Contemporary Photography: A Market (De)Constructed
As the season of fairs opens, several questions are at the origin of this survey of the contemporary photography
market today. Does this market really exist, is it stable, is it independent of the
contemporary art market? Has photography—and the specificities of the medium—been damaged by the constitution of this market? Have its players ended up bending and scrambling the rules of the game? Why do we hear
some collectors say that they no longer find their footing in it? To answer these questions, we need to look back at
the construction of a photography market and its conventions, as well as analyse its limits, which are underlined by new players and new practices that put the object at the heart of this market to the test: the print.
Telling the story of the photographic market means first of all going back to the end of the 19th century, when the threats to painting, between a know-how that was no longer popular and the competition of a medium that reproduced reality better than it, led to an upheaval of criteria: technique and subject matter would no longer determine the value of a work. What economists Nathalie Moureau and Dominique Sagot-Duvauroux have called the “convention of originality” took precedence. From then on, a work of art had to be “innovative, rare and authentic”, (1) a convention that valued painting and excluded photography, a simple multiple copy, from the artistic field. It wasn’t until the 1960s that photography began to carve out for itself a place in the field, with its use by artists, and then the arrival of auteur photographers, whose style and subjectivity will
be defended by agencies, such as Viva (1972), created at that time, following Magnum. Artistic recognition went hand in hand with the establishment of a market. As the photographic object closest to a work of art, “the print once again became the focus of artists’ concerns” (2) in a context where, with the advent of television, the press offered fewer outlets and less recognition for photographers’ images, resulting in a loss of income in this sector.
Thanks to collectors, historians and exhibition curators (the collector André Jammes in France or Harry Lunn, collector and expert, then dealer, in the United States), a history of photography was written, a necessary reference for the market. Progressively, after MoMA in New York as a great precursor, Western institutions became interested in it, legitimizing photography and validating its history. Essential to defining the value of a print as a work of art, a collector’s item and a commercial product, quality conventions were established, in line with those of the art world which, a few decades earlier, had excluded photography. As the sociologist Raymonde Moulin writes, “photography modelled its rules and procedures on those of painting”: (3) editions of the same image would be limited and numbered in order to control the reproducible nature of the medium, which is problematic for a market that is eager for rarity.
These conventions were supported by new galleries specialising in photography: Lee Witkin in New York (1969), the first; and in Paris, Alain Paviot’s Octant (1974)—become Galerie Françoise Paviot in 1995—, Agathe Gaillard (1975), and Michèle Chomette (1985), who actively promoted them. If the “vintage” (print contemporary with the shot) became the reference for historical photography, it was the “original print”, limited, numbered and signed, that defined the standard for contemporary photography. These conventions, which set prices, were adopted by all the players in the 1980s, notably by contemporary art galleries that opened up to photography (Leo Castelli,Yvon Lambert), followed by auction houses, which were initially positioned in the historical segment, as well as by fairs, which also entered the market: the photography section at the Basel fair (1989) and at Fiac (1991), followed by the creation of Paris Photo (1997), the first specialist fair. Meanwhile, the law was brought into line with this trend. In France in 1991 a decree recognized as works of art, and therefore
protected as such by the Intellectual Property Code, photographs executed by the artist or under their control, signed and authenticated by them, and numbered “within the limit of 30 copies in all formats and media,” after having been set at 60 in 1987. Also in 1991 the tax authorities granted them the reduced VAT rate of 5.5%, reserved for works, on the same basis.
FORMATION OF VALUE
Despite its conventions, the emerging market for contemporary photography is no less complex. This is due to the very nature of photography. For it is not only multipliable, it is also multi-functional—domestic, artistic, commercial, press, illustration and, today, with social networks, communication. The print market has thus encompassed different types of photography, without this appearing systematically legitimate. What about, for example, those reportage pictures that have entered it to compensate for the (new) loss of opportunity in the press and illustration due to the digital revolution, where they are now competing with amateur or low-cost photography? Images designed to inform and be circulated, the primary destination of these photographs, the value of which (visual, not material) is based on the subject and the way in which it is treated, isn’t a priori to be printed, framed and then hung on a wall as a commercial product. The market for reproduction rights, from which they unfortunately benefit much less today, is undoubtedly more suitable for them. This market can work so well, in fact, that it was within it that the record for the most expensive photograph was set in 2006 by a photograph of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the two-week-old daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, which fetched up to $10 million. Jeff Koons’ The New Jeff Koons (1980), a photograph of the artist as a child, sold for “only” $9.4m in May 2013 at Sotheby’s. The latter echoes the anonymous photographs that have also been seen inviting themselves onto the market, small prints miraculously unearthed, which can be gems or uninteresting snapshots.
