Have you caught up on The Hammer? In this column, art-industry veteran Simon de Pury offers valuable insight into the art market. This month, he reflects on how the photographic medium will survive the proliferation of NFTs and moving image work:
Every month in The Hammer, art-industry veteran Simon de Pury lifts the curtain on his life as the ultimate art-world insider, his brushes with celebrity, and his invaluable insight into the inner workings of the art market.
German photo artist Andreas Gursky poses in the front of the photographic work Lager in the exhibition “Andreas Gursky” at the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, in Leipzig eastern Germany on March 24, 2021. Photo by Jens Schlueter/AFP via Getty Images. The taking of photographs itself evolved quite rapidly. A milestone was the introduction of the Polaroid SX-70 camera in 1972. It was a beautiful looking foldable object which made a very satisfying noise when you pressed the shutter. Top photographers such as Helmut Newton began to use Polaroids for visualizing the initial compositions of their shots, like a painter would have made preparatory sketches. As a young specialist at Sotheby’s I was given one.
Initially the pixelization of the images taken with the phone was too low, but with recent models it has improved dramatically. Suddenly, every single human became not just a photographer, but also an editor, an artist, a cinematographer, a writer, a commentator, an influencer, a follower, as well as a full-blown narcissist. The billions of photographs that are being uploaded onto Instagram and other social media platforms on a daily basis make us all great consumers of photography and voyeurs.