A fool and his money.....

[CK Dexter Haven]

I don't appreciate this stuff on 'art/aesthetic' merits, but Gursky is a major name, and like anything else, his products are commodities with appreciating values. I wouldn't call anyone who could afford his stuff a 'fool,' and when the fool sells in a few years, the profits will be significant. We can call Donald Sterling a fool (or worse), but he bought a bad team for very little money and will sell for over 2 billion dollars. I could use that kind of foolishness.

 

[charjohncarter]

Sometimes its what you just like. We have a guy around here (SF Bay Area): Henry Wessel; that takes photos of houses, stoplights, parked cars, people at the beach and I really like his stuff. Again I can't tell you why. It seems like it would be easy as he says to drive around and shoot from his car. But I've tried it, it isn't that easy. At least for me.

 

[thegman]

what you missed with hcb was that it was a genre that had no history. He is idolized less as each new photographer might amaze but he was the first (documented) for his kind of photography. His photographs represent all those that came after his and that is his achievement. If you look at art you must understand that it has many angles of view and some are about the time they were taken or painted and might have no bearing on time as it is now but wouldn't exist without the time before it.

I suppose it depends on how you define the genre, there were street photographers decades before HCB though. Anyway though, I'm not saying he didn't take good photos, no doubt he did. And even if he didn't invent the genre, he obviously played a massive role in defining it.

I'm not denigrating HCB at all, just responding to the OP about art that I don't really see the appeal of, and I still don't see the appeal. I just wouldn't have an interest in hanging it on my wall, whereas say, Ansel Adams, I would.

Clearly 90% of this forum disagrees with me, and I don't want to change anyone's mind, it's just interesting that we all have such different points of view.

 

[peterm1]

First, you have to remember that the price for the Gursky was achieved on the secondary market. Gursky's not actually asking for $4M for his prints. The high price for the Rhein II picture was probably a result of multiple factors, like the fact that most of the other prints in the edition are in the hands of museums, that it's a Gursky picture at the height of a photographic practice that has basically dominated the past 20 years in photography, and lasty - and this is my own opinion - that it resembles minimal art which makes it more relatable for the art buying crowd who would otherwise not spend this kind of money on photography.

I agree with you on Crewdson. I really want to like his work but I just can't. It's just too much of everything. His Dioramas from the 90s have some appeal, though, in a kitschy Twin Peaks intro sequence kind of way.

As for your premise "a fool and his money", let's be realistic for a minute. This whole development is simply a result of a massive concentration of wealth in a very tiny segment of the population. It's not likely that the person who bought the Gursky has only a few million lying around and is investing it in one photograph. It's more likely that he/she (though we all know it's probably a "he") has a billion in their bank account so at this point it doesn't really matter if they spend a few million on something that they want. They have more money than they can spend anyways.

I think what you say about Crewdson more or less also represents my position - I want to like his work but can't. I think that while I am reasonably sophisticated in such matters it just plain puzzles me- for example, whats the message in people sitting around a table in an ordinary suburban home in a room filled (literally filled) with flowers. He just comes across as trying too hard. And in in my view, mostly misses.

As to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, that rings true. We often see it in booms in any kind of investment market. When there is too much money chasing too few quality investment products, people and institutions begin investing in lesser assets, thereby bidding up their price to unfeasible levels. That is usually the first sign of an impending "correction" in that market. Nuff said.

 

[locheeboy]

Horizon's squint..........

 

[goamules]

I like Crewdson's work. I don't like Sally Mann's. Both are highly contrived. Choice is a fickle matter. But I wouldn't pay big bucks for anyone's work.

 

[Bill Clark]

Gosh, I wish I had met this fool.

Dean Collins once said, "beauty is in the eye of the checkbook holder."

It's true!

 

[Samouraï]

There is worse fine art created that sells for exorbitant sums (modern sculpture for one). I see no problem with it. And from what I've heard, the print in question is quite striking in person. The main issue I have with it is that it is heavily manipulated/photoshopped.

I greatly prefer Cindy Sherman's Untitled #96--I actually adore it.
Gursky's Rhein II is disingenuous in my mind.