Behind the same word, therefore, lie many objects, not necessarily artistic ones. The latter are divided between the networks of generalist galleries, fairs and institutions on the one hand, and those specialising in photography on the other. So for most observers, there are two markets, each with their own values and referents. Thus, an exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles will undoubtedly be more important to the actors of the photography market than to those of the contemporary art market. However, it would be excessive to suggest that these markets can’t overlap. Generalist contemporary art galleries such as Xippas represent photographers such as Joel Sternfeld, who are in the purest tradition of the medium. Moreover, even if photography galleries have been driven out of Fiac, the entry of large generalist galleries at Paris Photo in recent years suggests that the two markets are tending to grow closer together. However, even if some people see a harmonisation of prices, those charged by specialist galleries are lower for objects with similar characteristics. Indeed, the large formats of photographers recognized in the field of contemporary art have rapidly become a standard of artistic photography in all markets, without anyone questioning the relevance of such a choice for a long time. However, this “living room show-off size” format doesn’t do justice to all images—and it has long been known that size alone doesn’t determine the value of an object. In addition to this structural complexity that influences the forming of the value of the photograph, there is a fundamental ambiguity related to the limitation of prints. As the exhibition L’Image et Son Double at the Galerie de Photographies of the Centre Pom
Hanako Murakami. Le Regard qui brûle. 2021. Esquisse numérique digital sketch. (Commande photographique nationale Image 3.0, Cnap – Jeu de Paume, 2020-21)
pidou (until December 13th) proves, reproducibility is so specific to photography that artists have made it the very object of their work. To such an extent that the established rules of limitation can be described as purely artificial. While some artists go so far as to destroy the negative or the digital file in order to guarantee the uniqueness or the limitation of the printed work, others, such as Pentti Sammallahti and Sebastião Salgado, refuse to limit their editions. There are also collectors for whom these rules of limitation are of little importance. Isabelle Darrigrand is one of them. She has been collecting photography since 1999, part of which collection was shown at the Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz in Nogent-sur-Marne in 2008, and at the Landskrona festival in Sweden in 2016. The reproducibility of the medium is fully accepted. Isabelle Darrigrand even derives a certain pleasure from imagining the same photograph in another collection. On the other hand, in order to be as close as possible to the photographer’s gesture and choice, she has long favoured prints made by the author or under their supervision as soon as possible after the shot. This expresses a culture of the art of printing that isn’t limited, as may now be the case, to simple technical perfection of the rendering. On the contrary, any small defects bear witness to the photographer’s gesture.
NEW PLAYERS
The contemporary photography market, formed in the last third of the 20th century, is now considered mature, despite its intrinsic limitations. It experienced a boom in the 2000s marked by record prices at public sales. These continue to be beaten, but the market seems to have slowed down. For most observers, the market isn’t in crisis, but has found its stride. It should nevertheless be pointed out that despite the arrival of new photographers, it is an outlet for only a minority of them, who moreover, most of the time earn only a meagre income from this activity. Moreover, although the market seems stable, its foundations and its functioning are threatened by new market players, and it has to adapt to the unprecedented changes in photographic creation. Among these new market players are the auction houses. Already established in the historical photography sector, they turned more openly to contemporary photography in the 2000s, reinforcing the established rules. Their arrival may have led to fears of damaging competition for the primary market, that of the galleries, especially when
they bought directly from the latter, which, tempted to reach new clients in this way, were at risk of sending a bad signal to their collectors in the event of a poor sale. In this respect, we note the failure of the Phillips sale on October 15th, 2009, when almost half of the 180 lots, many of which came directly from galleries, didn’t sell. However, according to Jonas Tebib, director of the photography department at Sotheby’s France, the idea is rather to complement the galleries by offering works that are out of print and pieces not previously sold in galleries, such as the portfolio Tokyo Compression Revisited (2012), composed of 77 prints, in November 2019, after the death of photographer Michaël Wolf.
