Most expensive photo ever

bullpost

This one just sold at auction for over 3 million dollars:

http://www.popphoto.com/news/2011/05/cindy-sherman-print-sells-39-million-auction-highest-ever-photograp

samhail

wow ? as in $3.9M ???

Zillah

That very article mentions not one but two photos that sold for over ten times that. I'm confused.

EDIT: Ah...I think the Warhol one is a painting?

spinandscribble

the others are paintings/sculptures

magicbastarder

cindy sherman always left me cold.

Ghost Train

Bit about the photo

The Centerfold or Horizontals series began when the publication ArtForum commisioned Cindy Sherman to create a portfolio of images for display in the magazine. Inspired by the magazines horizontal format and the fact that the publication wanted Sherman to make 2 page spreads, she decided to create pictures that would mimick centerfolds from pornographic magazines. In the series, Sherman again is the subject in the images and portrays diffrent women in each photo. In Untitled #96 (shown above), Sherman portrays what seems to be a young teenager. This image portrays the character as being innocent yet seductive because at closer inspection, you will notice that her finger points to a small "singles" ad in the newspaper. This is to show how the character wants to leave her young single life and is ready to find her man, showing how she's progressed from a young teenager to a woman. Criticts panned the series, claiming that Sherman was reaffirming sexist stereotypes. Eventually, ArtForum rejected the series and the images were never published in the magazine.

the_monkey

Absolute crap - unbelievable how that **** can sell for 3.9 pence would amaze me.

sineadw

the_monkey wrote: »

Absolute crap - unbelievable how that **** can sell for 3.9 pence would amaze me.

Matter of opinion. I wouldn't be paying almost 4 million, but Cindy Sherman is friggin awesome.

Freddie59

My God. That is an absolutely brutal photograph. No two ways about it. WTF??

CabanSail

Luvvies with Money!

To each their own I guess. At those prices it's gone well beyond being about the image and it's become a rare commodity to trade. The price paid then defines the art work.

Whenever I hear of mediocre works attracting money and attention as people try to outbid each other in terms of money and praise for the work I'm reminded of the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes.

I would like to point out that this particular emperor is not wearing any clothes.

sineadw

It's *not* really about the image though. Sherman is a really important photographer. She has a whole body of really important work. This was an investment, pure and simple. It'll probably fetch 5 times that amount when she dies.

And for the record, her images shouldn't be taken out of context like this. They're not meant to wow your socks off, which is what apparently passes for good photography these days.

sineadw

sineadw wrote: »

And for the record, her images shouldn't be taken out of context like this. They're not meant to wow your socks off, which is what apparently passes for good photography these days.

Wow, how ignorant of me to expect good photography to look, well, good. This is just a picture of a kid lying on a floor with a piece of paper in his hand. Anyone could have taken it with a 5 euro disposable camera. It's not as if the composition of the shot is something to behold either.

sineadw

Actually, that's cindy sherman. It's what she does. She takes images of herself, dressed as stereotypes and female conventions. Which is why her work needs a bit of context. The point is to make you think. Not particularly for it to 'look good'.

MidnightQueen

In all fairness thats not the best picture! I could take one like it with my brother in it tomorrow and would it sell for the same amount??? I doubt it!

CabanSail

KittyKat wrote: »

In all fairness thats not the best picture! I could take one like it with my brother in it tomorrow and would it sell for the same amount??? I doubt it!

Yours would be a copy. Like other artworks, the copies may be visually much the same but it's the original which gets the money.

charybdis

As a matter of interest: which photograph do the people posting in this thread think should be the most expensive? Specifically.

I'm not saying it has to be as expensive as this one, but surely if you think that a monetary value can be assigned to photographs, there has to be a most expensive one.

Reminds me of a story I read about a man in Germany who, to highlight the ridiculousness of some aspects of modern art, drilled a hole in a wall and declared it a work of art. It was later valued at 15,000 euro.

Tigger

charybdis wrote: »

As a matter of interest: which photograph do the people posting in this thread think should be the most expensive? .

the first one

Fajitas!

Deleted User wrote: »

Wow, how ignorant of me to expect good photography to look, well, good. This is just a picture of a kid lying on a floor with a piece of paper in his hand. Anyone could have taken it with a 5 euro disposable camera. It's not as if the composition of the shot is something to behold either.

KittyKat wrote: »

In all fairness thats not the best picture! I could take one like it with my brother in it tomorrow and would it sell for the same amount??? I doubt it!

Lol.. 'Composition to behold'.

