Jeff Wall -- "I work in film..."

[Pieter12]

I walked around the house today and was unable to find a place for one of Jeff Wall's large backlit transparencies. I guess if you have a couple of million dollars for a photo, you've probably have a room big enough for it. If you bought it for investment, do you just leave it rolled up in a tube down at the gallery where you purchased it? Can you even roll up a Cibachrome transparency? Forget what it looks like; what do you do with it?

Didn't you watch (you needn't understand it) "Tenet"? Wealthy people rent secure, climate-controlled storage for their excess art. A gallery usually won't hold it for long for you unless they also put it in secure storage. They'll charge you (unless you're a super-customer) and don't want the liability. Of course, there has been at least one example of a large gallery storing and moving around clients' works for an extended period. Turned out they were defrauding the estate of the artist (Mark Rothko). https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Mark-...ocphy=9031029&hvtargid=pla-572213081731&psc=1

 

[removed account4]

that's too bad, Rothko did some amazing stuff,
so did this guy
https://www.npr.org/2016/02/03/465387401/art-world-captivated-by-fake-rothko-trial

 

[Pieter12]

that's too bad, Rothko did some amazing stuff,
so did this guy
https://www.npr.org/2016/02/03/465387401/art-world-captivated-by-fake-rothko-trial

You should watch the documentary. There were more than Rothkos. "Made You Look" on Netflix.

 

[warden]

I guess if you have a couple of million dollars for a photo...

Has anyone ever paid that much for a Jeff Wall? I guess I won't be surprised, but I've always figured him as a $500k kind of artist, if that.

 

[Pieter12]

Has anyone ever paid that much for a Jeff Wall? I guess I won't be surprised, but I've always figured him as a $500k kind of artist, if that.

Pretty close, probably more now...(from Sotheby's)

 

[faberryman]

Jeff Wall's Dead Troops Talk sold for 3.6 million in 2012.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/jeff-wall-photograph-sells-for-record-3-6m-us-1.1205822

 

[DREW WILEY]

Wonder if it's faded into non-existence by now? Huge photos are hard to display without risking a lot of UV exposure. I wouldn't call it a smart "investment", that's for sure. But wasting large sums of money is a lifestyle for some. But maybe someone wanted to feel philanthropic. I dunno. I have had business dealings with extremely rich people, as well as some personal art sales. They're not all the same any more than the rest of us. Some have good taste, some awful taste; some just follow the other lemmings as per what to buy.

Pieter - I'm not aware of any big climate-controlled art storage spaces around here, or even any small ones; and this area has more extremely wealthy people than anywhere else in the world. You can tell when someone has serious money because they don't pay high prices or go to auctions - they haggle down to the last penny! You can also tell by how they dress and what they drive - dingy cheap clothes, sometimes second hand, and a beat up old car so nobody will think they are worth mugging. It's the keeping-up-appearances wannabee rich types that go around looking flashy and throwing around money to impress people.

Other than that, all the museums around here are stuffed already, and don't actually collect much for archiving unless it's relatively compact. Lots of the bigger items tour around, venue to venue, city to city.

 

[removed account4]

Wonder if it's faded into non-existence by now? Huge photos are hard to display without risking a lot of UV exposure. I wouldn't call it a smart "investment", that's for sure. But wasting large sums of money is a lifestyle for some.

any color image that isn't dye transfer is a shakey proposition. my uncle used to make dye transfers and the ones at his home that I last saw march 2019 looked as vivid as they were the day he made them in the 1960s.

You should watch the documentary. There were more than Rothkos. "Made You Look" on Netflix.

I will !
I saw a film about him last year, it was pretty mind blowing.

 

[MattKing]

Between the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Audain Gallery in Whistler I've had lots of chances to see a number of Jeff Wall's large transparencies.
They are quite remarkable to see in person.

 

[warden]

You should watch the documentary. There were more than Rothkos. "Made You Look" on Netflix.

That is a good documentary. I wouldn't buy anything from Ann Freedman.

 

[warden]

Jeff Wall's Dead Troops Talk sold for 3.6 million in 2012.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/jeff-wall-photograph-sells-for-record-3-6m-us-1.1205822

Shows what I know about art prices.

 

[Pieter12]

Wonder if it's faded into non-existence by now? Huge photos are hard to display without risking a lot of UV exposure. I wouldn't call it a smart "investment", that's for sure. But wasting large sums of money is a lifestyle for some. But maybe someone wanted to feel philanthropic. I dunno. I have had business dealings with extremely rich people, as well as some personal art sales. They're not all the same any more than the rest of us. Some have good taste, some awful taste; some just follow the other lemmings as per what to buy.

Pieter - I'm not aware of any big climate-controlled art storage spaces around here, or even any small ones; and this area has more extremely wealthy people than anywhere else in the world. You can tell when someone has serious money because they don't pay high prices or go to auctions - they haggle down to the last penny! You can also tell by how they dress and what they drive - dingy cheap clothes, sometimes second hand, and a beat up old car so nobody will think they are worth mugging. It's the keeping-up-appearances wannabee rich types that go around looking flashy and throwing around money to impress people.

