Diary of Lisa Taylor, reluctantly 42 (and a half)

Or.. 'f.ck me I'm forty.. two.. and a half', though can look 38 on a - not so deluded - good day. Or 'How to reconcile a well experienced mind trapped in a still - but for how long? – youthful body.' Don't have the 30somethings angst/problems, neither have the resigned (?) ageing baby-boomers in safe family territory outlook yet. Here's how I cope, one day all sexy women will get old... but never invisible. © Lisa Taylor 2005/6/7/8/9. Jeez.. so much for the 42 and-a-half delusion

Friday, June 19, 2009

19 June - Photos & $$$

Leafing through catalogue on photography auction. Feeling bad on crowded train when some Mapplethorpe or H Newton or Saudeck appear on the page. Ah the nudity!That's actually not so bad but it's when you hit a page with a YOUNG nude that you worry.

As ever it’s strange to try work out why this photo/this photographer sells for £30k and that one for £2k. Or how times change. Right now, 20 odd years after their time, I wouldn’t care to have a Mapplethorpe photo of Lisa Lyon. Why would I? Why would you unless you were buying it as a commodity to sell on.

And there’s the added minefield of some of these are print #6 in an edition of 10 or print #20 in an edition of 200. What’s worth more, how do they work it out, mathematically like betting? Or is some other equation at work? And if you were a millionaire in love with a print would you then seek out to buy all other ones in circulation so that you’re the only one with IT and thus your only one also gains in value? Would you destroy the others to inflate the value of yours? And so long as the negative was not destroyed and you can still get more prints, photos will never achieve the same prices as a one off painting? But where does that leave audio visual installations? Does anyone buy some video art to watch at home? And once the end product is a 20p DVD, how do you give the work itself a value?

And why can David LaChapelle sell a print of a cover he did for Vogue (Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow). Did the magazine not pay for that commission? Ok the copyright is with the photographer but can he make money ad infinitum out of something he didn’t fund in the first place? And if that’s the case why can’t a musician make all the money out of the sale of his record after deducting what the record company spent on it and made, say in the first year of its release? Though why artists have to pay 50% or so commssion to galleries escapes me. It's way too much for what they do . Why why why? See, if you’re 4 years old you ask why why whywhy about the clouds in the sky and so on, but if you’re old you’re still asking why why why.

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