Beyond auction houses, the contemporary photography market was marked in the mid2000s by the arrival of publishing galleries such as L’OEil Ouvert, Lumas, Yellow Korner and Wanted, which offered limited, numbered prints beyond the 30 copies required by law in France, or even non-limited “open editions” aimed at a wider public than that of the existing market. (4) In an economy that cannot absorb all the players, only Lumas and Yellow Korner, with a more solid financial base and a strategy that combines the great historical names and contemporary photographers, have survived. Sales take place in galleries and online. On the websites, the ambiguity of the names that try to pass this business off as a collector’s market is apparent: there is talk of fine art photography, author’s prints and limited editions or series; there are statements that a particular work will “increase in value”—not that its selling price will rise. But, leaving aside its artistic value, what is the collector’s value of a photograph like Ludwig Favre’s Molitor Summer Time, sold by Yellow Korner in five different formats, a total of almost 6,000 copies, at prices ranging from 89 to 4,100 euros? The nature of the images, the diversity of formats and the quality of the finishes place these photographs more in the decorative market. Moreover, if on theYellow Korner site the name of the photographer isn’t a criterion, it is possible to search by dominant colour and orientation (vertical, horizontal, panoramic or square) of the photograph. For some observers, publishing galleries do not pose a threat to the established market for contemporary photography: they are another sector—sometimes likened to the poster market—that reaches a new clientele and even constitutes a form of democratisation. Of course, the lowest prices are very low, but the 4,100 euros for the most expensive print of Molitor Summer Time by Ludwig Favre are in the range of 1,200 to 5,000 euros of the single or five-copy photographs presented in the collective exhibition
Joel Sternfeld. Solar Pool Petals, Tucson, Arizona, April 1979. 1979. Tirage jet d’encre Epson inkjet print. 106,7 x 133,4 cm. (Court. l’artiste et Xippas ;
© Joel Sternfeld)
l’Épreuve du Végétal which is being held at Galerie Les Douches, in Paris, until October 30th. Above all, these new players don’t intend to remain confined to the periphery of the world of photography.
Proof of this isYellow Korner’s legitimisation strategy. (5)Thus, from 2015 to 2018, the first years of Sam Stourdzé at the head of the Rencontres d’Arles festival, Yellow Korner was a “special supporter” of the festival by sponsoring the Photo Folio Review programme—portfolio readings—and the winner’s exhibition. This year the company is committed to the Levallois Photography Prize, the winners of which, Cristiano Volk, Masha Svyatogor and Ezequiel Sambresqui, will be exhibited at Levallois-Perret’s city hall until October 31st. It is no small detail that
Aki Lumi. Traceryscape - SH5220. 2020. Peinture sur épreuve gélatino-argentique painting on gelatin-silver print. 122 x 76 cm. (Court. galerie Françoise Paviot)
all these prizes are dedicated to emergence. Yellow Korner’s ambition is, in fact, in its words, to “reveal new talent”. However, we know of hardly any contemporary photographers represented byYellow Korner who are also sold on the established market and exhibited in institutions.
TOYING WITH THE RULES
Thus, the integration of these publishing galleries into the world of photography doesn’t appear to be complete. However, their methods can create a certain amount of confusion about the nature and value of the works offered. All the more so as certain players in the market are developing new offers that come close to this by passing off an everyday product, or even a derivative product, as a collectable item. In recent years the photography book has met with great success, and galleries have initiated “special editions” that make it possible to market small, numbered and signed prints at a lower price, the only difference being the size of the photographs sold in other editions. Another practice is to give the attributes of an original print to a simple reproduction.
On the website of Magnum Photo agency, which also has two galleries in London and Paris, and participates in Paris Photo, signed, numbered prints of Antoine d’Agata’s iconic photograph Hamburg, Germany (2000) are offered in two formats, in editions of 15 per format, at prices ranging from nearly 12,000 euros to nearly 19,000 euros. However, on the same page of the website, the same photograph is marketed under the heading “Magnum Edition Poster” in a smaller format but signed and limited to 50 copies, or unsigned but limited to 100 copies, at prices of 165 euros and 110 euros respectively, to which may be added the cost of framing the poster. While these commercial practices make it possible to reach new customers, they muddle the market as it has been constituted over the last few decades, and moreover, price increases make limited editions that are too large less and less legitimate in the eyes of collectors.
