Author: Feed Fetcher

Titled “TREES NEVER END AND HOUSES NEVER END” and curated by Colen, the exhibition will open June 28 in Germantown, New York.

At the time of purchase, Griffin announced his intentions to make the document available to the American public.

The nonprofit is dedicated to digital art conservation.

The lawsuit was filed due to the termination of millions in committed grants from Congressional funds.

Like an art history detective, Mei Mei Rado mines textiles and techniques to reveal cross-cultural Chinese-European liaisons driven by nationalism and a keen interest in design.

Turkish artist Refik Anadol will collaborate with Lionel Messi to create a new AI-generated artwork based on the Argentine soccer player’s favorite goal. Messi will choose from his more than 800 career goals, which span his years with teams including FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain FC, Inter Miami CF, and Argentina’s national team. Messi’s selected goal will be revealed on May 22nd via the Inter Miami CF Foundation’s social media channels. The artwork resulting from his collaboration with Anadol will be unveiled and put up for auction by Christie’s in New York on June 11th. Bidding for the work will close on July 25th.

“Choosing just one goal out of them all is very difficult—each one is special in its own way, and some are really important or bring back incredible memories,” Messi said in a press statement. “But highlighting one as a favorite for the first time, to make this unique project possible, is worth it. There’s a strong purpose behind it, and I’m really happy to be part of it.”

Anadol, a new media artist based in Los Angeles, is well known for his innovative use of digital technology in artwork. His so-called “data paintings” are mesmerizing moving image works created from large data sets converted into visual form by algorithms. One such work, Unsupervised – Machine Hallucinations (2022), was prominently displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in 2022.

Anadol’s collaboration with Messi is part of the A Goal in Life initiative, led by the Inter Miami CF Foundation, with creative direction by Xavier Roca and artistic curation by Ximena Caminos. The artwork will consist of two components: an image of the goal as it happened, and Anadol’s AI-generated interpretation of the moment, created using millions of data points from the event. Messi and Anadol will co-sign the piece. Proceeds from the sale will benefit charitable initiatives, including a partnership between the Inter Miami CF Foundation and UNICEF that supports access to education in five countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.

“It’s an extraordinary honor to join forces with Leo Messi—one of the greatest athletes of our time—on a project that supports nonprofit organizations, including UNICEF, and bridges the emotional legacy of sport with the future of art,” said Anadol. “At Refik Anadol Studio, we’ve always believed in the power of data to tell deeply human stories. Using AI to visualize the memory of Messi’s favorite goal is both a creative and ethical endeavor: to celebrate emotion, memory, and excellence.”

Restitution efforts over the artifacts picked up in 2014.

Ann Pellicer, a sculptor recognized in Mexico for her large-scale copper works, has died at 79. Mexico’s culture ministry announced her death on X on May 6th, but did not report the cause.

On May 15th, Mexico City’s MASA Galeria will open an eponymous exhibition of the artist’s work, and shared condolences on Instagram. “Ana was more than an extraordinary artist—she was a brilliant soul whose mind, kindness, creativity, and presence touched everyone who had the privilege of knowing her,” the gallery wrote. “Her grace, sense of humor, and unwavering passion for her work and life will remain in our hearts always.”

Pellicer only gained international attention in recent years, decades after completing her most ambitious work—a set of oversized jewelry sculptures created for the Statue of Liberty. She finished the work in 1986, commemorating the statue’s 100-year anniversary. The giant copper sculptures included a necklace and a pair of earrings. The sculptures were exhibited in 2017 at House of Gaga in Mexico City, drawing overdue attention to her practice.

Purépecha Rattlesnake, 1995
Ana Pellicer

Kasmin

Born in 1946 in Mexico City, Pellicer moved to Santa Clara del Cobre in the region of Michoacán in the 1970s, where she met her late husband, sculptor James Metcalf. The two artists founded an educational center to champion pre-Hispanic copper-smithing techniques and train local artisans, particularly women.

Pellicer’s monumental works for the Statue of Liberty—including Collar de Tejos de Santa Clara, Anillo Liliputense Producto de Exportación, Arracada Plana de Huetamo, La Cadena de Oaxaca, and Prendedor Etrusco Cuanajense (both 1978–86)—were produced in collaboration with the women she trained there.

Throughout her life, Pellicer’s work was largely overshadowed by that of her husband. However, in 2018, Pellicer’s massive 36-foot necklace was included in “Body Armor,” an exhibition at MoMA PS1 in New York. The show helped change perceptions of her work, reframing its political and material themes. In recognition of her work, she received the Gertrudis Bocanegra Medal that same year, awarded to women advancing the development of the state of Michoacán.

“It’s not about fetishizing the tool. It’s about using it to get somewhere unexpected.”

Photography is as rich a discipline as any, with artists producing captivating and poignant images using a range of skills and techniques.

Buying photographs offers a way to diversify the mediums in your collection. And, for artists who work in multiple disciplines, photography typically comes with price tags that are lower than those on something like a painting or sculpture. “[With photography,] you can collect great art and have museum-quality masterpieces on your walls,” said David Grob, founder and director of Grob Gallery.

As with all art forms, photography and the market to buy it contain nuances and technical terms, but things aren’t as complicated as they might seem. Here’s what you need to know about buying photography.

