urban ku # 176 ~ straight from the people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 09:20AM 
Benches • Click to embiggenConsidering the long road to respectability that the medium of photography has had to traverse, there's a rather curious notion that is currently circulating on the web that goes like this - "... I wanted this (person) to be free to enjoy the print without all the ‘oh, this is valuable and fragile’ nonsense being loaded onto it. ... I’m less and less convinced that the whole ‘this piece of paper has been invested with the essence of my spirituality and thus you should pay a lot of money for it and henceforth treat it as a holy object’ business is a good thing for art in general." and this "... disposable art idea is a good one, I’d love to sell my pictures and have repeat sales because people want my latest hit single or album."
Most of this discussion revolves around print pricing and the desire to sell prints at an inexpensive price point so that more people can enjoy the work, which in and of itself is not a bad idea. In fact, that's an idea that, with some exceptions, I subscribe to. As I have mentioned before, the medium's innate ability to create an endless number of 'original' prints of a single picture, which is easier than ever in the digital domain, is an 'issue' that the high-falutin' Art world has steadfastly refused to acknowledge, much less deal with.
In a slightly modified form, the pricing model currently in use in the Art world for photographs is that of painting and sculpture wherein there exists only one original and hence its dollar value is determined (in part) by its uniqueness as an object. With photographs, their uniqueness as an object is arrived at by limiting the number of originals to a very small number, typically 5-10.
Of late, this practice is being challenged by some photographers - with the blessing of their galleries - by creating multiple editions of an image with only difference in editions being the size of the prints. The editions are generally created as; biggest, big, not so big with prices dropping along with the size. I am certain that the reason for this is simple - sell more prints by getting some of the work more modestly priced. Keep in mind though that 'modestly priced' in the Art world means 'only' $1200 for a 20×30 inch print as opposed to $8,000 for a 60×90 inch print.
Be that as it may, it is a decidedly different kettle of fish from the idea of "disposable art' or the entirely insipid idea that a photographic print is not a 'valuable or fragile' object.
It's true enough that the cost of materials and the (apparent) ease (but only after all the hard work is done) of making a print in the digital domain is low. But, it is only if you consider the print as a pure 'commodity' that, according to the 'laws of economics', its worth should be determined by the cost of 'manufacturing' alone.
Art (obviously to include photography), at least Fine Art as opposed to Decorative Art, has value well beyond the cost of manufacturing and, to a certain extent, beyond even the laws of supply and demand. That value is most often determined by "... the significance of an original photograph - as a statement, a work of art, a Ding an sich ... along with the intellectual and emotional factors involved in the process of making one." - from the photography critic a.d. coleman in his very first (1968) Latent Image column in the Village Voice.
a.d. coleman was amongst the very first photography critics and one of the earliest modern-era champions of photography as a serious Art medium. His mission was, through his column, to "be a continuing attempt, on a small scale, [to give] to photography the serious critical consideration it merits. It will be (I hope) a means for turning a sizeable potential audience on to photography as a creative medium, affirming the importance of original photographs as significant objects, and providing a dialogue between photographers and their audience."
Isn't it interesting to find, some 40 years later and after the medium has found its rightful standing in the Art world, that some are want to reverse the deed by declaring a photograph to be "disposable' and that it is not 'valuable' as a unique or, yes, a 'holy object'. Aside - I suspect that the word 'holy' is a bit of sarcastic hyperbole. I would substitute the word 'precious'.
FYI, and IMO, an object of great value in the medium of photography does not have to have a price of great monetary value. But please, do not equate a modestly priced print with the idea that the print can not be of great value otherwise and is therefore not worthy of special consideration.
Ultimately, I suspect that this 'movement' to turn back the clock on the 'value' (in the complete sense of the word) of photographic prints and, by extension, the very medium itself, will amount to little more than much to do about nothing. After all, who wants to purchase, at any price, a print that is no more than what the maker considers to be his/her "latest (and disposable) hit single" or one that is not "invested" with at least a hint of the maker's "spirituality".
Although, now that I think about it, lots of people like to by pictures that fit that bill. So, with that in mind, I wish them well in their attempt to reinvent the 10-penny postcard.
Reader Comments (3)
I think in part it is because there's been a shift in terms of what the 'original' is like or where the time is invested. A hand made, carefully dodged and burned, touched by the artist print is a rare and fragile object. Difficult to make, harder still to recreate. Cheap copies can be made from that print, easily and cheaply - they become the disposable posters from that one hard to make print, or a small series of hard to make and roughly similar but still unique originals.
In the digital space that original has shifted, to the product produced in the computer. That's where the artist's sweat and effort and personal touch reside. The disposable reproductions have shifted up a notch - the fragile, difficult to reproduce exactly print has vanished.
Maybe buying original PSD files with affidavits swearing that this is the only copy with no backup and DRM to avoid duplication is the way to go. But who wants to hang a DVD on the wall ?
I've seen equally silly notions of signed statements that the artist has 'deleted the files' similar to destroying the negative, in an attempt to increase the rarity and presumably drive up the price by making the image again an artificially rare original.
Photography and its comparative ease of reproduction seems to have always faced this (compared to say recreating an oil painting in oils - though Kincade seems to manage with the artist touched, repainted 'originals')
The comparative ease of reproduction has just got easier - the work is done, the perfect reproductions can cascade out of the printer. There just isn't a rare tangible version of the image any more, unlike a darkroom print.
Tough perhaps to justify rarity and hence high price in that sort of marketplace, if it is about value in a purely commercial way.
If it is about value such as emotional attachment or care for an image, then maybe making it as accessible as possible to as wide an audience as possible might find you landing on more walls where the person really cares for the image. Or can we only value what costs us a lot ?
I might enjoy one of Aaron's prints on my wall. But I'll never know at his current prices. Same with most large photographs I see in galleries.
I would say it's a business. Like anything else. My recent show in London cost @ $7,000. That's prints, flights, rooms, etc...I would have to be selling A LOT of "affordable" prints to be able to pay for that. Not to mention a show only 3 months prior in NYC that costs nearly as much. And with at least one more on the calendar for September in LA, I can't afford to sell for any less than what the prints are currently going for.
So beyond just selling "prints", there are a ton more expenses included. Those are just exhibit costs, there are still other overhead costs as well that need to be paid often. I don't have a 2,000 sq.ft. studio in Chelsea, but I know a photographer friend that does. That probably aien't cheap.
just my 2¢
note: this was not a defensive rant to gordon's flattering comment, just my observation. Only being in "the game" now for not even 4 months, I imagine it only gets more expensive as it grows.
I can certainly see the costs involved, I've had a couple of small shows of my own images and have an idea to what that cost me to put on. The sales covered the costs of framing and that was about it.
On the flip side, I'm not doing this to make a living selling my images. I'd be happier knowing 50 people had my prints on their walls and were enjoying them than knowing 5 people did, even if the 5 people paid 10 times as much. Certainly there is more cost involved in those 50 sales - just in raw materials, but it is a trade-off in both directions - high, high prices, low turnover. Low, affordable prices (assuming some profit) and higher volumes.
I'm not sure either business model has really been particularly shown to be a winner for photographic artists. The money mostly seems to go to the secondary/resale market/ collectors.
From what I can see Ansel Adams prints get the $42k price tags because he was good but also seen to be good. Postcards, posters, calendars distribute his images far and wide and drive up the price of the rare originals.
But that rarity justification seems to shift with digital. I think that's the key to maybe taking a different tack, getting your images into as many people's hands as might want them, not selling at a loss, just more at a lower profit.
Though the sad reality is, high prices are needed because sales might well be low even if the prices were more affordable. Not many people want to face that reality.