Most expensive photo in the world

Logical Fallacy

jpb1974 wrote: »

Yes... the ultimate measure of true photographic greatness.

Like i said, it's a simple test...if you saw the photo without knowing the photographer or what it sold for...would you like it? If you do, great, if not, who cares?

Arguing about the value of art is pointless...no real point in getting knickers twisted over the subjective.

I fail to see how that point is not quite relevant.

If you want to read something into it other than what i am saying in order to roll out the indignation then feel free.

Arciphel

Gursky is a genius and if I could afford one of his pictures I'd buy one, although maybe not this particular one. The whole "but is it art?" circular argument is hilariously pathetic, of course it is. All the people complaining because they wouldn't fave it on Flickr or (shudder) pix.ie are so wide of the mark it's unbelievable. But thanks for the lulz nonetheless...

jpb1974

Like i said, it's a simple test

A simple test of what?

magicbastarder

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

I fail to see how that point is not quite relevant.

i fail to see a point.

all you said was basically 'ask yourself if you like it'.

Logical Fallacy

jpb1974 wrote: »

A simple test of what?

A simple test of the below.

magicbastarder wrote: »

i fail to see a point.

all you said was basically 'ask yourself if you like it'.

Exactly. That's all that matters. Who took the photo, how much it sold for or what was done to get the shot doesn't matter a damn, and certainly shouldn't impact on how much someone likes the finished image.

If someone likes the shot, then fair enough, if someone likes the shot because it's a Gursky then I wouldn't agree with their reasoning.

The only important aspect of anything that can be deemed art, or indeed anything at all, is if you yourself like it.

I personally don't like the shot. Don't like the colours, don't like the subject, don't like the sky...I could go on. The fact that i don't like it doesn't matter, nor should it matter, to the people who do like it.

Promac

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Who took the photo, how much it sold for or what was done to get the shot doesn't matter a damn, and certainly shouldn't impact on how much someone likes the finished image.

That's exactly what it is about.

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

The only important aspect of anything that can be deemed art, or indeed anything at all, is if you yourself like it.

No, it doesn't matter a toss what you, as an individual, think. You don't matter. The discussion is about art and the artworld doesn't give a fig for the opinion of one person on the internet.

CabanSail

Promac wrote: »

No, it doesn't matter a toss what you, as an individual, think. You don't matter. The discussion is about art and the artworld doesn't give a fig for the opinion of one person on the internet.

I sort of agree, but don't too.

It is true that the "Art World", whoever they may be, could not give a stuff about your opinion. Then they seem to be involved in the pursuit of evaluating beauty in terms of financial worth. I guess that's a bit like rating Love in Carrats of Diamonds, two incompatible concepts forced to operate together.

Unless you are the one with the available currency and the desire to try to "own" beauty, then really the evaluation of the "Art World" also has little to do with you either. Your own opinion is then what matters most to you.

The common point, I guess, is the process of the evaluation in how a monetary value is given to a particular item.

[Soapbox] One of the other things which often privately amuses me is the subject of Fakes and couterfeits. If there is a work hanging and it's valued at, let's say $1M as an agreed price. Then some expert comes along and proves that it could not have been painted by the alleged artist, or it's a very good fake. This hypothetical work is now suddenly only worth, say, $50K. It still has exactly the same beauty it pocessed a few hours previously but it has lost 95% of the value. Where did it go?

This makes me think that in fact a lot of the "Art World" are actually just souless merchants that do not appreciate beauty, theuy just want to control it and say "Darling" a lot. [/Soapbox]

Gregor Samsa

CabanSail wrote: »

One of the other things which often privately amuses me is the subject of Fakes and couterfeits. If there is a work hanging and it's valued at, let's say $1M as an agreed price. Then some expert comes along and proves that it could not have been painted by the alleged artist, or it's a very good fake. This hypothetical work is now suddenly only worth, say, $50K. It still has exactly the same beauty it pocessed a few hours previously but it has lost 95% of the value. Where did it go?

But can you not see why, to people who are interested in such things, a brick from the Berlin Wall would be worth more - aesthetically, historically and financially - than a random brick from B&Q, even if the two bricks looked and functioned identically? Equally, provenance is important in art.