Other than that, all the museums around here are stuffed already, and don't actually collect much for archiving unless it's relatively compact. Lots of the bigger items tour around, venue to venue, city to city.

Kinda like this one https://artworkfas.com/storage/

 

[removed account4]

Between the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Audain Gallery in Whistler I've had lots of chances to see a number of Jeff Wall's large transparencies.
They are quite remarkable to see in person.

I've wanted to see them in person too ...
teachers and classmates had seen them and had the same impression as you!

There were more than Rothkos.

I have been searching for a public radio broadcast about these forgers who were making
all these paintings and were in cahoots with an art dealer who knew but didn't say anything seeing she made like 5 or 10million from the arrangement. the dealer even brought the wife and daughter of the person being forged to the gallery to "authenticate" the work and they were like "huh, this isn't his work...? " there was this collector who spent like 100K$ on some of these paintings and was so proud of his collection. and when it came out that the work was forged he didn't say it was "a xyz painting' but "in the style of xyz painting". ... if you watch the documentary about the joy of painting pioneer bob ross its been suggested that something fishy is going on with that estate too ...
John

 

[macfred]

Art is free. Art must not subserve someone. Art does not have to please.

 

[canonshotz]

Always have been his fan since long time ago

 

[warden]

I have been searching for a public radio broadcast about these forgers who were making all these paintings and were in cahoots with an art dealer who knew but didn't say anything seeing she made like 5 or 10million from the arrangement. the dealer even brought t

The NPR story was probably about the same case outlined on "Made You Look", because that's exactly the story depicted in the documentary.

 

[removed account4]

The NPR story was probably about the same case outlined on "Made You Look", because that's exactly the story depicted in the documentary.

excellent! I will watch it tonight ... I watched it and it was similar but not the same story. Its amazing how many cases of forgery there are! and some get caught because they aren't using "period materials". they should be watching "leverage" and paying attention to Hardison more often

 

[faberryman]

Not sure I would pay $993,000 for the eight foot by 10 foot black and white image named The Forest by Jeff Wall Pieter12 posted above. Is that a guy in a bathrobe and pajamas sort of climbing up a depression away from his campsite, or have I misread the image completely? It is supposedly a reference to Rodney Graham's Oxfordshire Oaks, though I think reasonable minds might differ.

The image of the tree is supposed to be upside down. I guess that makes it artistic. You can read all about the image here, though it is a real slog:

https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/2007-08/WUJAVC/LyonS1.html

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

 

[warden]

The image of the tree is supposed to be upside down. I guess that makes it artistic. You can read all about the image here, though it is a real slog:

A slog it was. It read like a term paper that's reaching too far, but then again it was written by an art school student so I can give him a pass.

Here's another article on the work, written more plainly:
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/21/arts/review-photography-when-upside-down-is-right-side-up.html

The giant camera obscura piece would have been spectacular to visit, and of course the upside down image inside the camera would make sense, but the many upside down trees on display at Artnet don't have the same joy, and don't deliver any of the messages claimed in the article, at least to me. They just look off-putting to me. Oh well.

In completely unrelated news, my until-now secret and massive project of photographing solitary trees and then displaying them at all at a 45 degree angle to call attention to deforestation, is cancelled.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Not sure I would pay $993,000 for the eight foot by 10 foot black and white image named The Forest by Jeff Wall Pieter12 posted above. Is that a guy in a bathrobe and pajamas sort of climbing up a depression away from his campsite, or have I misread the image completely? It is supposedly a reference to Rodney Graham's Oxfordshire Oaks, though I think reasonable minds might differ.

The image of the tree is supposed to be upside down. I guess that makes it artistic. You can read all about the image here, though it is a real slog:

https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/2007-08/WUJAVC/LyonS1.html

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I saw that one in Vancouver Art Gallery several years ago. That's the first one of his I saw in person. It was huge, and the resolution wasn't very good. Other than that, I was underwhelmed. Thankfully, he has other work that makes up for it...

 

[faberryman]

A slog it was. It read like a term paper that's reaching too far, but then again it was written by an art school student so I can give him a pass.

My feeling is that if you have to write a thesis to explain a photograph, the thesis is the work of art. I think I could take a picture of a pair of shoes and write a hundred pages on the existential nature of life's journey which the shoes represent. I mean it is just a picture of shoes. Someone might look at the image and say to himself: "What do you know? I used to have a pair of shoes like those." Maybe he was a devout Catholic, and didn't pick up on the whole existentialism angle.

So let's say after this devout Catholic read my thesis on the existential nature of life's journey, he said: "Okay, I get the existentialism stuff, and that the shoes represent that journey, but why did you pick this particular pair of shoes. I don't know if you have bought shoes recently but there are lot of different styles and colors of shoes. Why this pair." I guess I could tell him that the particular pair of shoes doesn't matter, since they are just a symbol for a journey, and he might say: "So any old picture of any old pair of shoes would do? So why exactly would I pay a million dollars for a picture of any old shoes?" That is kind of how I feel about the upside down tree.

If anyone runs across Jeff Wall's explanation of how his The Forest refers to Graham's Oxfordshire Oaks please let me know because I would like to read it.