There's more to photographs "looking good". Photographs can be conceptually strong, they can have relevance that the 'Flickr audience' won't understand, they might not even be HDR... And yes! They might even be taken on a camera worth five quid. But does that make them any less of an image?

James, I'd say yes, your post does come across quite ignorant, you're willing to ignore anything other than the fact you don't like the photograph at first glance. Read back over Ghost Trains quote and you'll find that Cindy Sherman was quite successful in what she set out to do.

Deleted User wrote: »

I would like to point out that this particular emperor is not wearing any clothes.

She is, actually.

MidnightQueen

CabanSail wrote: »

Yours would be a copy. Like other artworks, the copies may be visually much the same but it's the original which gets the money.

Thats true, i was just saying if that was me that took that picture i wouldnt make as much money.

Fajitas! wrote: »

Lol.. 'Composition to behold'.

There's more to photographs "looking good". Photographs can be conceptually strong, they can have relevance that the 'Flickr audience' won't understand, they might not even be HDR... And yes! They might even be taken on a camera worth five quid. But does that make them any less of an image?

Good point! I never thought of photography that way.

pikaia

Its the idea that sells. I don't know if anyone remembers the huge rabbits that were on display on O'Connell street a few years ago. 1 of them sold for 2.5 million. If I told you who bought one you would be irate.

Zaph

CabanSail wrote: »

Yours would be a copy. Like other artworks, the copies may be visually much the same but it's the original which gets the money.

At what point does a photo cease being a snap someone's taken and is transformed into "art" that can sell for stupid money? As a self-confessed philistine what I see there is someone being suckered for $4m just because they've been told that this is art, when in fact it looks like it's something that anyone with a camera could replicate for themselves easily enough.

sineadw

Yep, anyone with a camera could replicate it. I could make a fairly good stab at a picasso and all. Wouldn't be any good though, would it?

If you're looking at this from a technical perspective, you're *entirely* missing the point. As fajitas said, it's about concept. Sherman isn't producing images for them to look good. She's making a statement, about image and preconceptions, and culture.

Fajitas!

Zaph wrote: »

At what point does a photo cease being a snap someone's taken and is transformed into "art" that can sell for stupid money? As a self-confessed philistine what I see there is someone being suckered for $4m just because they've been told that this is art, when in fact it looks like it's something that anyone with a camera could replicate for themselves easily enough.

Anyone could paint the Mona Lisa with a Paint-By-Numbers set, but only one person did, if you get me


The forethought and ideas behind an image make it more than a snap, the photographer was shooting this series of portraits for a long time (there's a total of 69 of them), each one thought out, and photographed exactly how she wanted to portray herself.

Zaph

No, I'm not looking at it from a technical point of view at all, I know little or nothing about photography. I was merely commenting on the fact that someone, somewhere decided that this was "art" and so it could sell for stupid money, when it could just as easily have been a photo that someone took for fun and it ended up in a drawer somewhere. I was wondering at what point does it cross over to being art, is it simply because the photographer told people it was art and gave the picture an arty sounding name?

Zaph

Fajitas! wrote: »

Anyone could paint the Mona Lisa with a Paint-By-Numbers set, but only one person did, if you get me

Trust me, even with a paint-by-numbers set I could make a mess of it.

sineadw

Sherman has produced an entire body based on this concept. This isn't a one off snap - it's one of a series of internationally renowned images, challenging how women are portrayed in media.

If you take your logic through, what exactly *is* art then? Just the stuff you like personally?

Fajitas!

Well, moreso because the photographer committed to shooting this as a project over 3 years. Anybody can call something 'art', but being able to stand behind it with your reasonings, your concept, what you wanted from the art and what you wanted your audience to get from it is what makes it different from being 'just another snapshot'.

This, in combination with who the artist is is a huge deciding factor - Sherman is a well established photographer, artist and director. Her work is very collectable, hence the price.

If you're interested, here's the previous list of 'mot expensive photographs' - http://blogs.photopreneur.com/the-most-expensive-photographs-ever-sold

Fajitas!

Zaph wrote: »

Trust me, even with a paint-by-numbers set I could make a mess of it.

It'd be an original then, you'd probably get more money for it..

Goodshape

The photo says a lot, I thought.

Innocence, loss of innocence, uncertainty, growing up, being young, haircuts you live to regret.


Meh, I like it. Going to Google some more of this ladies work.

Zaph

sineadw wrote: »

If you take your logic through, what exactly *is* art then? Just the stuff you like personally?

