The World's Most Expensive Photograph

An effort to get away from the gear talk...

Andreas Gursky's "99 Cent II Diptychon" is the most expensive photograph ever sold. $3.34 US million in 2007. Two other prints were sold at very high amounts - one for $2.25 US million in 2006 and another for $2.48 US million also in 2006. The diptich consists of two photographs of super-market aisles mounted on plexiglass. Each photograph is a bit over 2x3 meters. Some say it was made in 2001 and others say it was made in 1999. I'm not sure who's right. A total of only six sets were made, supposedly.


Intellectual property owned by Andreas Gursky. This is a very low-resolution version shown to illustrate the art work.

So what does everybody think of this

Never understood the fine art market. Richard Prince's stuff comes to mind... photographs taken of other people's photographs, blown up. I'd be pissed if someone photographed my work and called it their own... selling at auction for over 1 million dollars.

I'd really have to see the photo in person. It's a cool series.

I should have also mentioned that this photo was digitally manipulated. My understanding is that, at the very least, the perspective was changed with software to alter the way the aisles look and a reflection of the aisles was added to the ceilings. I think that the fact it was digitally manipulated adds to its significance.

Personally, I do not like this photograph. I think its pretty ugly. Sometimes artwork is designed to repulse. However with this photograph, I'm pretty much in a state of indifference. If the intent was to make some sort of statement about capitalism, too me, its not really that effective. Compared to W. Eugene Smith's 'Tomoko'? No comparison to me as to which is the most compelling photograph.

I think that the significance of Gursky's photographs is that they compete... I don't know if compete is the right word... not compare... anyway, they compete in at a level previously occupied by more traditional arts like painting and sculpture in both size, presentation and perhaps more importantly, in the process of creation (in a philosophical sense). But does this photograph really compare to a Monet or a Picasso? Photography has more-or-less played second fiddle to traditional arts. Even photographs taken with large-format film and capable of tremendous enlargements are often never presented any larger than 16x20 or 8x10 even... modest and understated compared to the grandeur of a painting. Something like a Gursky photograph challenges that... so maybe they should command the same level of $$$ as Picasso? The people that can afford pay this type of money will decide this.

As for Richard Prince's stuff, I've yet to really figure it out. Are the buyers though really that disconnected to photography and to art?

Nobody else has any comments, questions or protestations?

Um... i'm speechless.

You're not alone Nando.... I sure as hell can't figure this out either.

The funny thing is that I would probably appreciate this piece more if it where a painting. (never thought I would ever say that)

From my understanding, digital manipulation or digital anything is still somewhat frowned upon in the art market. Everyone knows digital manipulation is done to just about every non B/W photo around these days, but no one advertises it. For even more that just archival value, digital photos are almost required to be printed on photosensitive paper using a lightjet printer.
Inkjet is a DIRTY word in every gallery I've ever been.

Back to this specific image... It's great for what it is... and that's where it ends for me. The perspective manipulation really works for the image, it gives me that sense of never-ending, sharply packaged junk for us to buy. I guess I could maybe make the stretch of comparing this present day scene to our origins of hunter gatherers; eating berries, meat and plants collected from nature. I don't see 3.34 million worth of message and delivery.

I guess personally, I'd much rather the bargain price of around 1 million for a Burtynsky to display the almost disturbing beauty of humanity's capitalist endeavors.

OR I could have absolutely missed the point of this image entirely... it happens often.

It often takes me a while to 'get' an image. Even then, I'm likely way off in interpretation than most other people that 'get' it.

I feel that to judge whether an image is good or not, I must have a good understanding of the original intent of the image. If the intent of an image is to make money, then it is a good image if it does make money. Good is not necessarily beautiful and not necessarily interesting even. For me, this one is tough because I'm not really clear on what the intent is. Not only is it difficult for me to 'get' the image but it is also difficult for me to determine if the image is even 'good'.

