Art News Opinion Piece: With the Market for Contemporary Photography Cratering, What Collectors Would Be Wise to Buy

Henry

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With the Market for Contemporary Photography Cratering, Collectors Would Be Wise to Buy by Daniel Sallick

As the pretty clearly point out, it's an opinion piece hoping to get people to buy more photographs at auction. Still, I thought it was an interesting digression into the market, and the shifting dynamics of art and its valuation.

Of course: I'm no fine-art photographer, and my work will only hang in a museum if I build one for myself (lol).
 
As always, there is art, and then there is the art market, two entities that are only marginally connected. I care very deeply about the first, and don't give a rat's patootie about the second. People who need to make art will always find a way to do so, and to explore those issues that are important to them. It may not be on a scale that is enabled by million-dollar print sales, but perhaps that's not a bad thing. Celebrity status is all too often toxic to an artist's work and integrity.
 
I saw this as a link with the conversation about Street Art that we had in that thread.

I agree, in general, I find art very impactful to my life. I merely find the art-market interesting.

I find it interesting in exactly the same way as I find any market interesting. There are forces at work, stores of wealth and value, completely decoupled from the assets themselves. Since it’s all based on perceived value, I think it’s also interesting how such markets can be manipulated. (We see it with the collapse of crypto currencies)
 
I make what I consider to be, occasionally, art or artistic, photographs. Every so often I have a fantasy about selling them. Perhaps prints on Etsy might be a way to get them to an audience that might appreciate them, pay an appropriate price and avoid the pitfalls of the "art market" as mentioned above.

Then I look at the costs:
printer
ink
paper
shipping materials
shipping costs

and I realize there is no such thing as a "appropriate" price that people would pay for a random photographer from Wisconsin.

And I go back to posting them, highly compressed to be sure but also for free, on Instagram instead.
 
I make what I consider to be, occasionally, art or artistic, photographs. Every so often I have a fantasy about selling them. Perhaps prints on Etsy might be a way to get them to an audience that might appreciate them, pay an appropriate price and avoid the pitfalls of the "art market" as mentioned above.

Then I look at the costs:
printer
ink
paper
shipping materials
shipping costs

and I realize there is no such thing as a "appropriate" price that people would pay for a random photographer from Wisconsin.

And I go back to posting them, highly compressed to be sure but also for free, on Instagram instead.
As long as they get seen, and appreciated by someone who understands what I'm trying to do, I'm good. Even if it's one random stranger!
 
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