"The image" (or object) isn't the only thing that's important in art. If it was. then people would be happy with a big JPEG of a work of art, and wouldn't care about original pieces. It's the very fact that Picasso's paintbrush touched Gurnica that makes it more valuable than a copy. Even with print or photographic or digital or conceptual art - where the concept of "the original" can often be bit more obscure - the fact that a particular piece was made or performed to the specifications of the artist adds value - and I'm not just talking monetarily.

Also, one should not confuse the "Art World" with the "Art Market". The latter is a subset of the former, and while it may be an important and visible subset, it's actually not one that most artists ever have the pleasure of benefiting from.

superflyninja

phutyle wrote: »

See, the point is that art can't be viewed in isolation. There's a whole language, history and heritage behind art that has to be taken into account......

Take soccer as an analogy.........If you're only an English speaker, and hear two people speaking in Finnish, you might be excused for thinking they were talking BS - because you don't understand the language. It's the same with art. Don't knock a language just because you don't understand it.

Very good point. I suppose what is throwing me is the fact that the medium of the art is (in part) a photograph which i know a LITTLE about and so feel like I can comment on it as such. So I guess I need to distinguish the photo itself from the art.

Derfil

Think I'll take some time out to evaluate the piece ( whilst pis*ing myself laughing ) before commenting.

Logical Fallacy

Promac wrote: »

That's exactly what it is about.

Well done, you missed the point.

No, it doesn't matter a toss what you, as an individual, think. You don't matter. The discussion is about art and the artworld doesn't give a fig for the opinion of one person on the internet.

Once again, well done, you missed the point.

CabanSail

phutyle wrote: »

But can you not see why, to people who are interested in such things, a brick from the Berlin Wall would be worth more - aesthetically, historically and financially - than a random brick from B&Q, even if the two bricks looked and functioned identically? Equally, provenance is important in art.

"The image" (or object) isn't the only thing that's important in art. If it was. then people would be happy with a big JPEG of a work of art, and wouldn't care about original pieces. It's the very fact that Picasso's paintbrush touched Gurnica that makes it more valuable than a copy. Even with print or photographic or digital or conceptual art - where the concept of "the original" can often be bit more obscure - the fact that a particular piece was made or performed to the specifications of the artist adds value - and I'm not just talking monetarily.

Also, one should not confuse the "Art World" with the "Art Market". The latter is a subset of the former, and while it may be an important and visible subset, it's actually not one that most artists ever have the pleasure of benefiting from.

I can "see" it alright. I just don't entirely agree with it on terms of Artist Merit. Where I do see some importance is in the historic value. Here I can also argue Devil's Advocate to my own points above.

A piece of Art does not exist in three dimensions. It obviously has a life in four dimensions. The passage of time will affect a piece of work and there will be changes, that may be only subtle, as a piece ages. Hence the Mona Lisa we see today is not the painting it was with fresh paint etc. Any faithful reproduction will only be so for that moment in time, because as the two pieces travel their journey will affect them differently. To reproduce two enviornments the same would also prove almost impossible (think Boys of Brazil) So there is that historical factor and the emotions we as a species feel of being connected to the artist and that history via proximity to an inanimate object. So I do "get it" but often feel that the Art Value should logically be of more value and the historic less.

** Just to add .... The Berlin Wall was made of Reinforced Concrete, so no Bricks at all. There are so many bits of The Berlin Wall around that they are fairly worthless on the whole. The pieces that do command value are those which have the original grafitti which is of a high standard of artistic merit. So this was not a good analogy.

magicbastarder

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Once again, well done, you missed the point.

the point is, you're not making a point, and you're not really making a point in your not making a point.
this could get recursive.

magicbastarder

CabanSail wrote: »

A piece of Art does not exist in three dimensions. It obviously has a life in four dimensions. The passage of time will affect a piece of work and there will be changes, that may be only subtle, as a piece ages. Hence the Mona Lisa we see today is not the painting it was with fresh paint etc. Any faithful reproduction will only be so for that moment in time, because as the two pieces travel their journey will affect them differently.

the mona lisa is actually a good example, because up until (i think) the late 19th century, it was essentially unknown. it was never regarded as one of his better works until then. and it was a theft which brought it into the limelight, not a re-evaluation of its quality.

dinneenp

sineadw wrote: »

I very much doubt Gursky made *any* money on the sale whatsoever.

