A POTATO AS A PROXY FOR THE ONTOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. 

[Albert Einstein]

What we have: A photograph of a potato, titled Potato #345. Made by "celebrity photographer" Kevin Abosch. In my opinion quite a bad photograph, technical and in a creative manner. This photograph was sold recently for $1.08 million. Is a photograph of a potato worth a million dollars? That’s not for you or me to decide, ultimately. It’s for the buyer. But it is a prime example how crazy the art market can go from time to time (not to talk about collectors) - the art market has been operating at borderline insanity levels, price-wise, for decades. Or, as one commentator stated: "It's what happens when the inmates are in charge of the asylum".

The One-Million-Dollar-Potato

Kevin Abosch is not the first photographer making pictures of vegetables. Actually every student of photography has to do such exercises in his first term at art college. Great photographers like Edward Weston made a lot of them (though not of potatoes). You can get one of his famous Pepper #30 vintage prints for around $15,000 at the moment. But ok, it only took Weston 30 tries to get his famous photo. Potato #345 is the result of an order of magnitude more effort. But just imagine the collection of really good photographs you could put together for $1.08 Million...

Pepper #30 by Edward Weston

Maybe the buyer of Potato #345 was convinced by the profound philosophical thoughts of the „artist“: "[...] potato as a proxy for the ontological study of the human experience. I see commonalities between humans and potatoes that speak to our relationship as individuals within a collective species ... Generally, the life of the harvested potato is violent and taken for granted." If so that would at least proof that Einstein was right...

Potatoes #1 by Chris deMatté

The whole story is, for me as an artist, not very funny. Others found at least some comical aspects in this story: In a comment somebody noted: "I'm just disappointed the potato photo wasn't an autochrome*. And just wondering: can one distill vodka from autochrome prints?"

* Autochromes, an early color process developed by the Lumière brothers in France, were made using potato starch.

THE SHALLOWS OF THE CONTEMPORARY ART WORLD

Last Friday a strange think happened at Art Basel Miami Beach:

Two women - visitors of the art show, not exhibitors - got into a fight and one stabbed the other with a knife (the injuries are not life-threatening, as the Miami Beach Police later confirmed)

Some patrons thought the stabbing and the blood-covered woman was an art performance art. Others believed the police tape cordoning off an area of the convention center was part of an art installation...

Crazy because of art? 

[Read the Miami Herald Articel here]

BUY WHAT YOU LOVE...

Photo Festivals like Les Recontres d'Arles with their exhibitions and portfolio reviews ( (seen here) are a good opportunity to get a perspective on what's going on in the Univers of Art Photography

  Collecting photographs is much about personal taste. If you see collecting photographs only as an investment possibility then maybe I am not the right person to give you advices. I know up to nothing about  investments. And personally I don‘t like most of the „most expansive photographs“, don‘t see any artistic values in them. But thats my personal opinion, is reflecting my personal taste. If you want to make investments to increase your money I can give you only a short view on the market and keep in mind: While many photographs can be fine investments, an increase in value is never guaranteed.

In the global art market the medium of photography represents  only a tiny fragment of about 2%. In 2014 all photographs sold at auctions brought in about $180 million (just to compare: the 2014 auction at Christie‘s  of Picasso‘s Les Femmes d‘Alger achieved with $179.5 the same sum).

   Arthur Goldberg, a major US collector of contemporary photography for the last 40 years, said that it is up to history to decide if there should be equality. However, he thinks that buying photography is a real opportunity to own great art at a lower price. “Great art is great art,” he said, “whatever the medium.”

"To collect photographs is to collect the world." 

[Susan SAuctionsontag]

   Whether you’re buying for profit, pleasure, or both - there is no right or wrong way to collect. There are only some things you have to keep in mind to avoid spending money more than necessary.

   Whatever your approach to collecting, the crucial thing is to enjoy it. “Buy what you love. Buy what speaks to you,” says Laura Noble, gallerist and author of the „Art of Collecting Photography“. “It’s a reflection of who you are.”

First and foremost, a collection should reflect your taste and interest (and budget). 

   So make the first step. Decide what you want to collect. You can collect by genre (e.g. travel photographs from the 19th century) or on artist you like. You can collect prints done with a special technique (like platinum prints). You can collect prints made in a certain timeframe (e.g. the 1950s). It‘s only about you. Go out and find what you like. It is waiting there to be discovered.

Some considerations to take into account...

  Whatever you decided to collect, there are a number of criteria to follow (which are often the same ones for establishing the value appraisals). 

  There are many different circumstantialities one has to take into consideration to find the right value for a certain print. I want to show you this fact on one striking example:

Edward Henry Weston was a 20th-century American photographer  He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." One of his most famous series is the „Shells“ portfolio. But prints from this portfolio are in a range from about $ 15.000 up to more than $1 million (for the same image!). Why?

