$1m for a backlit photograph!

Mick Fagan · Mar 24, 2007

Matthew, interesting comments, but the thrust of the thread is basically whether or not this backlit picture is, or is not worth $1,000,000.

No one has really questioned the originator's capability, or anything, except his prowess at flogging a photograph to a gallery for $1,000,000.

I don't think his capability as a teacher, or as a mimic, is, or has been questioned.

I have over the past 45 years, visited many art galleries in quite a few countries. In my local art gallery, which is the one that actually purchased the piece, I have seen many travelling photographic and painting exhibitions. This acquisition is extremely interesting from two particular points.

Firstly, it broke a price barrier of a living persons photograph, by quite a long margin.

Secondly, it has a very prominent black line running right through the middle.

Try as I may, I cannot remember one single instance of any painting in the last 500 years that has been joined like this, because the canvas wasn't available in the finished size!

I have never, seen any photograph presented with a join like this one has.

I have visited the gallery three times since it was put on show, each time the black line is annoying. I have also overheard other members of the public say to each other that it would be alright if it didn't have that line running through it.

In the late eighties I was involved in making mural photographs in an industrial photographic lab. The size of the reflection and transmitted mural pictures we were producing, make Wall's 2m x 2.5m picture look like a test print. I cannot think of one instance where we had a join even remotely like that.

I am not questioning the artistic ability of the person who masterminded this picture, it's content, or it's size. I'm just questioning whether the person who did the joining, fully understands the craft part of making presentable pictures?

I take your point about the long and convoluted explanation of why he chose to insert a black line, I just don't buy it.

Mick.

Sparky · Mar 24, 2007

patrickjames said:
Johnathan I agree largely with what you are saying and will leave it at that. The tragedy that you touch upon is that artists benefit very little from their work as you mentioned. I really find this abhorrent in general. How much did he make from his original work? Maybe a few thousand. He does benefit in the end though because of the prestige. What will his next work sell for? A lot more than this one. I think we can both agree that the whole scene is pretty twisted in the end.

Best regards

Patrick

Thanks Patrick for trying to see my point. The guy does alright though. I don't think we need to feel sorry for him. He sells through his agent/gallery rep, I'm sure. Purportedly - most of his works sell for the $200K mark. Of that - he probably takes home $100K, and pays probably 50% of that in taxes (in Canada, there isn't the massive writeoffs you can get like in the USA). So that leaves $50K, out of which he has to pay for production - which is at LEAST that - if not a lot more... but he sells multiple pieces per year - and I think he has small editions he sells for less, as well. But I think he lives pretty comfortably nonetheless. I used to work for him (for about a year...) so it gave me a pretty good idea of what goes on behind the scenes. Excuse my rant please, if I seemed indignant. But it really makes me angry to see people taking something out of context and running it into the ground because they don't understand what the deal is.

Sparky · Mar 24, 2007

Mick Fagan said:
Secondly, it has a very prominent black line running right through the middle.

Try as I may, I cannot remember one single instance of any painting in the last 500 years that has been joined like this, because the canvas wasn't available in the finished size!

I have never, seen any photograph presented with a join like this one has.

I have visited the gallery three times since it was put on show, each time the black line is annoying. I have also overheard other members of the public say to each other that it would be alright if it didn't have that line running through it.

In the late eighties I was involved in making mural photographs in an industrial photographic lab. The size of the reflection and transmitted mural pictures we were producing, make Wall's 2m x 2.5m picture look like a test print. I cannot think of one instance where we had a join even remotely like that.

I am not questioning the artistic ability of the person who masterminded this picture, it's content, or it's size. I'm just questioning whether the person who did the joining, fully understands the craft part of making presentable pictures?

I take your point about the long and convoluted explanation of why he chose to insert a black line, I just don't buy it.

Maybe consider the possibility that it's not a 'photograph' - well, at least - as you know a photograph to be.