As an aside, any chance we could tone down the insulting remarks in the thread? It's getting very old..

Why do you think he made any money on the sale?

superflyninja

One of the comments on the article linked to earlier here said this :
"For those that think they could reproduce a Gursky - I'd like to see you try. It is an 80" x 140" photo with unbelievable resolution, captured with multiple shots on $50,000USD medium format digital back on a large format camera. The resulting enormous file that would kill most computers, is then processed over weeks of work"
makes me think he maybe should have chosen a more interesting subject like a beige wall for example.

humberklog

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

A simple test of the below.



The only important aspect of anything that can be deemed art, or indeed anything at all, is if you yourself like it. .

There's an awful lot of the same figurines of a lady leaning, half naked and sitting on her arse with one leg up, in the windows on Clanbrasil St. In fact I've seen one street in Finglas where 2 out of 3 houses had them in the windows and 6 out of 12 windows on the one street in Ballymun. I could go on.
Crying child? Ducks on walls? Fancy paper? Hipsters? Low slung jeans? Swingball? Sodastream? Athema's Man holding child? Girl pulling tennis ball in her sexy jocks?

A girl pulling a tennis ball from her sexy cecks wins The win of wins? Superduperwinwin? Winwinwinsuperduperspaceagesuper(we've arrived as beings in the universe)wingoodgod!wewin! Good man. I like that photo too.

sineadw

dinneenp wrote: »

sineadw wrote: »

I very much doubt Gursky made *any* money on the sale whatsoever.

As an aside, any chance we could tone down the insulting remarks in the thread? It's getting very old..

Why do you think he made any money on the sale?

Sometimes artists are entitled to a percentage of the resale value of their original work. It's written into Irish copyright law for example.

Anyway, it was a passing remark.. i'd be pretty much 100% sure he didn't make a penny. Won't hurt the value of the next piece he produces though.

I'd say too that there needs to be a clear separation between the art world and the art market. Two very different things.

Promac

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Well done, you missed the point.



Once again, well done, you missed the point.

I find it hilarious that someone whose username is "Logical Fallacy" can be terrible at debate.

DaireQuinlan

Promac wrote: »

I find it hilarious that someone whose username is "Logical Fallacy" can be terrible at debate.

That sounds like an ad hominen attack to me

Anyhow, Ken has put the argument to bed.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/00-new-today.htm

Ken Rockwell wrote:

Likewise, if it's not captured on film, it is not art. ..... If shot with a digital Nikon or Canon like amateur photographers, it would not have been art.

/thread



(to be taken with a healthy dose of :rolleyes: )

sNarah

[Evil moderation note following after this bold message to attrackt attention]

The liking is a individual taste. The understanding of this concept a logical one. It's also logical that we all disagree on the topic (I think the image not interesting at all for example) but please stick to hating the image and not eachother (or loving the image - and eachother - if you're that way inclined).

No more personal jitter jatter pretty please!

magicbastarder

humberklog wrote: »

There's an awful lot of the same figurines of a lady leaning, half naked and sitting on her arse with one leg up, in the windows on Clanbrasil St. In fact I've seen one street in Finglas where 2 out of 3 houses had them in the windows and 6 out of 12 windows on the one street in Ballymun. I could go on.

http://thumped.com/bbs/showthread.php?72046-The-White-Lady-Of-Cabra

Effects

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Anyhow, Ken has put the argument to bed.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/00-new-today.htm



/thread



(to be taken with a healthy dose of :rolleyes: )

Almost everything he says makes him sound like a total knob.

Borderfox

http://vimeo.com/17692722
A profile of artist, Andreas Gursky. Director Ben Lewis tries to find out what makes him tick and what it is like to live in "Gursky World".
Original Air Date: 27 September 2002

magicbastarder

Effects wrote: »

Almost everything he says makes him sound like a total knob.

i think he's great.