Well, it very much depends on the kind of the print. Weston‘s photographs come in four varieties: vintage prints, signed by himself and prints late by himself (e.g. in the 1930s from his 1920s negatives or in the 1940s from his 1930s negatives). Then there are so called „project prints“ made under his supervision by his son Brett in the 1950s (when Edward developed Parkinson‘s disease). And there are posthumous prints by his other son Cole...

Left: April 2012 Christie‘s

EDWARD WESTON (1886-1958) 

SHELL

gelatin silver print, printed 1970s by Cole Weston 

signed, titled, dated by Cole Weston in pencil and credit stamp 

(on the reverse of the mount)

image/sheet: 9 3/8 x 7 3/8 in. (24.3 x 19.2 cm.) 

mount: 15 x 13¼in. (38.5 x 34 cm.) 

Estimated: $6,000 - $8,000

Lot Sold: $18,750

Middle: April 2014, Sotheby‘s

Edward Weston

'SHELLS'

mounted to buff-colored card, signed, dated, initialed, and editioned '18/50' in pencil 

on the mount, titled and dated in pencil on the reverse, framed, 1927

9 1/4  by 7 in. (23.5 x 17.8 cm.)

Estimated: $300,000 - $500,000

Lot Sold: $905.000

Right: April 2010, Sotheby‘s

Edward Weston

NAUTILUS

Estimated: $300,000 - $500,000

Lot Sold: $1,082,500

As I said before:  A collection should reflect your taste and interest. And it will be very much influenced by your budget...

More to come soon...

Filed under [Collector's Basics]

MORE MONEY THAN SENSE?

  A year ago, the art world was startled by the following message:

Peter Lik Print Sells for $6.5 Million, Shattering Record for Most Expensive Photo

Australian landscape photographer Peter Lik has taken the crown for most expensive photo ever sold. “Phantom,” the picture shown above, was sold to a private collector for a staggering $6.5 million. The record was previously held by Andreas Gursky’s “Rhein II”, which sold for $4.3 million back in 2011.[http://petapixel.com]

But soon there emerged a lot of doubts about this deal. As with his 2010 piece, "One", the purported sale was to a private collector, and therefore there was no way to verify the claim. Rumors have swirled for years that Lik’s investors "buy" his works at absurd prices as a marketing stunt to generate interest in his work. And soon the whole "business model" of Peter Lik has been questioned. Renowned media such as the New York Times or The Guardian dealt extensively with Peter Lik. "Is that $6.5 Million Photo Sale for Real? Probably Not!" an article on artnet news is titled. "Buyer beware: Treat Peter Lik photo sale with skepticism", "Those $10m Photos May Not Be Art—and Now There Are Doubts About the Truth of the Sales", "The Most Expensive Photo in the World, or the Best Marketing Stunt?" where other headlines.

There was also a significant backlash to this news on Twitter, where @LarryWasser called it "the sad story of uneducated buyers" and @polarapfel saw Lik's business as a guide to "how to run a successful scam on novice art buyers." On Facebook, Ken Micallef called Lik's practices "sickening and hilarious".

If you consider that, according to the artnet Price Database Lik‘s work has only topped the $3,000 mark (on the secondary market) once for a 2008 sale of a color version of "Phantom" (named "Ghost" then which is, as you can see above,the same picture, just converted to b&w, also nothing is known about the size), which sold for $15,860, these doubts are more than justified. 

So what is Peter Lik‘s "Business model" then?

His editions are in lots of 995—950 „limited editions“ and 45 artist’s proofs. Each print is identical but the proofs have a bit more prestige to them so they start at $10,000. His business model is that as a print is selling, the price will increase. Once he has sold 10 percent of a limited edition, the price increases. So, an image that would cost $4000 if you bought the first one, could reach as high as $200,000 when it’s down to the last few.

(Note: Most photographers offer their work in very limited editions. A large format print is often limited to ten or less. And they all sell for the same amount.)

For the record-setting Phantom, Lik employed a new tactic, putting the word out to his most prolific collectors that his latest work would be one-of-a-kind. The $6.5 million sale was widely reported, but the backlash was swift, both against the photo's artistic value and the validity of the astronomical price tag. As the New York Times points out, the sale was both private and anonymous, so "it's hard to know what's 'official' about it."

The Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper, has taken Lik's unlikely sale to task, citing the lack of documentary proof of the sale aside from the press release  and advices to be skeptical of the sale because

• The work was sold privately to an unknown buyer and no documentary proof beyond a press release of the sale appears to have been provided.
• Lik's work has been ignored by major public art galleries and dismissed by critics.
• When his photos have gone up for public auction, they have not sold well.

