5
me a work of art merely by being framed. There are consequences for
photography arising from this, but also for all of fine arts: whileWalter
Benjamin declared the 20th century to be the age of the technical repro-
ducibility of art, we currently experience the 21st century as the age of
art’s unselectability. This is the result of the steadily growing tidal wave of
images. It is very likely that the individual image is no longer seen by the
relevant viewers, and thus it is no longer selected, no longer shown,
bought or collected. Even if only one in ten thousand pictures would
meet an artistic standard and if we only would allot two seconds for vie-
wing one picture, one single viewer would still need a maximum of 28
hours each day in order to see all of these works of photographic art
being created every day. Huge numbers of brilliant graphic images thus
disappear in the stream of digital graphic garbage. Do we need them? The
answer is no, because we can no longer sift through even the bulk of ar-
chived pictures. Generally speaking, pictures today are no longer a cultu-
ral value worth saving, but a product to be consumed, characterised by
their inherent disappearance. The original equality of opportunity – éga-
lité – ends with the levelling and in the end the unrecognisability of any
quality whatsoever. Who wants to find the lone diamonds in a gigantic
mountain of small rocks? An apocalyptic perspective – not only for pho-
tography.
Since it is no longer possible to view the totality of today’s photographic
production of images, even using modern information technology like
the Internet and the DVD – and this also applies to the other fine arts in
the broadest sense – we are dependent on institutions to do the selecting.
These are the museums, the art professors, the gallery owners, the publi-
shing houses and magazines that are gaining an ever more important
role in the distribution of fine arts. However, the essential disadvantage
of this development is that now, selection criteria far removed from art it-
self are also deciding over the selection of artists, such as economic or
political considerations, party interests, and proportional representation
considerations. Consequently, art is turned into a chimera.
A look at the elite
Given all of these limiting market parameters, one could assume that the-
re is only a kind of artistic photography which is wasting away, whereas
in fact, the prices for the works of a small group of photographers are ri-
sing into the million-dollar realm – while on the other hand, millions of
pictures are disappearing into the no man’s land of digital image memo-
ry. How can this very different parallel development of seemingly similar
entities be explained? The answer cannot be given in a single sentence.
First, one ought to try to list the important assessment criteria for the
works of high-quality photographic art:
Ability to connect on an emotional and intellectual level – plausible un-
derlying artistic concept – graphic level in form and presentation – name
recognition of the photographer – ability to visually attribute the work to
the complete works – quality and size of the photographic
print – limitation of the number of prints, authenticity of
the print and not least, anticipation of value
enhancement
Time and again, there are individual buyers, groups of collectors and mu-
seums who are interested in exceptional works that are rich in ideas, and