Scamp-

Eirebear wrote: »

I'm fairly sure, although i cant find it, that something similar was done with a Cartier bresson image on Flickr a few years ago - the said image recieved very few animated gif awards.

Bit late in the game but here you go.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrerabelo/70458366/in/photostream/

magicbastarder

may be of interest:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/02/saatchi-hideousness-art-world

Effects

Borderfox wrote: »

http://vimeo.com/17692722
A profile of artist, Andreas Gursky. Director Ben Lewis tries to find out what makes him tick and what it is like to live in "Gursky World".
Original Air Date: 27 September 2002

At 5.20 you can see the photo in question and get some idea of scale.

jcf

This sh*t pisses me off, If I took that shot it would be rejected time and again from stock sites.

Someone with a name however and they can sell sh*t - quite literally - that guy who sold some cans of HIS OWN SH*T for €20,000+ !!!

Modern Art ??

humberklog

jcf wrote: »

Modern Art ??

Yep. You don't get . A more conservative/traditional type style would, perhaps, more than suit your taste. That's just your thing.

magicbastarder

jcf wrote: »

This sh*t pisses me off, If I took that shot it would be rejected time and again from stock sites.

what do you want him to take? long exposure HDRs of waves lapping over rocks?

jcf

magicbastarder wrote: »

what do you want him to take? long exposure HDRs of waves lapping over rocks?

wha?

magicbastarder

are stock sites really a reliable indicator of what is good or bad for 'art' photography?

tina turner

lemme have a go:


IMG_4314 by Kasia Bee, on Flickr

Fiver will do

magicbastarder

your horizon is *way* off.

tina turner

magicbastarder wrote: »

your horizon is *way* off.

Mine? Nah...

smash

Much better

the_monkey

Promac wrote: »

This is "Blue Poles" by Jackson Pollock. It sold for 2 million dollars in 1973 - it was the highest price ever paid for this kind of "art".


Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's not great.

Please explain it to us so ...

ScumLord

The problem I would have in paying that kind of money for a photo is knowing I wouldn't have any exclusivity other than the name attached to the picture. In reality I could pay another photographer to go out and replicate the photo for a fraction of the cost if I really wanted to and only a handful of people would know the difference.

At least with a hand drawn picture you know it's the only one out there. It's true you can replicate any piece of art but there's an immediate association with say a drawing in that's it's had direct contact with the artist. I know it's essentially the same process being carried out with digital media but for some reason in my head digital media like this just isn't unique enough (in that it's so easy to make copies) to justify the cost of traditional art.

Promac

the_monkey wrote: »

Please explain it to us so ...

I'm not sure if I can explain it adequately but art is not a manufacturing process where people do work to produce items for sale. When you buy a piece of art you are not just buying a painting or a photograph. You can go on and on about how easy it would be to replicate a piece of art but that will have zero impact on the value of the original.

Here's an example -this is Michelangelo's David. A sculpture that's widely regarded as a priceless masterpiece.



Now, with current technology, we could very, very easily scan this sculpture and then use a 3D printer to produce an exact copy - a million exact copies, on demand. Just like we can with digital images. But they wouldn't be worth sh1t and the original would still be a masterpiece.

Any of us could get a large canvas and a selection of paints and reproduce something like Pollock's stuff - maybe better, who knows? - but it wouldn't be Pollock's stuff and wouldn't be worth sh1t.

The same thing applies to Gursky - you can go out and take the exact same photograph that he took and then touch it up on the computer in the exact same way and then print and mount it exactly the same way but it won't be worth sh1t because it's not the original by Gursky.

The reason for this is that art is not about the finished item - it's about the process the artist went through, what the piece means, how good (or bad!) it is, what effect the artist and the piece itself has on the world around him and then it's about owning the actual, physical object that is a result of all that. And sometimes it's just about a valuable commodity but the value comes from the other aspects.

It's not about how good the photograph is - not on its own. People always go on about how a given piece of art is crap and easily reproduced by their six year old but who would want it? Why would they be interested?

ScumLord

Promac wrote: »

Now, with current technology, we could very, very easily scan this sculpture and then use a 3D printer to produce an exact copy - a million exact copies, on demand. Just like we can with digital images. But they wouldn't be worth sh1t and the original would still be a masterpiece.