I think that I can speculate why this image by Gursky can be seen as significant and command the highest prices. I'm thinking that its primarily due to the work being a representative of a historical shift - either real or perceived. And even though digital manipulation is frowned upon in many galleries, I think that it adds to image and its value in this case. The photograph was made in the late-1990's or early 2000's. It was around this time that digital became a viable alternative to 35mm film in the professional market, incidently. I understand that this image is a hybrid.

With Gursky (and many other 'modern' photographers) there is a sense of emphasis on an image being created instead of captured. Photography has largely been thought as of a subtractive art. Very different from other traditional forms of art. From everything that is going on, the photographer extracts from it a small frame in a moment of time. It's like a revelation - subtracting reality from chaos. A painter, on the other hand, starts with a blank canvas and then adds to it - a sky, some mountains, then some trees, a small cabin, and whatever else. Painting is an additive art - you construct a painting creating reality from nothing. With Gursky's photographs, not only are the same physical size as a painting but the images are also constructed. Contructivism in photography is nothing new though. One only has to look at Alexander Rodchenko and other photographers that did photo-montage.

Being a automobile enthusiast in my other life and follower of automotive history, there has been some cars that significant because they ushered in change. In terms of design, the '61 Lincoln Continental, for example, ended a baroque and vulgar period of chrome and fins and started a new era where design emphasized porportions and lines. In rallying, for example, there is the period before the Audi Quattro and the period after the Audi Quattro. They're somewhat like the atom bomb in a sense. When it arrived, it changed everything. I'm under the impression that many people view Gursky's 99 cents photograph in this light; a representation of a shift. On the other hand, sixties Lincoln Continentals and eighties Audi Quattros are still pretty cheap so I'm probably way off.

I would need to see it before passing judgement. There is something about the experience of seeing a large-format photograph up close that can't be experienced on screen. I'm assuming that's what it was taken with.

I saw some of Ed Burtynski's shots at Contact a few years back and the detail was incredible.

Though I'm certain that you've read a lot on the subject Nando and are absolutely right in your explanation, I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that the first major photographer to jump out of the darkroom and onto a computer to do post production is something worthy of A)3.4 million dollars and B) the title of "most expensive photograph on earth"

I'm not disagreeing that this is the reason for it's value, I just find it sad that the process outshines the content. That is a trend recently reserved for modern commercial work more than artistic. (think of all those slick super processed car... gatorade... razor commercials.)

Little known to many, one of the greats Irving Penn developed a technique used in BW printing that I still don't know how many photographers have used even since. The difference between Penn and this image above is that the process was kept secret, not top secret or anything, just nothing to brag about or be celebrated. It was used to achieve control over the image. It was the images as a whole that deserved celebration for their visual merit, not just because of the process used.

If this photograph's only merit is that it ushered in a change in process... well... I guess it should be celebrated... the first step in the digital pillaging of photography.

Ken, you bring up an important point. Calvin Tomkins, an art critic wrote this:

"The first time I saw photographs by Andreas Gursky...I had the disorienting sensation that something was happening—happening to me, I suppose, although it felt more generalized than that. Gursky's huge, panoramic color prints—some of them up to six feet high by ten feet long—had the presence, the formal power, and in several cases the majestic aura of nineteenth-century landscape paintings, without losing any of their meticulously detailed immediacy as photographs. Their subject matter was the contemporary world, seen dispassionately and from a distance." Tomkins, Calvin. The New Yorker. "The Big Picture." 22 January, 2001.

It may be one of those things that I need to see 'live' in order to truly appreciate it. (Like an Ansel Adams print.)

I hope to see an Edward Burtynsky exhibition someday. I find his photographs easier to read and much more effective in conveying a message. I don't know if Gursky is really conveying a message though. It very well can be that Gursky's images are just punctuated observations?

