Sam Wang (stwang@clemson.edu)
Wed, 21 Jul 1999 19:37:25 -0400
Katharine Thayer wrote:
>Sam Wang wrote:
>
> >- price, unfortunately, also decides the amount of viewer enjoyment:
> "wouldn't you rather look at a print you know is worth lots
> >>of $$$?
>
>I'm sorry, I don't agree with that at all. It's not true of me and I
>don't think it's true of the folks who buy my work. I think of the art I
>own, and in every case I bought the piece because I loved it, not
>because of how much I thought it was worth in dollars. And besides, one
>person's dollars aren't the same as another's. I've had people buy my
>prints who had so little money they had to pay for months and months
>before they could take the piece home; it gives me a lot of satisfaction
>to know that those people chose to buy one of my prints rather than a TV
>set or something. If you take the stance that you should price the work
>to be attractive to people for whom price rather than the quality of the
>work itself determines the "value" of the work. then you'd better have
>some other source of income. I'd rather sell to people who buy art
>because it means something to them regardless of price.
Are buyers mostly other artists who are well educated and can
recognize Quality? In some very unusual situations they may be. But
in general, I doubt it.
If everyone wants his/her work to end up in the hands of other
artists, why is it that most traded prints are "seconds"? I don't
believe in using less than my best prints for trades, but the
collection of a very important photographer/educator/museum director
consists of mostly 2nd rate work by well known photographers, because
the collector got them from trades.
Was it Peggy Guggenheim who said, years ago, that it couldn't be art
if it's less than $2K?
Do poor people buy art? If so, we should try to sell to third world countries.
Do all who have money to spare have tastes like you and me?
Why is a stamp that has an error on it worth a lot more money?
Why does a monograph, a book, immediately makes a person's
photographs more saleable?
Why do celebrity figures' works sell so well?
Does a brain surgeon charge by the amount of time it takes him/her to
cut and sew? or by what brand of knives he/she uses?
These are some of the questions I have. No, I don't have the answers,
especially not in this kind of heat and humidity.
Sam Wang
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:40:37