Campos & Davis Photos (photos@campos-davis.co.uk)
Wed, 21 Jul 1999 21:20:20 +0100
Yes, pricing is one thing, but how much did you actually sell them for, how
many etc, etc.
Campos & Davis Photos
6 Cranbourne Road
London N10 2BT
Tel/Fax + 44 181 883 8638
email: photos@campos-davis.co.uk
WEB SITE: http://www.campos-davis.co.uk
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> From: Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>
> To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca
> Subject: Re: $$$$ how to price prints
> Date: Wednesday, 21 July, 1999 8:22 PM
>
>
>
> On Wed, 21 Jul 1999 SCHRAMMR@WLSVAX.WVNET.EDU wrote:
> > .... For me, anyway, it takes a
> > lot more effort to produce a nice monochrome gum than a cyanotype and
> > I think I mentioned that I could make lots of platinotypes in the time
> > it takes to make one daguerreotype. Let me also say that I do not think
> > it would be possible to account for every hour of time we spend
creating
> > a print and assign a value to that. First one has to come up with an
idea
> > and then figure out how to carry that out. After deciding on the
process
> > the negative has to be produced. Then there are all those flubby dubs
> > that end up in the waste basket. Finally the print is made, matted and
> > framed. Sometimes, however, the idea doesn't work and the print does
> > not get made so all those hours are down the drain.
> >
> > Anyway, I always believed that true artists make images for the pure
> > joy of it and partly just because they are compeled to do so. So, even
> > if they never sold a single piece, they would continue.
>
> Absolutely absolutely. When a student asks my advice on whether to become
> an ARTIST, I tell them if you think you can possibly have a fulfilled
life
> at something else, the answer is no. (I give the same advice about
> parenthood.)
>
> But all this talk about pricing awakens memory of my first gallery show,
> practically prelapsarian, circa 1983. The prints I showed (in a "good"
> Madison Av photo gallery, later moved to Soho, now defunct) were all
8x10-
> inch silver gelatin, toned and solarized. They were priced low because I
> was an unknown (a status I have by due diligence managed to preserve), at
> $700 each. About half, however, were also painted -- figures added in
> acrylic -- they were priced at $900.
>
> This may or may not prove that the key to art pricing is the same as
> real estate: location, location, location. Because of the
> labor-intensivity of those prints (and the HIGH degree of failure), I
> doubt I would have priced them lower at the remotest art fair, and
> needless to say they were one of a kind.
>
> At the time, however, the consumer czar of NYC was enforcing the law that
> declared the number in an edition of prints must be stated. (My number
was
> "unique print.") I recall also a big stink being made, with
> letters-to-editor, etc. about a law that prices must be posted, as with
> any consumer establishment. There was a flurry of ticket-giving to
> galleries that didn't have their prices up. I believe Ronald Feldman was
> one of the ticketees. Last I heard he had it on appeal, don't know the
> upshot.
>
> Pricing, promo, hype, reality, sales, investing vs. decorating, etc.
> were discussed in a number of panels in the 1980s, dealers to some extent
> letting down their hair in front of a mere 100 or so people at a CAA
> convention, or Artists-Talk-on-Art, etc. The title of one I recall was
> "How the Marketplace Gives Form to Art. (Several of these talk events are
> in my anthology "Mutiny & the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art,
> 1975-1990." That's a commercial if you like, but info is info.)
>
> You might say this is a different time, but the basic principles of
> selling art are essentially the same... and the non-correlation between
> sales and "the judgement of history" probably also. But of course we
> won't know that -- unless we plan to watch the auctions from a cloud in
> heaven, and I doubt they play that channel.
>
> cheers,
>
> Judy
>
>
>
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