Mick Fagan · Mar 24, 2007

Jonathan, it is a photograph as it is an image produced by the action of light, on a sensitised surface.

Anything produced that way, is a photograph.

Mick.

Sparky · Mar 24, 2007

I wouldn't say that.

you might.

but I wouldn't.

Mick Fagan said:
Jonathan, it is a photograph as it is an image produced by the action of light, on a sensitised surface.

Anything produced that way, is a photograph.

Mick.

Mick Fagan · Mar 24, 2007

Jonathan, perhaps you have a different understanding of the medium, but the senior curator of the National Gallery of Victoria calls it a photograph as well.

I am not discussing anything except the medium the actual image is in, or on.

"Photography is the modern medium and these (photographs) are the masterworks of this century and in two centuries' time people will say 'we're glad you bought these works'," Ms Crombie said.

Isobel Crombie, senior curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, Saturday the 16th of December 2006 the Age newspaper (Melbourne Australia).

Mick.

Sparky · Mar 24, 2007

Yes, one CAN call it that. And the senior curator of the National Gallery of Victoria can talk any way they want to about it, I'm sure. I'm not contesting that. I was simply trying to suggest that the use of the 'seam' pointed to the fact that there was something much different going on here than might go on in 'photographic' circles, much as the culture we have going on here. I was more implicitly trying to suggest that his work 'uses' photography (I think that would be more accurate) than it BEING photography.

Mick Fagan · Mar 24, 2007

Jonathan, I understand where you are coming from. Yes, it is reasonably obvious that he uses photography.

Michelangelo considered himself a sculpturer, first and foremost.

For whatever reason, he ended up painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling with scenes depicting genesis. According to the information I have read about this painting, he painted it under duress, however he basically stuck it up the establishments fundamental, by painting in 3D to make it look like a sculpture.

Now Michelangelo may have considered it to be a flat sculpture, may have even informed his friends that the finished product is a sculpture, that is fine.

However when I saw the real thing about 450 years after Michelangelo painted it, I saw a painting on a ceiling, not a sculpture. I don't think there was a person in the sistine Chapel that day who even remotely considered it to be a sculpture.

In the same vein, I don't think there would be one person who visits the National Gallery of Victoria, views the backlit picture and understands it to be anything but a photograph, regardless of what the originator of the work calls it.

Mick.

Sparky · Mar 24, 2007

It's not that I hold the work in such massive regard... but I DO however, appreciate the work... and I feel that, to refer to it as 'photography', to be examined with the same magnifying glass and the same set of precepts as one would with the Adamses and the Westons, would be, at best - very very shallow. I'm not calling YOU that - I'm just saying that if you just look at an individual work of his as 'a picture' - and consider that he was unthinkingly, like the rest of us trying to make a cool looking photograph - would be - well, a mistake. By definition.

jstraw · Mar 24, 2007

Sparky said:
no, no... it's not ansel adams, is it? not a robert doisneau poster. no - so it must be garbage...! This sort of reminds me of Hitler's arguments against what, at that time, was called 'modern art'. This is one of those times I find it embarrassing to even be on here. Sorry. I like you guys generally... but, sorry.

Addendum: also - if you understood how much planning, effort, thinking and WORK goes into a SINGLE image, it'd make your head spin... and, just maybe, you might look at it differently. It's like looking at a Malevich painting and saying "my four year old could do that"... well, actually - no he couldn't. Understanding roughly how a picture is made is not the same as understanding.