Davids not such a good example here, the materials and machines needed to carry off what your talking about would put the cost of production in the realms of hundreds of thousands, even on a large run and with the assumption you've got people to buy them. It would still be a highly impressive piece due to it's size and complexity. It has real physical value whereas a reprint could be seen as only being worth the repetitively low cost of the paper.

Promac

ScumLord wrote: »

Davids not such a good example here, the materials and machines needed to carry off what your talking about would put the cost of production in the realms of hundreds of thousands, even on a large run and with the assumption you've got people to buy them. It would still be a highly impressive piece due to it's size and complexity. It has real physical value whereas a reprint could be seen as only being worth the repetitively low cost of the paper.

Actually, the way 3D printing works the statue would be an ideal example. Once you have the machine and the scan the rest is just raw (cheap) material. It doesn't have any complexity as it's just a single block of marble without any moving parts. The printing machine is expensive but so is the printer required to reprint the photograph we're talking about. But if you want to argue about it then just take a cast of the original and mould as many copies as you like from plaster - literally dirt cheap.

It's not just a bog-standard 10x8 we're talking about here - this image is 3 and a half metres wide. Prints that size are bloody expensive. Every single print would have, as you say, "real physical value".

ScumLord

Promac wrote: »

Actually, the way 3D printing works the statue would be an ideal example. Once you have the machine and the scan the rest is just raw (cheap) material. It doesn't have any complexity as it's just a single block of marble without any moving parts.

That's not how 3D printers work, they can build up a model layer by layer out of plastics or silica but it won't be made out of marble, there's no way to break down rock so it sticks back together as it was. You couldn't build a marble David on a 3D printer even if there was one big enough. What you would build is a very light and brittle model that wouldn't look all that great, you'd be able to see the lines of each layer the printer has laid down.

There are specialised CNC milling machines for doing this kind of work, it would take one probably a few hours to knock out a David and I have doubts it could do all the details but it could get the overall look fairly close.

So after you've paid a team to scan the statue (few hundred given the equipment required) wrote the G-code (easy), you have to send it to the Mill, which is the real cost, a machine like that would cost a fortune to book time on so your looking at a few hundred to thousand just for machine time, I don't know how much a block of marble is going to cost but I imagine a few hundred to thousand again.

Promac

I wasn't talking about marble but it hardly matters - the point was you could have a nearly identical copy if you wanted it. Even taking your example of a properly milled marble copy, the cost of thousands is nothing compared to the the cost of the original.

But we're kinda labouring the point now - the original point being that you can have any number of copies of a priceless piece of art but it won't change the value of the original.

ScumLord

Promac wrote: »

I wasn't talking about marble but it hardly matters - the point was you could have a nearly identical copy if you wanted it. Even taking your example of a properly milled marble copy, the cost of thousands is nothing compared to the the cost of the original.

But we're kinda labouring the point now - the original point being that you can have any number of copies of a priceless piece of art but it won't change the value of the original.

No, the original David is something more than a piece of art though. It's also a piece of history it is literally priceless. Art that came from that time has huge significance due to the innovation of the time.

Modern art like this picture isn't really innovating, it is something that someone with the right experience could achieve.

I think in this day and age with so many amateur photographers out there taking photos for their own personal enjoyment more than fame and fortune this kind of ridiculous pricing just for a name seems crazy. Fair play to him if he can get it and all but I'd really wonder about the person/s that paid that kind of money for it, I think they're fools which says nothing against the guy who took the picture.

magicbastarder

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/sell-up-now-before-its-too-late-expert-tells-damien-hirst-fans-7586374.html

sineadw

magicbastarder wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/sell-up-now-before-its-too-late-expert-tells-damien-hirst-fans-7586374.html

http://www.channel4.com/news/con-art-in-defence-of-damien-hirst

EyeBlinks

http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2012/02/lacmas-levitated-mass-at-a-rock-bottom-price.html

lisatiffany

Deleted by Poster.

Mellor

lisatiffany wrote: »

snip

Really? Is his name Lars?