Althouse: The photograph that sold for $6.5 Million.

December 12, 2014

The photograph that sold for $6.5 Million.

"Phantom."

Even as some people don't believe in phantoms, some don't believe in photography.

12 comments:

tim maguire said...: It's a neat picture. If I took it, I might even post it on facebook.; 12/12/14, 5:26 AM
kcom said...: I can't imagine spending that kind of money on any photograph. Unless I'm mistaken, it's totally reproducible.

Great value usually comes from scarcity. The photograph is contemporary and reproducible so it's hard to imagine where that value comes from.; 12/12/14, 6:09 AM
lgv said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/12/14, 7:02 AM
lgv said...: I have been there and shot Antelope Canyon, as have thousands. This is a great shot, which you could have only done with a view camera in the old days, but not so difficult in today's digital world. I can't imagine this valuation on an photo that can be replicated so easily.

I prefer the series where the photographer hired an Native American to pose with his horse in there.

BTW, a few years before I was there, some people were drowned in a flash flood in the other section of the oft photographed canyon.; 12/12/14, 7:04 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: And yet the photographs of Jennifer Lawrence were free.

Sometimes I don't understand capitalism.

I am Laslo.; 12/12/14, 7:48 AM
Tank said...: Nice. I would pay $10 for a print of that.; 12/12/14, 7:56 AM
Peter said...: Yes but, once one gets started on "That's not art," where does one stop?

Behold (for example) Yves Klein's "IKB 79": is it art, or just a large paint chip?

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/klein-ikb-79-t01513; 12/12/14, 8:39 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Am I the only one who sees how vaginal the photograph looks?

I am Laslo.; 12/12/14, 9:04 AM
buwaya said...: Art isn't art.
There is no special spiritual significance to art in any form.
It is just decoration, whatever technique is applied.
Its nice to have pretty things to look at, or use.; 12/12/14, 9:24 AM
Gahrie said...: Wow...my copy was free....; 12/12/14, 9:38 AM
mikee said...: I might just cut & paste that to be my monitor background for a day or so - until some other artwork catches my eye.

Oh what a time we live in, when a peasant such as I can enjoy the same artwork as the nobbiest of the elite, without paying an extra penny to do so!; 12/12/14, 10:04 AM
Anonymous said...: Wow, I'm kinda surprised at the responses here.
"Phantom" is, to my eyes, hauntingly beautiful - the right place at precisely the right time.
And if the purchaser didn't also purchase the negative with assurances that no prints or engravings had been made, then he greatly overpaid.
But thank you Prof. Althouse for showing us this work of art.; 12/12/14, 11:05 AM