Carriage Trade gallery is having its annual benefit, this year titled Social Photography VI. Cell phone photos, in editions of ten and printed with inkjet, are offered for sale at $75 per print.
A few years ago I wanted to buy an Olivier Mosset photo and all ten had been sold by the time I looked at the site.
Since I just received the press release today for the current installment, was morbidly curious to see who the top sellers were. Sorting the list by best-selling, here are the ones that are already gone [see update below]:
Dan Graham
Neil Jenney
Barbara Ess
Tracey Emin
Louise Lawler
It's only mentioned because "social" as exemplified by Instagram, et al, is supposed to be a leveler or equalizer, or, has its own hierarchies based on clicks, "SEO," and personal fame (exclusive of art background). In this case, the list of invited artists offers a snapshot, as seen by Carriage Trade, of art world players. This includes critics (Barry Schwabsky), theorists (Hal Foster), plus a couple of members of Sonic Youth.
(In the spirit of "extraneous reasons for art valuation," yrs truly bought a photograph by Stephen Lack, who in addition to being a dues-paying painter is legendary in the film world for playing the "good Scanner" in David Cronenberg's Scanners. Screenshot below.)
Update: Carriage Trade director Peter Scott sent a stern email objecting to my description of the early "best-sellers" in the show. He says that emails announcing the sales went out in advance of the one I received so I changed the wording of the post.