6 years ago a photo was put in auction. It was sold for 4.338.500 dollars and it was to this day the most expensive photo ever sold.
The photo is from the german artist Andreas Gursky and it was a photo of the Rhine river in Germany.
What the actual hell?! I could do better than that!
You get those comments alot in art. These are usually done by people that don´t particularly follow the art world... which is understandable. If someone showed me a math equation by Albert Einstein without explaning it to me I would also just say... those are just numbers, whats so special about that?
The fact is that there are alot of reasons why someone paid 4 million dollars for a stale photo of a river that has nothing going on and why some pieces of art are worth so mutch in general.
Let´s try first to put the photo into context. The artist behind the photo is Andreas Gursky. His photos are minimalist, stale, desaturated, extremely geometric and detailed. They tend to represent loneliness, sadness, repetition and smallness.
Board of Trade II (1999) by Andreas Gursky (Photo Source Here)
Paris, Montparnasse (1993) by Andreas Gursky (Photo Source Here)
Toys "R" Us (1999) by Andreas Gursky (Photo Source Here)Now we get where the photo comes from and we can compare the artists work and the photo.
If we compare the two we see that Rhein II is an EXTREME exercice of what Andreas Gursky does and what he trys to represent in his photos.
Again, his photos are empty, detailed and give you the sence of loneliness and despair by presenting minimallistic environments.
Rhein II does this beutifully, by essencially having so lows amounts of information while still having huge amounts of detail.
Everything is super straight, pale and the photo is just three strips of color... but at the same time those three strips are still a river, grass and the sky to the viewer.
Ok... it´s still not worth 4 million dollars...
Whats the price of love? Whats the price of meaning? When we deal with art at this level this is what we art freaks are talking about... not if you particually like the photo or not, art is mutch bigger than that.
My favourite photo from Andreas Gursky is actually the Toys "R" Us one. But if I had the money to spend, and Toys "R" Us and Rhein II where presented to me... I would happelly say "screw the Toys "R" Us, Im buying that!" because Rhein II is not a just a photo. It represents a artist dedication to an idea. It represents meaning, feelings.
In a sence, Rhein II is worth so mutch because its impossible to give it a price like its impossible to buy happiness.
We are only humans and this is why art is amazing. Art is our way of portraying our existense and when its done so well and too this extreme... 4 million is just paper...