Andreas Gursky: Rhein II

[CGW]

Was the photo sold by Gursky or by a private collector if it is the later gursky won't see a dime from the sale, the same thing with Sherman's selfportrait. Gursky's photo is not my taste but tastes differ furthermore the art market has nothing to do with art and everything to do with the market. Art is sold like stock and just like the stockmarket it mostly produces bubbles created by some selfserving individuals. Never forget who Damien Hearst's best costumer is the answer is simple Damien Hearst. He buys most of his works and creates the illusion of being one of the most expensive Artists in the world, while in reality he buys the stuff himself basically he's a fraud. I doubt that Gursky buys his own work I rather believe that the market creates artist no matter what the artists does for the simple reason to have something to sell.

Dominik

I'm guessing that's why it's called the art "market."

 

[KEK]

I didn't think much of his work until I saw a couple of his pieces in an exhibit. I like them alot. Just wish I had a wall big enough and a wallet even bigger.

 

[removed account4]

i would like to see a roomfilled with his work.

i'm glad someone is making money in this bad art-economy.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Unless that room is the parade hall at the Park Avenue Armory, a room full of Gurskys will only net you three to four pieces.

 

[removed account4]

i was thinking of a very very large room

 

[MDR]

First I have to corect a mistake I've made it's Damien Hirst and Hearst. If anyone is interested in how the contemporary art market was created watch Ben Lewis' Documentary The Great Contemporary Art Bubble UK 2009. It's available on you tube. Micheal the fact that Damien Hirst buys his own stuff is pretty well known in the Art World, he was already super rich (family money) before he became an artist. The whole Turner Price is a bit of marketing gag and has little to do with Art. But as has been previously stated it's called Art Market and not Art.

Dominik

 

[Bob Carnie]

Good point, if you have enough money enjoy...... I have always like this photographers work and would love to see a full on exhibit.

As an investment I wonder what the buyer will be feeling like when the colour image fades to a cyan blob, its the only archille's heel point I see in large , expensive colour works on photographic paper or inkjet. Maybe there is a print replacement policy in place. I have always wondered how this issue is being solved, or is it being ignored for the first twenty years of a colour prints life, because after that it goes downhill quite fast depending upon where it is displayed.

i would like to see a roomfilled with his work.

i'm glad someone is making money in this bad art-economy.

 

[MDR]

Michael here's a link you might find interesting, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/a...chase-his-own-work.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm (he is also rumoured to have bought the famous diamond skull)
btw I like some of Hirst pieces and also quiet a few of Gursky's but I am mostly fed up with the so called art market that ignores some really great artists in favour of friends or a group like the Becher pupils who brought nothing new to art or photography. Becher is simply the Neue Sachlichkeit from the german 1920's and their pupils are still doing pretty much the same thing just this time in color and it's getting old and boring.

Dominik

 

[removed account4]

i can almost imagine an exhibit of his work in some over the top gigantic location,
like in/on storefronts up and down some shopping district or in a field as an installation.

that is a great point about replacement &c. i know of a lot of portrait shooters who had to replace an awful lot of prints
because of fading and shift &c when light jet materials first came on the market and the materials were "troubled",
but those portraits didn't cost 20-40K upfront to create ...

Good point, if you have enough money enjoy...... I have always like this photographers work and would love to see a full on exhibit.

As an investment I wonder what the buyer will be feeling like when the colour image fades to a cyan blob, its the only archille's heel point I see in large , expensive colour works on photographic paper or inkjet. Maybe there is a print replacement policy in place. I have always wondered how this issue is being solved, or is it being ignored for the first twenty years of a colour prints life, because after that it goes downhill quite fast depending upon where it is displayed.

 

[removed account4]

who cares if the photographer bought his own work,
maybe this person has multiple personalities and marvin doesn't know what felix is doing.
i'd hate to be rufus when he realizes his bank account is missing 5 million dollars

 

[Jerevan]

The Gursky photograph, it's so boring I could cry. If you took it out in the street and ran it over with a truck a few times, it might get to be interesting...

 

[MaximusM3]

The Gursky photograph, it's so boring I could cry. If you took it out in the street and ran it over with a truck a few times, it might get to be interesting...

But someone else found it interesting enough to pay millions. That's what makes the world go 'round. One cannot be objective when criticizing someone else's work because, by nature, it is a subjective/personal opinion. So, the correct wording would be that it is boring for YOU. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't pay $10 to hang that on my wall but I'm not shocked (nor upset) that someone else thinks it is other-worldly.

 

[hoffy]

It's better than that Cindy Sherman malarki.

Thats subjective......very subjective. I engage more with Sherman's work then this photo.

Me personally, I would have to see Gursky's work in person to form a decision. I certainly am not going to discount it as a piece of art.

 

[Jerevan]

But someone else found it interesting enough to pay millions. That's what makes the world go 'round. One cannot be objective when criticizing someone else's work because, by nature, it is a subjective/personal opinion. So, the correct wording would be that it is boring for YOU. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't pay $10 to hang that on my wall but I'm not shocked (nor upset) that someone else thinks it is other-worldly.

Yes, of course, it is my subjective opinion that I am bored by it, I should have been clearer on that point. Someone else pays miilions for it and loves it, I hope.

And I have no idea what I would think of it, should I ever see it in person. The thumbnail does convey the reality of the photograph.

 

[MaximusM3]

Max, but do you really think the person who bought it found it millions of dollars worth of interesting? I highly doubt it. I bet whoever it is thought it was maybe a thousand dollars worth of interesting and the remaining millions worth of investment value, prestige (?), whatever. Once you're into the millions it's got little to do with enjoying any piece of art, I think. I can half understand those prices for famous paintings and sculptures, but in the end this is just a c-print.