I agree, the idea of what constitutes art is very subjective, but there's a lot of stuff one may not like but is undoubtedly art. It's the complete nonsense like a canvas with a single line drawn across it or the pile of housebricks that someone once tried to convince me was art that I find ridiculous. And the same goes for this photo. I understand that it's one of a series which together may make more sense, but on its own it's pretty unremarkable and so justifying its price tag is hard, imo.

Fajitas! wrote: »

Well, moreso because the photographer committed to shooting this as a project over 3 years. Anybody can call something 'art', but being able to stand behind it with your reasonings, your concept, what you wanted from the art and what you wanted your audience to get from it is what makes it different from being 'just another snapshot'.

And that's fair enough, but as I said above the picture itself is part of a larger artwork which taken as a whole gives you something tangible to see what the photographer was aiming for. But it's hard to see the artistic merit of a single element of that larger piece on its own. Imo it's like cutting out a corner of the Mona Lisa and presenting it as a work of art in its own right when it needs to be seen as part of the whole to be properly appreciated.

Zaph

Zaph wrote: »

I was wondering at what point does it cross over to being art, is it simply because the photographer told people it was art and gave the picture an arty sounding name?

Us plebs are not enlightened enough to know, apparently.

Zaph

Fajitas! wrote: »

It'd be an original then, you'd probably get more money for it..

I'm gonna be rich!

Eirebear

Ah, hasnt the internet created a whole generation of people who know what is "good" yet can't seem to understand concept and history outwith what they see on there 19 inch HD screens before they proclaim it as "crap".

Cindy Sherman is a huge part of the photography world, the work she put into her decades worth of self portraits is unbelievable - the concepts she works with are a commentary on women in society, culture, art, politics and everything else that you can think of in a way which no one had done before - and many have tried since.

Art is subjective, but to dismiss it out of hand as "crap" is gullible at best, and stupid at worst when all you have to go on is a screen representation of something which has been taken out of its context as a print and removed from a whole body of work.

No one has been "suckered" out of $4m - people dont spend that kind of money on a whim, especially in the art world, they have payed for an image, which to them, embodies and symbolises the work of Cindy Sherman, the themes she works with and the ideas she tries to get across.

Wether you find it "interesting" (isnt it strange how flickr has almost made that a dirty word?) or not means nothing without having the knowledge about the work, or the artist who created it beforehand.

Fajitas!

Fajitas! wrote: »

Lol.. 'Composition to behold'.

There's more to photographs "looking good". Photographs can be conceptually strong, they can have relevance that the 'Flickr audience' won't understand, they might not even be HDR... And yes! They might even be taken on a camera worth five quid. But does that make them any less of an image?

James, I'd say yes, your post does come across quite ignorant, you're willing to ignore anything other than the fact you don't like the photograph at first glance. Read back over Ghost Trains quote and you'll find that Cindy Sherman was quite successful in what she set out to do.



She is, actually.

Of course art is subjective etc. But how can anyone possibly justify a price tag of 3,900,000 dollars for what is, ojectively speaking, a fairly unremarkable and run of the mill photograph.

As for the clothes, that was a metaphor, obviously.

Fajitas!

Deleted User wrote: »

Of course art is subjective etc. But how can anyone possibly justify a price tag of 3,900,000 dollars for what is, ojectively speaking, a fairly unremarkable and run of the mill photograph.

I'll bet you Jeff Wall...

As for the clothes, that was a metaphor, obviously.

I know

artyeva

gloobag

I don't particularly like the photo, and I'm always quite dubious about all this artsy fartsy ****e. But if someone offered me €300, let alone €3mil for one of my shots, I'd take their money and laugh all the way to the bank.

magicbastarder

i'm just still amazed that there are people out there who haven't copped that other people can greatly value what they themselves see no value in.

would be interesting to see a thread where people show photos they have bought (assuming there are no issues with displaying them in the thread); and i would exclude photos bought off friends or acquaintances.

Eirebear

magicbastarder wrote: »

would be interesting to see a thread where people show photos they have bought (assuming there are no issues with displaying them in the thread); and i would exclude photos bought off friends or acquaintances.

There's one here....
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/departments/decoration/10788/




(Don't eat me...its a joke!)

linearcutter

I see a couple of different angles on this. There are a few questions.

What is art?
What is not art?
What is good art?
What is bad art?

As far as i'm concerned, regardless of the medium chosen, any form of expression can be considered art.

Good, bad or otherwise. If someone gains a level of notoriety or fame due to the exposure of their artistic expressions, naturally, the price-tag will reflect that. It then becomes more about the Art Collection than the art itself as the work is now a valued commodity and investment. There is sometimes a direct correlation between the price and the art, as with very old, rare or iconic or work by groundbreaking famous artists or photographers in this case, but sometimes it's just about owning a piece by whomever is selling well at the time, or someone who's "so hot right now".