Degree of difficulty is kinda interesting and all, but I tend not to factor that into my scoring.

removed account4 · Mar 24, 2007

Sparky said:
Yes, one CAN call it that. And the senior curator of the National Gallery of Victoria can talk any way they want to about it, I'm sure. I'm not contesting that. I was simply trying to suggest that the use of the 'seam' pointed to the fact that there was something much different going on here than might go on in 'photographic' circles, much as the culture we have going on here. I was more implicitly trying to suggest that his work 'uses' photography (I think that would be more accurate) than it BEING photography.

i dunno jonathan
i think showing the seam and not hiding it, just shows
truth in materials, nothing more nothing less.
if he made ( or had made ) the seam to be "almost not there"
it would be the same thing as using the rubberstamp-thingy is PS
to mask a seam in a 2-photo merge. instead he made the seam
"in your face" so there is no mistake to be made.

bill schwab · Mar 24, 2007

matthewbetcher said:
... in the end, what i find interesting about this whole discussion is the massive divide between the "photography" community and the photograph-as-medium art world -- and the intolerance therein.

Exactly. As a place that is supposed to be so supportive of photography and those who practice it, this can be a very unfriendly and disrespectful place for those that find the type of success Wall has achieved. Just look at the post earlier in this thread from the owner of this site of all people. It is no wonder that some of the more well-known people that are members of this site never say a word aside from maybe promoting their books or workshops. It is a shame because these people have perhaps the most to offer in a place like this.

Case in point...

patrickjames said:
...in the end a photograph like this selling to a museum for this price is really mostly about the ego. The ego of the museum and the ego of the photographer and/or his reps.

Good grief.... sorry, but what a bunch of crap.

Bill

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Mar 24, 2007

Two words: Pictorial Intelligence.

Jeff Wall sometimes irritates me, but he is also absolutely brilliant in the way he makes photographs. This guy, more than anyone else, is responsible for influencing the artworld of the last twenty years. It helps to to read his work in the context of a rather large art history knowledge, and be familiar with some aspects of conceptual art, as well as the history of photography. And you also have to understand his relationship to the materiality of photography, which the ugly seam in the above photo is an example of.

Don't tell me any BS about "the picture should stand alone." The picture always stand alone when everyone has the same background assumptions about it.

A more accessible picture of Wall would be The Mimic : http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/infocus/section1/img4.shtm

This is a completely staged photography, using actors, shot in Vancouver with an LF camera of a moment that happened in the wink of a second in the streets. The perspective and the large format allow you to enter in a kind of hyperreal "decisive moment," to witness things from a point of view that would be impossible if it were photographed as an actual event.

There are also the issues of racism and representation, the question of the meaning of each specific gesture, why they were chosen, what situation do they reconstruct, and what does it mean to represent them.

There's a nice article about it in the LRB when it was at the Tate modern:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n24/soar01_.html

Regarding the pricing, I am always the impression that photographs sold during the artist's life are overpriced, simply because they are for that period of time more easily reproducible. But I don't think Wall's photo is overpriced because it is not a good one. Gursky is a fascinating photographer, but 2 millions for an inkjet print is a tad annoying.

pentaxuser · Mar 24, 2007

For Australia's taxpayers' sakes, let's hope that the buyer or committee of the great and the good responsible don't have unparalleled durability, unlike the Cibachrome.

pentaxuser

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Mar 24, 2007

Wow, you guys are seriously worrying with your taxpayer-money rhetoric! Governments across the world mismanage your social security, health insurance, civil liberties, corporate responsibilities, but somehow you are compelled to mount an attack on a perhaps overpriced acquisition of a work of art that is actually compelling, created with film, and which will enrich the collection of museums.

Sheesh.

Sparky · Mar 24, 2007

billschwab said:
Exactly. As a place that is supposed to be so supportive of photography and those who practice it, this can be a very unfriendly and disrespectful place for those that find the type of success Wall has achieved. Just look at the post earlier in this thread from the owner of this site of all people. It is no wonder that some of the more well-known people that are members of this site never say a word aside from maybe promoting their books or workshops. It is a shame because these people have perhaps the most to offer in a place like this.

Case in point... Good grief.... sorry, but what a bunch of crap.

Bill

How DARE you. Bastard.

Just kidding...!

The intolerance is more kind of one-sided though, isn't it. I mean - it's not really SO much of a social divide for what we'll call the 'newer camp'... just for the 'old guard'. I'm in kind of a neat position with respect to this. I'm a card-carrying member of both camps. So - it's just sort of entertaining for me to watch, I suppose.