Of course, Michael, you are probably right but there is no way to know that. It seems hard to justify the price for something like that but it happens all the time. In the fine wine business, for example, when a customer asks me "what do you think this bottle is worth at auction?", my answer is always.."whatever anyone is willing to pay for it". Previous results may give an indication (if available) but in the end it is always about what the perceived value is for a given individual. That value could be purely in enjoyment, investment, prestige, a status symbol, or a combination of all those factors. I don't think that once you're into millions it is not about enjoyment because millions for someone able to spend that kind of money is like hundreds to us and it's not a big deal. It's all relative. I've had customers over the years that have spent millions on wine collections and have enjoyed every great bottle with friends. In some people's minds that's insane because it is just a beverage with a finite life, an ultimate goal of enjoyment, to end as piss in the toilet
Also, at this level of collecting, it is very easy to MAKE a market because there aren't many precedents or gauges to go by. It's a pretty rarified atmosphere that can support itself, given the rarity and unique nature of the pieces. I still think it's nothing special as an image but who knows, mural size, with the right lighting, it may be very easy to appreciate and able to "speak" to somebody (obviously).

 

[Curt]

My son created far better Art in preschool.

 

[Ross Chambers]

i would like to see a roomfilled with his work.

The Art Gallery of NSW show (which was not exclusively Gursky) included, from memory, 2 or 3 Gurskys, one of them the 99c picture (which I called the dime store picture earlier, rather a Freudian slip).

The particular court was indeed a very large room and it was necessary to stand back quite a distance to view the larger prints.

This may raise the sturdy evergreen subject of "art" and "gallery" which may be oversimplified as "if it's in an art gallery it must be art"

Just stirring the possum

 

[Sparky]

oh this is ridiculous - every time a photograph sells for a large amount of money people on these forums start acting like a bunch of jealous teenage girls (what's SHE got that I don't have??) - it's not ABOUT any particular aspect of merit - and NO - none of you COULD make as 'successful' a photograph. It's not ABOUT 'photographic merit' in any way. It's because gursky is the tool of some wealthy business people. Like britney spears... he is paid as a celebrity and a representative of 'high culture'. Well there are certainly merits beyond that... but the pop music analogy isn't far off... so you can make music like britney spears?? well that's not exactly the point, is it? It's not about meritocracy. It never was.

 

[Ross Chambers]

Was the photo sold by Gursky or by a private collector if it is the later gursky won't see a dime from the sale, the same thing with Sherman's selfportrait.

Dominik

A delayed thought (I'm a slow thinker):

I'm sure that in some countries the artist does receive some percentage of resales which occur after the initial artist/gallery/auction one.

It has been a subject of discussion in Australia where the monetary values of works by ethnic artists have increased quite substantially and buyer to buyer sales were not in any way beneficial to the artist. From shaky memory France was cited as a country where the artist or their estate did receive a payment.

 

[DREW WILEY]

It's called conspicuous consumption. Gursky's work does tend to have nice balance to it. But this would impress me a lot more as a painting where some real execution were involved. Fauxtoshop is
just a cop-out lazy way to paint in cases like this. Essentially expensive wallpaper. So I admire the
ability of the folks who mounted the thing. But other than size, I don't see much difference between
this composition and hundreds of things done ever since the early 70's.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I have no opinion of Gursky's piece as a viable piece of art. My only opinion is that I don't like it. It tells me nothing. I have no emotional reaction to it other than trying to understand why someone would want to spend millions on it.

If I was a billionaire I might think of it as investment, but nothing else. Rich people want vehicles to make them more money, and this is a pretty interesting way of both bragging and investing at the same time.

What I always do think of in cases like this is: If we took 50 pieces of art, from 50 different people. Some famous, others not. Some schooled, and others self taught. Then we let people that have not been educated in the arts look at all the pieces, and just see which ones they pick based on what they like, what stirs emotion, what they dislike, etc - and why. And then we let people that have been trained and educated in the arts do the same, and then compare the outcome.

To me the art market world is commercialism. You learn at an early stage what is considered iconic and what is not, so that all these minds get nicely funneled into similar thought patterns. Kind of like what Six Sigma does for the business world, or what marketing departments do to form people's opinions about their products. You are basically told what to like, and why. Art history shapes the centers of appreciation of the beholders (and investors), or at least steers them in that direction. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

I must admit that I don't like that much. Why was it sold that much is beyond me.

Jeff

 

[Dali]

Great comment Thomas! This is exactly how I react. Gursky is a good businessman and knows what the art market wants. But to me it is not art as it does not arouse any emotion.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I like this photographers work and the scale at which he works at, I don't have the scratch or space to put up one of his pieces.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I, too, like Gursky's work, but by the general tone of the comments here and other threads about contemporary photography I hope nobody wonders why none of these photographers are willing to participate on Apug.

Ouch. That really stung, Greg.

I think of it as a good trait of character to like whatever I want to like, without listening the vernacular of popular opinion.
It becomes sticky, and difficult, if I happen to agree with popular opinion. Fortunately, this time, I don't. Contemporary photography? To me it's all just 'photography', and either I have a positive experience viewing a picture, or I don't. That is all there is to it. The intellectual side of it is completely uninteresting to me, because I hate labels with a passion.

I am fascinated by other people's opinions, however. So that I can try understand, what in particular is it about Gursky's work that appeals to you? I'm very interested to hear you opinion. Seriously. No knee jerk.