Is this why some collectors turn to other techniques, such as painting, or to other photographic practices such as those currently in vogue, which insist on the materiality of the work, and tend towards the creation of unique objects? In 2006 Estelle and Hervé Francès began a collection based on the human and its excesses which, including a large number of photographs, including initial purchases devoted to the series The Morgue (1992) by Andres Serrano, is exhibited at the Francès Foundation in Senlis and
in partner venues. While the lack of transparency in the market and the relative standardisation of photography it has brought about may have been a factor, they have turned to more experimental works, such as Cathryn Boch’s found, sewn and sugar-glazed photographs, where the artist’s gesture signals her presence and makes the work unique. Valérie Cazin, director of the Parisian gallery Binome, which specialises in these new approaches to photography, is right to point out that the artists’ motivation isn’t commercial. Nevertheless, without being a strategy, the “unique-isation” benefits from a market of multiples, the rules of which seem to be more blurred today. The very nature of these practices thus thwarts these conventions, as if to avoid having to worry about them.
For, in the final analysis, beyond the market intermediaries, it is the artists and the renewal of creation that modify the balance of the market. Thus, in parallel with the materialisation of photography, another trend is emerging in favour of its dematerialisation. Works no longer take the form of prints on which the contemporary photography market was based, but consist of digital files that may or may not be printed. Still not very developed, their market is above all supported by institutions. Thus, echoing the
practice of Mohamed Bourouissa, whose projects adapt to their context and often involve collaboration and delegation, Florian Ebner, head of the Photography Department at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, proposed that the artist acquire the series We are Halles (2002-03) in the form of permanent prints, but also digital files that would allow the series to be reconfigured at each new presentation and in agreement with the artist, as Bourouissa did for his exhibition Libre-Échange at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2019. In a way, with the “Image 3.0” commission launched in 2020, the Centre National des Arts Plastiques has gone further: the works acquired are reduced to nothing more or less than a file and a protocol. Here again, these creations are extracted from the print market and its rules.
Multiple and complex, the contemporary photography market is thus a market in which conventions have shown their limits: the value of a print cannot be based solely on its limitation. It is also a market that has undergone profound renewal. But one thing remains: it is too narrow to accommodate the diversity of the medium, its practices and uses. It therefore requires the question of its valuation criteria to be reexamined and, with it, that of photographers’ incomes.
Translation: Chloé Baker
1 Nathalie Moureau and Dominique Sagot-Duvauroux, Le Marché de l’Art Contemporain (2006), La Découverte, 2016. By the same authors, see “La Construction du Marché des Tirages Photographiques”, Études Photographiques, 22, September 2008 (online). 2 Dominique Sagot-Duvauroux, “Le Marché de la Photographie Contemporaine Est-Il Soluble dans Celui de l’Art Contemporain?”, in François Soulages and Marc Tamisier, Photographie Contemporaine & Art Contemporain, Klincksieck, 2012 (online). 3 Raymonde Moulin, Le Marché de l’Art. Mondialisation et Nouvelles Technologies (2000), Flammarion 2009. 4 See Safia Belmenouar, “La Photographie d’Édition: Quels Enjeux pour uels Publics?”, Marges, 15, 2021 (online). 5 Contacted on several occasions, the management of Yellow Korner didn’t wish to respond to our questions.
This article draws upon interviews with the economist Dominique Sagot-Duvauroux; the gallery owners Valérie Cazin (Binome), Françoise Morin (Les Douches), Françoise Paviot and Renos Xippas; Jonas Tebib, director of the Photography Department at Sotheby’s France; the collectors Isabelle Darrigrand and Estelle Francès; Pascal Beausse, head of the photography collection at the Centre National des Arts Plastiques; Florian Ebner, head of the Photography Department at the Musée National d’Art Moderne; and the artist Mohamed Bourouissa. We thank them for their availability.