Business Art News
THE RISE AND RISE OF COLLECTABLE PHOTOGRAPHS www.aspireart.net
“Photography is the serious art of our time. It also happens to be the most accessible and democratic way of making art that has ever been invented. Great art is a sequence of moving pictures of the human condition. Today, photography is the only art that seriously maintains this attention to the stuff that matters” – Jonathan Jones, art critic. Photography is everywhere. The rise of social media has led to a huge explosion in the taking and distribution of images. But fine art photographs remain a different category, not confined to the digital or to the medium of the internet. The growth of photographs as an important part of major museum and private collections around the world means that we have moved on from the debate about photographs as merely a tool for documentation and journalism; photographs hold their own as a fine art medium, comparable to painting and other practices. South Africa and the wider continent have a substantial number of artists who work exclusively with photography, or as part of their mix of mediums. Prominent names include Malian Malick Sidibé, Kenyan Cyrus Kabiru and Zimbabwean Kudzanai Chiurai, to South Africans like David Goldblatt, Guy Tillim, Mikhael Subotzky, Pieter Hugo, Athi-Patra Ruga and the much-vaunted Zanele Muholi. In global terms, the photographs market shows a sometimes erratic but consistently and unequivocally upward trajectory over the last three decades. Between 1990 and 2017, when last reliably measured, auction turnover on photography rose 1,330%. In 1990 the average price for a photograph at auction was close to $5,000. Today it is more than double that at $10,200. Yet still the entire segment accounts for just 1.1% of global Fine Art auction turnover. This indicates a highly specialised market with plenty of room for growth in its prices and collector base. Pieter Hugo, Hyena Men of Abuja, Sold: R375 540 74