One more thought. Would Moonrise Hernandez be a "better" work of art if old Ansel boy had written a thesis on what it means, because I am sort of glad he didn't. I think it would have ruined it.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Pieter - thanks for that storage link. "Call for an estimate", i.e, from the phone in your chauffeured Bentley. And it would be particularly expensive to achieve suitable climate control in the Northwest where that service is located, and where it's either damp in winter or humid in summer. But the private art vault of the wealthier branch of my family is there too; but being just a single collection, is in a smaller space easier to climate control.

I know of a big civic investment photo collection vault here in the Bay Area, and it's not only private in that manner, but has been placed where it's very difficult to get to and breach. And I've consulted with museum staff about their own storage requirements, and was even offered a post-retirement job in a very nice museum fabrication shop, which I had personally equipped (very high level of dust control). It would have been really fun, but I have other things to do.

 

[DREW WILEY]

faberryman - I sure wish you hadn't posted that tree image. It just makes me even more contemptuous of the sheer pretentiousness of the whole game, and why I seldom visit art museums anymore. I have nothing against upside-down images - it's the way I see things in the groundglass. But my rule of thumb is that if the same image doesn't visually work rightside-up, it's just another ho-hum gimmick. And flip that specific picture, and it's a very boring tree, and half-baked composition. Very boring upside-down too, as-is. I wouldn't pay ten bucks for it, even if it did cost $5000 to print and frame.

If I took an oak tree/sky shot that mediocre, the neg would end up in the trash 5 seconds after I viewed it on the light box. I'm not exaggerating.

So yeah, I will reluctantly but finally cross over the red line and shoot someone's sacred cow, and cite the old adage, "A sucker is born every day", if they paid serious money for that silly half-baked prank. But I can think of far far worse Fauxtographers than Wall who have sucked in people with too much money for their own good.

 

[faberryman]

If I took an oak tree/sky shot that mediocre, the neg would end up in the trash 5 seconds after I viewed it on the light box. I'm not exaggerating.

I'd fish it out of the trash and start on a thesis to explain what it means because, as best I can tell, the photograph doesn't much matter.

I once thought the same thing about abstract art, but then I studied it and grew to better understand it. The thing is you don't have to read a thesis about what each abstract painting means to appreciate it. You can appreciate abstract paintings on an aesthetic level without reference to what they mean, if they mean anything at all. Not so much with The Forest and Oxfordshire Oaks. The concept is pretty much the whole ball of wax.

A few years ago when I was in Iceland, one of my projects was to create a series of related abstract photographs. I strove to make them aesthetically pleasing. Maybe when I am too old to photograph any more, I'll sit down and write a thesis about what each of them means. I guess I will then be a conceptual photographer. Presumably the appropriate sequence is concept first, work of art second, but who's to say what I was thinking about when I made those abstract photographs.

Speaking of forests and trees, does anybody think Edward Steichen's The Pond- Moonlight requires any explanation?

By the way, Steichen's The Pond- Moonlight sold at auction in 2006 for $2,900,000, at the time the highest price ever paid for a photograph. Given a choice, I would buy it in a heartbeat over Jeff Wall's Dead Troops Talk, which beat it out $3,600,000 in 2012. I'd also take Gursky's Rhein II which sold for $4,200,000 in 2011 in a heartbeat over Jeff Wall's Dead Troops Talk too. I hope I am not offending any Canadians.

 

[warden]

My feeling is that if you have to write a thesis to explain a photograph, the thesis is the work of art. I think I could take a picture of a pair of shoes and write a hundred pages on the existential nature of life's journey which the shoes represent. I mean it is just a picture of shoes. Someone might look at the image and say to himself: "What do you know? I used to have a pair of shoes like those." Maybe he was a devout Catholic, and didn't pick up on the whole Existentialism angle.

So let's say after this devout Catholic read my thesis on the existential nature of life's journey, he said: "Okay, I get the Existentialism stuff, and that the shoes represent that journey, but why did you pick this particular pair of shoes. I don't know if you have bought shoes recently but there are lot of different styles and colors of shoes. Why this pair." I guess I could tell him that the particular pair of shoes doesn't matter, since they are just a symbol for a journey, and he might say: "So any old picture of any old pair of shoes would do? So why exactly would I pay a million dollars for a picture of any old shoes?" That kind of how I feel about the upside down tree.

If anyone runs across Jeff Wall's explanation of how his The Forest refers to Graham's Oxfordshire Oaks please let me know because I would like to read it.

One more thought. Would Moonrise Hernandez be a "better" work of art if old Ansel boy had written a thesis on what it means, because I am sort of glad he didn't. I think it would have ruined it.

We're in agreement about the whole thesis thing. My personal taste resonates with artists like Robert Adams, Emmet Gowin and Edward Burtynsky, who make pictures about deforestation by making pictures of deforestation, and they hang them right side up to stand on their own.

While I don't know if Burtynsky writes, Gowin and Adams are both skilled writers and their writing is understandable and tends to increase enjoyment and understanding of their work. But you don't have to read it to get value from the images.