27.9.09

I thought of would start this one with an image from George Tice. An absolute marvel in the fine art market of photography. It surprises and shocks me that I have not mentioned the likes of Mr Tice on here before, but that's probably because I am too busy moaning about pixelization or some twit with a silly hat and a leica. The above image has been with me for some time, torn from a magazine and magnetized to the side of my fridge along side a Polaroid of one of my puppies. The Petit's Mobil Station (1972) is by no means a timeless image (the car in particular tends to ooze the 70's) but it's nostalgic rich atmosphere makes it pretty easy to live with and I imagine I will always warm to it each time I reach for the milk.

So this brings me to the question; What will happen to todays fine art imagery? and in particular todays landscape photography. It seems obvious to me that the work of the Americans Misrach, Meyerowitz, Shore and Sternfeld of today will very much be collectable in the future (they are my favourites afterall) because large scale images of Americana will always be appealing and this lot will be more affordable than Westons and Adams in years to come. But what about the rest.

While it may seem obvious that the likes of Andreas Gursky will always command a high price to at auction I think its fair to say that many of his Dusseldorf school followers will fall by the wayside and become forgotten. I cannot imagine that today's popular deadpan, minimalistic, muted large scale imagery will be as popular in five or ten years time. You only have to look back at the eighties when people where donning their walls with photographs (or posters) of people kissing in public or models on the beach with their sandy jubblees out to see how often the market changes. Of course this is only my opinion and theres a very good chance that a lot of these images may be as popular in the future as they are today, may be even more so..

As for me and the other thousands one step up from the bottom, well who knows. But regardless of this we should always remember one thing...

KEEP IT ARCHIVAL.

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