Colin,

I too would not be able to understand if the first person to discover or make popular a new process would automatically increase the value (both intrinsic value and monetary value) of a work. We can look back to Man Ray's solarization process. The look of a Man Ray solarized print stood out from the rest and implied connotations of man's relationship with machines, for instance. However, eliminate the solarization process and the images can stand well on their own, in my opinion. To my understanding, Gursky manipulates photographs using digital means but its a hybrid process. I think he shoots with traditional large-format cameras. I just think that the 'digital' aspect of this process may make the photograph more interesting and perhaps more significant.

I honestly don't know why this photograph would be worth so much to art collectors. I was just speculating. My theory about it being representative of a shift is just a theory. I wouldn't be surprised if some art historian is laughing his/her butt off at what I wrote above.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's "Behind Gare Saint Lazare. 1932" has been seen as representative of a shift in photography. From the slow and methodical process of large-format photography to the freedom of movement and quickness that came with the new 35mm-format from Leica. There were people who shot with a 35mm Leica before this photo was taken and there were all sorts of 35mm format photos taken after - but this is THE shot. 35mm didn't kill large-format photography at all. It just opened up a new road. And if it wasn't this image, then it would have been another one (and probably from the HCB catalogue too). In my opinion, this is a 1000000000000000 times a better image than Gursky's "99-cents" and its not even HCB's best!



Another image that I see as representative of a 'shift' is William Eggleston's "Memphis" (the photo of the tricycle). This time, the acceptance of colour photography in the world of fine art photography. Perhaps not a shift per say but a new direction.
http://home.barangayamerika.com/kyo_www/eggleston2.jpg

I haven't read much on Gursky but what I have read tends to regard the constructivist nature of his work is brought up continuously. Here's a good essay I found on Gursky written by Stephan Beyst, an art historian and philosopher. It brings up some very good points that helped my understanding of "99 cents".

http://d-sites.net/english/gursky.htm

Perhaps my/our lack of understanding 99-cents is due to our understanding of what is art and what it is to be an artist. It is different from one culture to another. From my own observation, here's an example between a difference between Canadian and Portuguese cultures when it comes to the perception of 'art' and 'artist'. In Canada, if someone takes a few painting classes at a community college and then starts painting on a regular basis, they're an artist all of a sudden. And it is sufficient for their painting be called a piece of art if the painter says its a piece of art! In Portugal, a writer is a writer, a photographer is a photographer, a painter is a painter... They are regarded more as crafts people and what they do is a craft not an art. Generally, it is the public (or at the very least, a group of respected people/scholars in the art community) that decides whether or not to regard a crafts person as an artist. And to be regarded as an artist, it means that your work is profoundly moving and/or that it breaks new ground. I once saw an interview of Richard Serra, the sculptor known for his large, freestanding sculptures made from sheets of metal. He kept saying, over and over again, through out the interview that he wanted, that he must, "expand the language of art". It was as if that was his core mission. Perhaps that is what attracts people to Gursky's "99-cents." Perhaps this photograph "expands the language of art." I'll have to find that interview.

BTW, I'm not writing this claiming to be right or wrong. I just want to foster discussion here about photography (as opposed to photography gear).

Here's the Richard Serra interview:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=2927357222849264334&ei=lh7ISb_pMIym-wHHqfzjAQ&q=richard+serra&hl=en

Edit: I'm not sure if it was this interview now. Its a good one nevertheless.

Not going to lie and I stopped reading some of this thread (a lot of talking went on so if any of what I say was touched on I apologize). To see the extent of my concentration see any of Bryan's posts in our thread from Gros Cap

Anyway like most of you - the picture doesn't do much for me. But I think that's part of the point. A lot of "art" that I see people pay for I don't get, don't see the art in it etc etc. It's all subjective.

I think the message of the print is mass consumerism and possibly how cheap we are as well. People flock to the dollar store and stores like Walmart buying crap for a cheap price not caring for the quality of it etc. And that's my assumption.

Carry on