Photo Auctions See Red...and Blue, Yellow, Green, Mauve, Periwinkle...

Historically, photography collectors have prefered their artists dead and their photos black and white.  But the results of this week's photography auctions in New York clearly indicate that the important mid-career photographers are writing the next chapter of photographic history  in color.  And photography collectors are finally embracing to the idea.  Collectors of contemporary art warmed up to color photos some time ago, but photo collectors have been slower to catch on.  These auctions seem to mark a turning point.
Consider these results:
RICHARD MISRACH has been critically praised for many years but consistently had lackluster showings at auction.  This week, all five of his pieces sold for over $10,000 at an average of 92% higher than their high estimates. 
Likewise for CANDIDA HOFER, whose work I predicted was estimated too low.  Three of four of her pieces sold for over $10,000 (I had predicted all four would) at an average of 54% over their high estimates.
I scoffed at the $20-$30K estimate for TINA BARNEY's "Jill and Polly" at Phillips but was proven wrong when the piece sold for a jaw dropping $42,000.  She is a great photographer and I'm happy to see the market recognizing her talent. Incidentally, her previous high was only $10,750 with most of her sales coming in below $5,000.
I predicted that VIK MUNIZ would join the six figure club and was proven right when "Action Photo III" sold for $102,000.
GREGORY CREWDSON's "Natual Wonder" series has been of little interest to collectors in previous sales.   This week, the three for sale hit the roof, two selling for two times their high estimates at over $10,000 and one for a kickass $28,800, nearly five times its high estimate!  In comparison, at last fall's infamous Veronica's Revenge sale, some lucky stiff picked up a lot of three of these works for $12,000.
PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA set a new high when "Mary & Babe" sold for $62,400, over double its high estimate.  A Tokyo "Streetworks" piece sold for over $20K as well.  Dicorcia's market is uneven though, but its clear that collectors are willing to pay top dollar for the right work.
WILLIAM EGGLESTON had three pieces that sold for over $100,000 with his most famous "tricycle" image selling for $240,000, a record for Eggleston.
There were some casualties at the sales though.  Collectors shrugged at the numerous WILLIAM WEGMAN's up for sale and rightfully so.  NAN GOLDIN was also of tepid interest but I presume that the collector base for drug addicts and transvestites is a limited one.  Hence the reason that LARRY CLARK's b&w work never sells all that well either and this week was no exception.  The color winners far outweighed the losers though. Also among the mid-career winners: ELGER ESSER, ROBERT POLIDORI and JOEL STERNFELD.
I have to admit though, that it was a black and white photographer who experienced the most consistently strong results.  Collectors embraced LEE FRIEDLANDER at unprecedented levels with "Galax, Virginia" selling for $78,000 on an estimate of $10-$15K.  He may be the last artist admitted to the b&w modernist hall of fame before membership is closed and the party moves to postmodernist color for good.

P.S.  Want some advice?  Go buy a LARRY SULTAN or ED BURTYNSKY now.  Right now.

 

Comments

[anonymous]

Love your enthusiasm and knowledge, but what is your specific reasoning for buying Burtynsky and Sultan "right now?" We like their work, too, but they are not yet shown at the galleries that have the money or auction savvy to manipulate their prices as do the dealers for Crewdson, Esser and the others. For the most part, over-estimate auction prices are the result of manipulation by dealers and their paid surrogates to inflate prices to justify raising their primary gallery prices...or it's insider speculation due to an as-yet-unpublicized museum show being in the works. That said, do you have info that a Gagosian or Saatchi is interested in Burtynsky and Sultan? Are they switching galleries (Charles Cowles and Stephen Wirtz aren't exactly PaceWildenstein or Matthew Marks). We would advise jumping in, too, if there were reason other than "just" liking the work. Do you know something we don't?

[Todd W.]

In the vernacular, Burtynsky kicks ass. As does Sultan. I ranked Sultan's "The Valley" my top show last year. To add to Anonymous' comments, are you predicting these guys will jump ship to new dealers? When Burtynsky showed at Cowles early last year, there was a large article in the Times about him. And his mid-career retrospective comes to the Brooklyn Museum of Art later this year. It ain't MoMA, sure, but it seems like he's getting some traction. (If he was German, not Canadian, maybe MoMA would return his calls.)

As I've said before, the only bottom line reason to buy is if like the work. As an investment, dropping $3-6k on a photo that's only likely to hit $12-15 max in the long run just isn't all that attractive.

Last thing, how much research do you do for your post-game analysis? Are you familiar enough with past pricing that you can do this from memory, or did that post take 5 hours? (You can answer that in email if you want.)

[Erik Schneider]

I have to expand on my post a little. I truly view the art world from the edge of the art universe and have no insider knowledge whatsoever. What I do have is a good eye and a semi-freakish drive to understand the the art market regardless of any insider manipulation. I see that with photography, the first round of mid career stars has been crowned and as a result, their prices are now out of range for most. What seems to happen next is that a second round of stars get crowned and then their prices start rising. This is what happened to Ed Ruscha after Warhol and Lichtenstein got too expensive and now its Robert Indiana's turn. So all I'm doing is asking myself: "Who's next now that Crewdson, Dicorcia, Hofer Esser etc are all too expensive?" My picks are Sultan and Burtynsky. I can't think of any others who are better positioned.

Regarding Todd's question about research....these posts do take a few hours to complete. They are a result of general knowledge of an artist's auction performance and research on artprice.com.

[anonymous]

For aesthetic gratification, Sultan & Burtynsky are indeed worthy of owning (Burtysnky more than Sultan). For investment, however, we would recommend focusing more on Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, and the emerging artists Loretta Lux, Luisa Lambri, Florian Maier-Aichen, Sue De Beer and Alec Soth. They are affordable and, more importantly, repped by influential galleries that have the collector/curator base that can "move the market." Todd Hido is an example of a brilliant photographer whose prices haven't reached potential due to the lack of gallery power behind him.