An Interesting Article About "Photography" and "Art".

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shyoon

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Came across this on my Instapaper feed - an article by the Financial Times on Annie Leibovitz and her inability to be taken seriously as an "art photographer", as crazy as that seems, considering she's pretty much a household name and one of the most famous photographers in recent times. The article expands on the art world and art photography and how much it differs from photography as most people think about it.

As I recall, there was a recent thread regarding 'fine art photography' which resulted in a few heated discussions. I'm by no means trying to add fuel to the fire with this article, but I thought it'd be an interesting read nevertheless.

A small excerpt:
Financial Times said:
The Leibovitz story, however, is more than a tale of a photographer who got absorbed into the high-spending world of the people she portrays. It is a reflection of something unexpected – that, despite all her celebrity and talent, Leibovitz lacks earning power as an artist.
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The complete article available here.
 
The reality is that repackaging those prints as 'art' doesn't cut it in the world of fine art photography. Now, if an influential dealer had 'discovered' her while she was an unknown and began to pump her up to his collector clientele, then a market might have been created and speculation could occur to drive prices up. Unlikely going to happen now.

As for having to be dead, how do you explain Sherman and Gursky? I think they and their dealers are doing okay.
 
What I find curious is what makes Annie Leibovitz's work 'unworthy' of collecting, compared to say, Richard Avedon? Is it merely because Avedon has passed on? The fact that Leibovitz doesn't specifically pander to dealers and collectors? I find the whole art world and art collection quite fascinating.
 
shyoon said:
What I find curious is what makes Annie Leibovitz's work 'unworthy' of collecting, compared to say, Richard Avedon? Is it merely because Avedon has passed on? The fact that Leibovitz doesn't specifically pander to dealers and collectors? I find the whole art world and art collection quite fascinating.
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I think the dealers who have worked with her made it quite clear in the article, she didn't care enough to make time to sign her prints, let alone invest the time and energy to court collectors and dealers. I don't think it's the work itself - if spun properly to the right people, it could be found to be worthy.

I don't think it helps that now that she's in deep financial, she/her dealer goes back to the 'art world' she once avoided to market a limited edition of 10 sets of 147 prints for $3M each. Smells of desperation.
 
shyoon said:
... she's pretty much a household name and one of the most famous photographers in recent times...
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While I agree with the first part, I don't with the second part. And while I have not read the FT article, I have seen her work in a gallery setting when they had a large show of her work at our local art museum a few years ago.

Yes, she is famous, but her work is mostly known for the people she photographed and for the magazines that published her work on their front pages. IMHO, she's a celeb, but no artist...
 
Remember, she's responsible for the "Worst Photograph Ever Made":

http://wecanshootyou.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/worst-photograph-ever-made/

annie11.jpg
 
bigeye said:
You have to be dead to make the big bucks.

.
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Or be Richard Prince.

The fact that of all people, Richard Prince is the one that sells prints for millions of dollars is shows how little sense the financial aspect of the art world makes. Once insane sums of money start getting thrown around the body of works just seems so distant and devalued to me.
 
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PKR said:
One difference is that Avedon and Penn, used their income to finance personal photographic projects. These projects weren't done under contract. They were done because the photographers were interested in doing them. I don't think, according to Leibovitz's statements, that she had any (has until she got into $$ trouble) interest in that kind of thing. Also, many view her as more an "art director" than a photographer.

I'm not saying that she won't be collected, but she's been around the photo world for some time. She made a lot of money, as did Penn and Avedon. Penn, Avedon.. Sarah Moon.. all made lots of photos for the sake of making them. I think Leibovit's interests were elsewhere. If she were highly collectible, I think there would have been some heavy action at Christie's by now..

p.
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She does (Shoot for herself) but she sees her commercial work and her personal work as totally seperate and detached from each other, remarkably so.
 
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