp's readymades from 1917. Forgotten and worthless. I'm learning so much about art from this conversation.

[John NYC]

Read my lips... I never called it "false art" or anything like that. Nor have I ever depreciated digital technology as a tool.

You do seem to imply in several of your posts that Gursky doing photoshop manipulation has made his art less impressive to you. If you are not saying that, and I have interpreted what you are trying to convey wrongly, I think it is a good guess that others here have too.

[Jim collum]

Fauxtography is not a term of endearment... it's there along with digisnapper, pixelographer and all the other terms said with implied double quotes and a slight sneer.... Whether you meant it or not, what comes through in your posts is contempt for work produced digitally.

[Kirk Gittings]

Just like Warhol's prints from the early '60s, and DuChamp's readymades from 1917. Forgotten and worthless. I'm learning so much about art from this conversation.

[Drew Wiley]

Paul - a Duchamp print is likely to sit in some carefully protected museum case somewhere and might reasonably be treated with refixing or deacidification etc if necessary. It's the kind of thing a serious collector might think of too, because it can
be safely stored. A gigantic C-print installation is like having an elephant as a house pet. The whole idea is to display it, and the inevitable sunlight or hot display halogens
are going to affect the color prematurely. It's not even like one of those big pop art
installations made with auto enamel or whatever. So when speaking of intrinsic long
term value, one's gotta raise for quesitons. And in terms of artistic influence, what is
there there either hasn't been done before or is so special that it's going to warrant
long-term influence? Other than a bit of PS Mickey-Mouse, it's not that exceptional.
Just being big big is a fad. People will get bored with it. The next "big" thing in fine art venues will be Minox contact prints! (But relax - I'm not really that mean - poking fun
at the establishment is part of the game too.)

[Drew Wiley]

Yes Kirk, I despise Warhol. In fact, I regard the whole Pop Art era as the dark ages of American art. And yes Jim, Fauxtography is meant as a term of contempt, but in relation to perception, not technique. I despise it when it becomes a substitute for really perceiving the world. As part of simple process getting from point A to point B, capture to print, it's just another valid tool parallel to film and darkroom, or perhaps
supplementary in some kind of hybrid workflow. Tools are one thing, the philosophy
behind them another. And it's getting to be a pretty precarious slope at the moment.
Photoshop is getting to be LSD in a picture frame.

[sanchi heuser]

I'd highly recommend to read Calvin Tomkins "Marcel Duchamp:A Biography"
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...hamp&x=12&y=20

BTW:
Someone said Dimitri Medwedew?
http://dailycaller.com/2010/01/16/me...arity-auction/
http://eng.medvedev.kremlin.ru/personal_photo

[paulr]

Yes Kirk, I despise Warhol. In fact, I regard the whole Pop Art era as the dark ages of American art.

We all gather that, even without you having said it. No one's going to argue against statements of taste.

No one's going to be especially interested either. I don't expect you to care what flavor ice cream I don't like, so I'm not going to waste anyone's time by sharing.

But expressions of taste go past boring, all the way to annoying, when you try to state them as facts and impose them on other people. Whether you acknowledge it or not, that's what you're doing. None of your reasoning about relative worth among periods of art, none of your statements that try to denigrate the dominant styles of a period (often a decades-long period) as a fad, have any logical coherence. You're just rationalizing why you don't like things.

We can all relax and know that Art doesn't need us to save it from anything. Which is fortunate, because all the online ranting in the world would be powerless to do so.