Sparky · Mar 24, 2007

jnanian said:
i dunno jonathan
i think showing the seam and not hiding it, just shows
truth in materials, nothing more nothing less.
if he made ( or had made ) the seam to be "almost not there"
it would be the same thing as using the rubberstamp-thingy is PS
to mask a seam in a 2-photo merge. instead he made the seam
"in your face" so there is no mistake to be made.

Well - within what we'll call the world of the 'fine art photograph' (see my comment about the 'old guard' above), such a seam - and respect for truthfulness in materials, isn't really part of the language. In fact, it's downright alien. However, such gestures and playfulness with the media at hand ARE very much part of a language, and very much at home, in that exterior world that we refer to as 'visual art', and commonly find such moves in modern and contemporary (these are different epochs, in my book) painting and drawing, mixed media, etc... Wall's work is very much part of that world. And he takes his referents from that world. He is very much aware of the deeper connotations of such gestures - as, I think, were his intentions. It would be naive to suggest otherwise. Look at what he has to say about it, here, on this page, under "picture for women":

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/rooms/room1.shtm

The seam running down the middle of the photograph is apparent in some of Wall's large-scale pictures, where two pieces of transparency are joined. The fact that it serves as a reminder of the artifice of picture making is something that Wall has come to appreciate: 'The join between the two pictures brings your eye up to the surface again and creates a dialectic that I always enjoyed and learned from painting... a dialectic between depth and flatness. Sometimes I hide it, sometimes I don't', he has said.

Okay - well, I suppose that pretty much says it all. He enjoys the tension between pictorial space and the space of the artwork.

matthewbetcher · Mar 24, 2007

Sparky said:
How DARE you. Bastard.

Just kidding...!

The intolerance is more kind of one-sided though, isn't it. I mean - it's not really SO much of a social divide for what we'll call the 'newer camp'... just for the 'old guard'. I'm in kind of a neat position with respect to this. I'm a card-carrying member of both camps. So - it's just sort of entertaining for me to watch, I suppose.

hey sparky, how do i get a card?

I guess this is why i find Wall's work so interesting. he seems to be firmly ensconced in two seemingly radically different camps. i mean one has to appreciate the photographic capability of his work (seam or not) yet his work is - or should be - viewed with more of a reading akin to viewing a painting.

sometimes a photograph is not simply a photograph. no one would ever refer to picasso's guernica as simply nothing more than pigment suspended in an oil medium applied to a linen substrate...

patrickjames · Mar 24, 2007

billschwab said:
Exactly. As a place that is supposed to be so supportive of photography and those who practice it, this can be a very unfriendly and disrespectful place for those that find the type of success Wall has achieved. Just look at the post earlier in this thread from the owner of this site of all people. It is no wonder that some of the more well-known people that are members of this site never say a word aside from maybe promoting their books or workshops. It is a shame because these people have perhaps the most to offer in a place like this.

Case in point... Good grief.... sorry, but what a bunch of crap.

Bill

Geez Bill I mean c'mon. I guess no one has an ego in the art world? There are no politics involved with museums? The museum benefits from purchasing a piece like this since it creates so much publicity/controversy. How can you deny that? Wall benefits in the same way. How can you deny that? I think he should get as much as he can for his work. We all would do the same. Read my post two down from the one you quoted.

Your point about well known people not contributing to this site is semi mute. If they cared they would. I think people like Sandy King, Tom Hoskinson and Patrick Gainer are far more valuable to a site like this than anyone else I could possibly think of. The amount of time and energy they put out in order to help those here with questions is unbelievable. That impresses me more than someone who sells a million dollar photo. Without them this site would be almost nothing really. The statement above shows little respect for their efforts. I hope you realize that.

With all due respect, cause I really like your work,

Patrick

bill schwab · Mar 25, 2007

patrickjames said:
Geez Bill I mean c'mon. I guess no one has an ego in the art world?

