An image of the Rhine by German artist Andreas Gursky has fetched $4.3m (£2.7m) at Christie's New York, setting an auction record for a photograph.
OK, you’ve got to be joking. How much money?? $4.3 million seems a little excessive, dontcha think? I mean, I’m sure it’s a lovely photo, and I’ve read that it’s quite large (and we all know how much ink costs these days), and I’m sure we’d all enjoy considering, as they said at Christie’s, “an almost ‘platonic’ ideal of the body of water as it navigates the landscape”, but c’mon, people — $4.3 million!!! A small third-world country could feed themselves for a year on that amount. OHIP could improve wait times right across the board in one fell swoop with that amount.
I’m sure I’m missing something. I’m probably not very sophisticated. I obviously don’t understand. I’m not too sure what Gursky means when he says he decided to “leave out the elements that bothered me.” But I do know that spending $4.3 million on a rather dull photograph bothers me and seems to show a total lack of any element of sanity.
Click here for the BBC news report on this item.
Port Franks and Area Camera Club 
I hear what you are saying – on the other hand, it’s great to see a photo regarded so highly (monetarily at least). And if you look at the Jackson Pollock painting (one of those ones that people say their kid could do) that sold for 140 million, this photo seems like a bargain!
I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder, and in the cachet of the artist. It gives me great hope that one day, one of the photographers from our very own Camera Club could have as good a day at Christie’s as this fellow did. I know we have enough talent, if not enough notoriety.