The Value and Price of Video Artworks
Zeng Huang (Photo By The People in the Era of Film And Easy)
Well-known photographers who have undergone market planning will have as few as millions, as many as tens of millions, and even photographers with over 100 million image art financial assets, will the price be inflated, is there a bubble? Will the image become a "Pang-style hoax" of drumming and passing flowers?
The most important indicator of whether a financial product is a "Pang-style scam" is the relationship between its price and value, and if the price is much higher than the value, it can be classified as a "Pang-style scam", if its price is below (or equal to) the value, there is no bubble.
Value is the most important factor in determining the price of a video art, but a work of art is a very special commodity, and the same collection is often very different for different people. This is why in the market, there are always people who are willing to pay a higher price to collect a work of art. I have personally experienced a case: Huachen image to take a photo album of Gulangyu Island of the Republic of China, 30 photos, the reserve price of 20,000 yuan, I according to the Gulangyu Photography Gallery to hold an exhibition budget of 30,000 yuan to participate in the auction, but has been raised to 40,000 yuan, there are very strong competitors. According to the hindsight, the winner originally planned to collect the album at a price of 300,000 yuan for the project they invested in and developed in Gulangyu Island. The same collection has different values for different collectors, and it will be reflected in great differences in price
At present, most of the important works of art in the history of Chinese photography are at prices that are much lower than the value. For example, most of the 10-inch protein photographs in the 19th century were priced below 10,000 yuan, while similar collections abroad were priced at more than 30,000 yuan. The root cause of this gap is that China has no history and culture of photography collection, and there is no collection system of national photography museums and art galleries.
The performance of Felice Beato's work in the market is a good explanation of how changes in the value of a video artwork lead to a change in its price. Bito was one of the first famous war photographers in the history of world photography and one of the first photographers to shoot in Asia and China. As a photographer accompanying the British Army during the Second Opium War, Bito took the earliest war images and long scrolls of China in 1860. Many of the most famous photographs in the early history of Chinese photography, such as the Dagukou Fort, the first panoramic photograph of the city of Beijing, and the Yuanmingyuan before the complete burning, are from Bito.
At the beginning of this century, before the auction of video art appeared in China, the market price of 10-inch original protein photos of Bito was often three or two thousand yuan. As one of the most important photographic collection research institutions in the world, the Getty Museum of Photography in the United States has some original photographs of Bito. They host the exhibition "Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road," which expands Beato's photographic achievements from Europe and Asia to the world. Before the exhibition, the Getty Museum searched the world for Bito's original, which led to a spike in the price of his original. In 2008, Beijing Hanhai auctioned the "Tongzhou Tower" of Bito, and the starting price was 80,000 yuan. In 2012, Poly Autumn Auction gave a starting price of 100,000 yuan. In 2013, Sotheby's in the United Kingdom took a group of 27 original photos of Bito, estimated at 100,000-200,000 pounds, and chinese collectors finally auctioned the collection for 218,500 pounds (about 2.1 million yuan at the time), an average of more than 70,000 yuan per piece. Collector Xue Manzi believes that this auction is in the UK, due to language barriers and cumbersome procedures for participating in the auction, there are many interested Chinese did not participate, otherwise the price may rise by 50%.
Just a few months later, in November 2013, Huachen Image Auction's Collection No. 1020 "Tanggu Fort Panorama" was traded for 200,000 yuan, and the No. 1021 collection "Dagukou North Battery Panorama" was traded for 115,000 yuan. In the autumn auction of Huachen Images in 2016, the reserve price of the album containing 57 original protein photos of Bito reached 5 million yuan, with an average of more than 90,000 yuan per original photo. Considering that the top institutions, including the National Art Museum of China and the National Museum of China, do not yet have a collection of Bito's works, and the number of Bito's photographs is not large, it can be expected that its market price will increase to a certain extent. In particular, it should be noted that because of the "rarity of things is expensive", the pricing power of Bito photos is not in the market, and it is up to the collector to decide.
At present, China does not have a complete history of Chinese photography, and all the history of world photography does not have the development of Chinese photography, which gives a business opportunity to collect and invest in early Chinese photographic artworks. First, the price of important masterpieces in the history of early Chinese video is still in the price depression, which has not yet been speculated, and the price of similar works of art in the international market is 3-5 times lower, and the price is much lower than the value, which is a market depression for investment and speculation. Second, due to many factors such as science and technology, economy, war and chaos, the early Chinese video artworks have fewer surviving, and there is a high possibility of investment speculation. In the past few years, there have been several collectors who have entered the market first and invested more than 100 million yuan.
Analyze emerging academic research and market big data, investing in Pierre Joseph Rossier (1829-1897), Louis Legrand (1820-?), Milton Miller, Afang, Thomas Child (1841-1898), William Sander (William). Thomas Saunders, 1832-1892), dozens of famous artists such as Tongxing and Yamamoto Zanchiro, may have obtained good returns on their wealth. Because, when this batch of works will enter the history of world photography with the development of Chinese photography, its value will be greatly improved, followed by the rise of its market price. (End)