Photography can be shot in an instant, but it isn’t easy

Self-portrait, New York, NY, 1954.
Vivian Maier

Alta

Self-Portrait, 1979
Arnold Newman

Chiswick Auctions

Since it emerged as a medium in the early 19th century, photography has been saddled with questions about its value as an art form. In the smartphone era, these questions persist today among some audiences.

“A common misconception is that photography is easy, and that anyone with a camera or smartphone can create the kinds of images you see hanging in a gallery,” said Joan Lemler, photographer and chair of the Marketing Group and Portfolio Reviews at the member-run Soho Photo Gallery. “True artistic, professional photography requires at least as much vision as painting or any other medium.”

Capturing the initial image is only part of the process, Lemler added. “In reality, it takes years of training to process and make the creative choices necessary about paper and presentation to bring a digital file, or for that matter a negative, to life as a fine art print,” she said.

Moreover, the meaning and motivation behind a work can set it apart from other photos that were snapped without intention. The artwork might relate to broader themes in an artist’s practice, and what they are capturing often requires an involved process to create.

The late Nona Faustine, for example, was both the subject and the author of her photographs, often posing nude to reveal legacies of racism intertwined with historic and public places. Faustine spent countless hours researching and planning to stage the moments she photographed.

Not all photographs are in editions

Untitled (Roof Stacks), 1986
Doug & Mike Starn

Rukaj Gallery

Photography is associated with editions, meaning works that are created in multiples. Each image in the edition is typically identical, though photographers may print their works in different dimensions. This isn’t the case for all photography, particularly for earlier works.

“It was only in the 1970s when most photographers started to edition their works, which also aligned with when the photography market became collectible,” said Grob. As an example, Grob Gallery offered Chez Mondrian by André Kertész, a vintage photograph made by the artist in Paris in the 1920s. The work, Grob said, is in excellent condition and could be worth more than $1 million. “Later prints, even those made during his lifetime, might fetch only $6,000 to $8,000,” Grob added. “The golden rule? Provenance and their date are paramount.”

Of course, not all photographers follow the same rules, so it’s important to speak with galleries to understand their practice. “I work with Japanese artists such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, and Eikoh Hosoe who do not number and date their works,” said Sara Cavagnari, art director of Galleria13. “It’s part of their art and history.”

Also, similar to artists who create fine art prints and multiples, photographers might hand-finish a piece, making it unique even if it’s in an edition.

Price check

As with all forms of art, buying photography is a financial investment. “I have to have an immediate, visceral response to the image,” said Lydia Melamed Johnson, an art collector and executive director of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) fair in New York. “Once I’ve fallen in love with my heart, then I get into the brass tacks.”

As well as typical artwork pricing factors such as an artist’s demand and the type of edition in question, several elements factor into the pricing of photographs more uniquely, including the dimensions of the work and the technique used for processing. “Larger images usually are more expensive, and the more unique or time-consuming the process, the more a photograph may cost,” said Lemler. Artists can create many types of photographs, such as silver gelatin prints, cyanotypes and daguerreotypes, which require different skills and time to produce.

Melamed Johnson takes into consideration things like the work’s condition and how it was made. She also might consider the size of a particular edition, explaining, “if I am really stretching financially, I want to make sure that there are some safeguards around the proliferation of an image or if it is a posthumous or lifetime print.”

Whether a work is in an edition (and how large that edition is) impacts the price. Editions with fewer prints are inherently scarcer and will therefore be more expensive. For example, Man Ray’s Le Violon d’Ingres (1924) became the most expensive photograph to have ever sold at auction when it sold for $12.4 million at Christie’s in 2022. The work—one of the most iconic in 20th-century photography—is a rare original print, meaning it was produced around the time the negative was created, unlike later editions created from a copy negative. Unlike fine art prints, photographs might be priced differently depending on their order in an edition if a gallery or artist staggers pricing.

When listing prices of photographs, many galleries do not include the frame prices, as collectors might make these decisions on their own. If you’re hoping to keep within a specific budget, bear in mind that frames can be costly for larger works, especially if they come with non-glare and UV glass.

When in doubt, ask an expert

Like prints and multiples, photography can include technical terms that might seem daunting, but galleries offer a wealth of expertise to elucidate the medium. “Each artist has a different technique, style, and printing system, and it is our job to provide the information needed to understand their art,” said Cavagnari.

Online marketplaces like Artsy are excellent resources to get a sense of an artist’s broader practice and to see what’s available. Grob also suggested researching previous auction results, but cautions that “auction prices can be well below or well above the value, so take them with a pinch of salt.” Grob himself purchased a photograph by Constantin Brâncuși in 1970 for $100. “I bought it because I loved his sculpture and there were no books on him in print; I didn’t even realize he had taken and printed the photograph himself,” he said. “That print is probably worth $200,000 today, and I have no doubt that its value will continue to multiply.”

Art fairs are also great to visit to cultivate your eye as a buyer and enthusiast. Even if you don’t purchase anything, these events feature hundreds of artists’ work, offering a broad overview of the discipline.

“Come to art fairs, go to galleries, and just look,” advised Melamed Johnson. “Once you start to find your taste, and what it is that you like or don’t like, then ask questions, get on mailing lists, and start communicating. You’ll quickly find the galleries that are excited to help emerging collectors and aren’t pushing you past your budget or trying to steer you towards works you don’t respond to.”

AIPAD also has a guide to collecting on its website and produced a video series with Fotografiska called Collecting for Everyone that features talks with galleries, collectors, and curators.