I refer you to Banksy and Mr. Brainwash! If you haven't seen Exit Through the Giftshop.....check it out. Explains ALOT about the perception of modern art in a modern world.

baby and crumble

People who invest in art can come at it from 2 perspectives, I think. As a business type decision, or from an aesthetic point of view. I think the ideally accepted 'good purchase' to a bystander is when those two things come together, and one isn't higher than the other. In other words, if an image is universally liked and expensive, that's seen as a good decision. If an image is expensive but not traditionally beautiful to them, then it's seen as a waste of money. The exception is when something is pretty and cheap

But art is subjective, and always will be. I remember being blown away by getting to see a lesser known Picasso work in a tiny art gallery I stumbled on in France a few years ago. The friend I was with was like "meh". He was given a Ross Eccles a few years ago which burns my eyes but he loves it.

As for the Ikea/ Dunnes stuff, I personally hate most of it. But then again there are 4 photographers and 2 painters in my family, so I have no shortage of impressive original prints which I can put on my wall!

Effects

magicbastarder wrote: »

would be interesting to see a thread where people show photos they have bought (assuming there are no issues with displaying them in the thread); and i would exclude photos bought off friends or acquaintances.

I paid a good bit for this picture a few years ago. I paid a good bit more for one of his paintings at the same time. I prefer the photo myself but when people see it they remark that it's just a photo, how could it be worth that much money. I also bought a Martin Parr print that has increased in price since I bought. They're the only two prints that I spent a lot of money on and I don't think I'd ever sell them.
I find that a lot of people still don't consider photography to be art and can't understand high prices being paid for something that hangs in a frame but wasn't painted with a brush.

magicbastarder

i've never bought any photos off anyone but friends. the only artwork i have on my walls which weren't taken by me or by friends were gifts.

jaybeeveedub

charybdis wrote: »

As a matter of interest: which photograph do the people posting in this thread think should be the most expensive? Specifically.

I'm not saying it has to be as expensive as this one, but surely if you think that a monetary value can be assigned to photographs, there has to be a most expensive one.

for me...

Sand Dunes Sunrise,
Death Valley National Monument 1948
Ansel Adams

It'd be like owning the mona lisa...

the most expensive I have is a man ray artists print of "violin d'ingres"
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drdoon

some typos in the article putting one photo at like 33.8 million or something like that , wowee

jaybeeveedub

Zaph wrote: »

At what point does a photo cease being a snap someone's taken and is transformed into "art" that can sell for stupid money? As a self-confessed philistine what I see there is someone being suckered for $4m just because they've been told that this is art, when in fact it looks like it's something that anyone with a camera could replicate for themselves easily enough.

what about the painting mentioned below... I could paint a Rothko as easily as I could replicate that photo, the argument holds regardless of the medium....

anything... art, houses, (second hand camera gear..!!) only ever has a value of what someone is willing to pay for it....

why go to bother of getting your knickers in a twist over it!! let them at I say!

Would you get as het-up about someone paying €56 million for a house....

that's the price the most expensive house I ever photographed fetched

eas

magicbastarder wrote: »

would be interesting to see a thread where people show photos they have bought (assuming there are no issues with displaying them in the thread); and i would exclude photos bought off friends or acquaintances.

Are you kidding, photographers who buy photographs?

I love how "photographers" always seem to be complaining about the cost of photography.

I'll admit not being the biggest fan of Sherman's work, but when I think of a photograph selling for €4m, I think "F*%K Yeah!"

Dades

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'm just still amazed that there are people out there who haven't copped that other people can greatly value what they themselves see no value in.

I'm (even more) cynical about the "value" after reading this article:

So what's so special about a photo of a girl on a tile floor? And what drives that unimaginable price? David Ross, former director of the Whitney and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, says that mainly, it's a function of two people wanting the same thing:

"What matters to most of those collectors is winning. When art becomes a competitive sport," Ross says on the phone, "all it takes to win is the guts and the money to go further than anyone else, and then, voila, you win. And winning feels really good."

I'm of the view that if someone is willing to pay the self-inflated prices of the art world, then that's their prerogative. But I don't feel that we as onlookers are under any obligation to share their valuation or respect the price they've paid. And no matter how "important" in some minds that shot is or what it represents, that $3m price tag simply shows that some people have way too much money.

EyeBlinks

Whats this dissing of the "Snapshot" about :eek:.

One of the better photographic (if not the best) artforms around.