Art consultant David Hulme, who in 2012 warned against collecting Lik "because Peter Lik's photographs have no secondary market presence or value," routinely fields calls from Lik owners who are hoping for a profitable resale. He told the New York Times that he worries that Lik's tiered pricing structure is "misleading" customers, understandably causing them to assume that the outside market will reflect the ever-rising prices charged by the artist. And Michael Hoppen, a gallery owner in London, was quoted by The Independent in England, "[Phantom] is an abomination. Art, whatever, the medium, is something that moves and informs you or changes your opinion. This has nothing to do with art or creative photography, and the tragedy is that it brings the whole business down."

The art world is full of ridiculous egos.

Peter Lik's claims to be the "world's most influential fine art photographer" and "one of the most important artists of the 21st century". But there are not many who would follow his view...

So here is my conclusion on this whole even episode:

If you have enough money and like Peter Lik‘s work - go for it. But don‘t expect that the worth will rise. (And maybe you should also take into consideration that there are hundreds of photographers that to much better work then Lik ever will do).

If you want to invest your money in art, hoping do get more out of it - don‘t buy Lik‘s work. You only would lose money...

This is a follow up of my 2014 articel at my art connected blog.

UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET

  There are multiple sources of photographic art, falling into one of two general categories although there will be some cross over from time to time. You have to keep in mind that for the artist there is a very big different between this two markets: Only when his work is sold at the primary market he/she actually earns money. If the work is sold at the secondary market he/she may not even learn about it...

Primary Market _ Term for the sources of art works initially sold to collectors, usually through galleries, dealers, and at artist's shows, the 'first sale' of a work of art. 

Secondary Market _ Term for sources of art works that have been sold before and are available again for sale in the market place.

The Primary Market

Primary markets are by definition the point of the first acquisition of a work of art. This is also the time when the price for the artwork is established for the first time. Primary market players are galleries, private dealers (Generally an individual without a display space regularly open to the public. They work by telephone, appointment, and most often with established clients.) and at times the artist themselves. In primary markets, prices are established by the artist as a condition of representation. All galleries who work with a contemporary photographer should be selling at the same price. 

There are some distinguishing marks which define a “good“ art dealer:

• The reputable Art Dealer is 100% behind the work he/she is selling
• Most reputable dealers have extensive libraries -many are art historians or collectors turned dealers.
• Most reputable dealers are happy to educate, explain, and teach. They have a passion for the art they sell, and they want to communicate it. 
• Reputable dealers will also give full condition reports, and will document fading, foxing or other condition problems

The Secondary Market

Secondary markets are by definition involved in the acquisition and sale of work that has been owned previously. Key players in secondary markets are auction houses, private dealers, and some galleries. 

The secondary market often establishes the market value of works of art at a point in time.

Prices on the secondary market can be pretty confusing: the internet is bringing more visibility, but because there are a lot of different factors that aren’t readily captured or noted, the internet is not bringing greater clarity. The key to remember is that while not all prints are the same, there are common factors that sellers use to establish the price. Those are: general market and economic conditions, image desirability and demand, image scarcity and supply, size, condition, period of printing, provenance, and image quality. 

For the works of deceased photographers,  the secondary market is not only critical in establishing prices, but sometimes the only source of original photographs. 

Auctions are public events, can be entertaining and exciting for bidders, and present a great opportunity to view and bid on multiple works of art at the same time. It is sometimes possible to get a good deal. Sometimes prices get pretty outrageous, so you have to exercise caution when bidding. One thing that some people are not aware of in bidding is that the hammer price is not the final price. At most auction houses, there is a buyer premium for 20-25%, which means if you bid $20,000 for a photograph, you aren’t picking it up until you pay the house $25,000.

Online Auctions are a relatively new phenomenon which one has to take with a pinch of salt. Buyers are taking a chance buying original prints from an online or independent seller. If the buyer recognizes that and is willing to take that chance, then it might be worth it. There are some points to consider when you are buying at an online auction:

• Is the seller accurately representing the item? 
• Is the seller accurately disclosing the condition? Damage can take the value all the way down to zero, if significant enough.
• Is there an opportunity to return the item if not as described?
• Is there a satisfactory recourse if it becomes necessary?

The Contemporary Art Market

There are typically four different areas in the contemporary art market and most dealers will sell art from one or more of these areas. They are:

• The Reputable Print Market which covers both "emerging artists" and established artists.
• The Avant-Garde - otherwise known as "emerging artists". 
• The Established artist - This term covers artists whose work is well-known by the art-going public, and represented in both private and museum collections. 
• The Contemporary Masters - This covers artists who are generally acknowledged to be important figures in the history of contemporary art.

S