 

[aizan]

my brother got to see the gursky retrospective at sfmoma. he said the prints were incredibly beautiful. i've read a few articles and essays, and like most contemporary art, you're not going to "get it" unless you've studied a lot of art history, not that you need to in order to appreciate its beauty and the significance of its subject matter. the christies sales pitch is actually pretty accessible and you can get a lot out of it just by googling the subjects they mentioned.

as for the fool that bought this photo, he or she is probably aware of the irony of buying a gursky.

 

[David Hughes]

what you missed with hcb was that it was a genre that had no history...

Hi,

FWIW, there were street photographers many years/decades before HCB. So called detective cameras and much bigger ones were used. Especially after the falling plate magazine was invented. The first street photographer with a Leica and B&W film was Oscar Barnack in 1914 or 15.

HCB's "Man Jumps Over Puddle" is famous, to me, for creating BS in forums...

Regards, David

 

[jsrockit]

Many of you need to learn the history of the medium and understand why certain works have been deemed important... you cannot view a photo taken in 1930 and then 85 years later wonder why your similar (but inferior) photo is not viewed in the same light. Sure, there is some BS in the art world, but many of the artists that you guys are panning deserve the recognition they get within their circles (money aside). Now, you don't have to like this stuff... but saying you could duplicate Gursky's photos shows that you have no idea what type of work goes into making his photos.

 

[DominikDUK]

The Puddle Jumper is BS HCB made much better photos even then. Also compared to Lartigue's photographs he downright sucks. HCB was created by art curators at least the importance of the puddle Jumper is hugely exagerated Lartigue did similar work some 20 years earlier with a LF camera. HCB is a great photographer is puddle Jumper is one of his weakest Images though.

In context of Gursky it should be remembered that the biggest art buyers are corporations art is sold like stock it's seen as an Investment they don't care about the content they need names and the art market gives them names.

 

[Pherdinand]

yeah ok i don't like the photo neither. i was a fool.
But i will sell it for 50% more, i am sure.

 

[Pherdinand]

HCB: Dude jumps over a puddle. If someone took that photo today, we'd probably think it was a nice moment, and forget it. [...] I'm just not seeing the big deal.

There are at least 3 layers in that photo. It is indeed a VERY nice moment photographed.
Is it worth millions/ I wouldn't think so. But it's a matter of market🙂
Plenty of paintings or sculptures as well that are overrated which have zero layers of interest in them...

 

[airfrogusmc]

The artist in many cases is not the one making the big $$$, though Gursky does well I'm sure.

He has probably sold his work through a gallery to a collector. When the piece gets big $$$$ it is usually one collector that bought the piece from a gallery years ago and bought the piece as an investment and then sold it for a lot more. Which in this case probably worked out just fine for the collector original.

Love or hate the work we as photographers should be happy that photographs are fetching the kind of money that was once reserved for other art forms. I personally like Gursky's work.

The thing that some miss is that the work that demands big $$$ you can usually tell by just looking at the piece who the artist is. The fact it doesn't look like everything else makes it special.

Take a good look around and see how many photographs by thousands of different photographers all look the same. Nothing special about that I would say. The easy thing to do is make work that looks like everyone else's. That hard thing to do is make images that look like yours.

Is it worth it. Must be because thats what it got. The market sets the price. Would I pay that if I had the money? I donno. Maybe. If I were a collector and I thought there was still room for the price to increase., then yeah. Some of these collectors have done better collecting photography and selling it than if they'd have put their money in the stock market. So maybe not such a fool after all.

I'll say it again, love or hate his work we should all be glad that photographs are selling for that kind of money.

 

[airfrogusmc]

The Puddle Jumper is BS HCB made much better photos even then. Also compared to Lartigue's photographs he downright sucks. HCB was created by art curators at least the importance of the puddle Jumper is hugely exagerated Lartigue did similar work some 20 years earlier with a LF camera. HCB is a great photographer is puddle Jumper is one of his weakest Images though.

In context of Gursky it should be remembered that the biggest art buyers are corporations art is sold like stock it's seen as an Investment they don't care about the content they need names and the art market gives them names.

The puddle jump kind of visually demonstrates his visual approach to the medium. The repeating shapes in the posters in the background and of the jumper and all of those reversed in the reflection. The moment that the jumper mimicked those shapes in the background is overall what his work is about and shows up in a lot of his work. That doesn't even address the motion and the arrow head formed by the jump helping reenforce the motion of the jumper. Is it his greatest work? I think it is part of a great body of work.