That is not in dispute, nor what was said...

"in the end a photograph like this selling to a museum for this price is really mostly about the ego."

With reciprocal respect, I still do not see where a statement like this has any merit whatsoever. As for using this quote in my OP, it was nothing personal. Only a nearby example of the kind of cliché' arguments people resort to in discussions like this. Very often people that don't have the kind of knowledge of the particular situation or the museum acquisition process in general that would be needed to come to such conclusions.

patrickjames said:
Your point about well known people not contributing to this site is semi mute. .... Sandy King, Tom Hoskinson and Patrick Gainer

I don't see any of them partaking in this thread either. I also have not seen them or others of their stature participating in the other threads like this I have grown so tired of in this site. People that have met some success with their work know what it takes to achieve it in this "business" and aren't likely to question the good fortune of one of their contemporaries.

Bill

Tom Stanworth · Mar 26, 2007

I am happy to comment on both the artistic merit and monetary value:

Zero
Zero

As for the rope representing the confusing complexities of life etc etc. Did we all not deal with more subtle and profound concepts as a 12 year old at school? Why does infusing a simple, unremarkable (staged) photograph with such 'Peter and Jane' philosophy make it worth $1m? Good luck to the photographer and I wish him well in his ascent to artistic megastardom. I would however be rather miffed if my local major gallery spent its cash on this tripe.

I can imagine that learned art buyers would really need to consult the buying guide when dealing with such images to make sure they really teased out the full depth to be had here.....[..so Bob...the rope his personal 'life monster' and if he ties it up right he takes control of everything?.....oh, no, I geddit: The rope is his lifeline and by untagling it he could fall and hurt himself, but he can't help himself?]

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Mar 26, 2007

There's this guy, I can't remember his name, he took a picture of a friggin' pepper, inside a tube! Can you imagine that? A friggin' pepper! And he wantes money for that. Who in their right mind would be stupid enough to spend taxpayer money for a photo of a pepper. I could do it myself, you know.

To each their sacred cows.

removed account4 · Mar 26, 2007

Sparky said:
Well - within what we'll call the world of the 'fine art photograph' (see my comment about the 'old guard' above), such a seam - and respect for truthfulness in materials, isn't really part of the language. In fact, it's downright alien. However, such gestures and playfulness with the media at hand ARE very much part of a language, and very much at home, in that exterior world that we refer to as 'visual art', and commonly find such moves in modern and contemporary (these are different epochs, in my book) painting and drawing, mixed media, etc... Wall's work is very much part of that world. And he takes his referents from that world. He is very much aware of the deeper connotations of such gestures - as, I think, were his intentions. It would be naive to suggest otherwise. Look at what he has to say about it, here, on this page, under "picture for women":

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/rooms/room1.shtm

The seam running down the middle of the photograph is apparent in some of Wall's large-scale pictures, where two pieces of transparency are joined. The fact that it serves as a reminder of the artifice of picture making is something that Wall has come to appreciate: 'The join between the two pictures brings your eye up to the surface again and creates a dialectic that I always enjoyed and learned from painting... a dialectic between depth and flatness. Sometimes I hide it, sometimes I don't', he has said.

Okay - well, I suppose that pretty much says it all. He enjoys the tension between pictorial space and the space of the artwork.

jonathan -

nothing wrong with using language that is outside "the system."
not every photograph has to speak the "formal language of photography."
the "system" is broken if every photograph has to be compared to an adams or weston.

gr82bart · Mar 26, 2007

Who the hell would pay $5 for Orville Redenbacher popcorn when I can buy the kernels myself and pop them for less than a quater? Sheesh!

Regards, Art.

Dave Wooten · Mar 26, 2007

A million bucks wow whee! ....just think what an authentic Ansel Adams must be worth, hand printed on archival fibre and the zone system and all...better buy em up now while the gettin' is good!

$1m for a backlit photograph!

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