It seems that one way of deciding a work of art's value is the time spent to make it. It would seem - to me - the work of Tomma Abts, is an example of this. That is, the value is not in its overall quality but, some odd quality in relation to how quickly or slowly it was done. It is vital then that any judgement of its value lies in knowing how long it took to make and then, weighing this against the work or can the time taken - short or long - become a dominant factor in its evaluation?
But, we don't always know how long a piece of art work takes. Only the artist knows and then often, only roughly. And, of course, when doing such a calculation, what allowance should there be included for training and years of experience?
On a similar note, I was at an exhibition of landscape paintings and photos on the Lizard, Cornwall, talking with the photographer when a lady turned from examining his work and said, "They are lovely, but they don't take long to do, do they?" She wandered off to look at the paintings (perhaps to relish the time they took to make). Later, the photographer and I got to reflecting on this and did a calculation. Keeping in mind that a photo takes preparation and post production (and ignoring all this for a moment), what would be the hourly rate of a photograph, based on the lady's supposition (and assuming she meant the time it takes to press the shutter), with a 1/100th of a second shutter speed if the photographer was to receive £50 if somebody bought his photograph? Well, there are 100 1/100 th of a second, in a second; so that's £5,000 per second, which times 60, makes £300,000 per minute and times 60 once more, comes to an hourly rate of £18,000,000.
But, we don't always know how long a piece of art work takes. Only the artist knows and then often, only roughly. And, of course, when doing such a calculation, what allowance should there be included for training and years of experience?
On a similar note, I was at an exhibition of landscape paintings and photos on the Lizard, Cornwall, talking with the photographer when a lady turned from examining his work and said, "They are lovely, but they don't take long to do, do they?" She wandered off to look at the paintings (perhaps to relish the time they took to make). Later, the photographer and I got to reflecting on this and did a calculation. Keeping in mind that a photo takes preparation and post production (and ignoring all this for a moment), what would be the hourly rate of a photograph, based on the lady's supposition (and assuming she meant the time it takes to press the shutter), with a 1/100th of a second shutter speed if the photographer was to receive £50 if somebody bought his photograph? Well, there are 100 1/100 th of a second, in a second; so that's £5,000 per second, which times 60, makes £300,000 per minute and times 60 once more, comes to an hourly rate of £18,000,000.