LONDON, Feb. 16, 2006—With photographs today going for millions this week saw the sale of Edward Steichens 1904 print The Pond Moonlight for $2.9 million in New York how has photographys traditional place in the realm of modern and contemporary art shifted?
 
This weeks sale may signal a revolution in thought about photography as a medium, or it may simply reflect the insatiable nature of todays art market. Both theories were proposed today by art critic Jonathan Jones of the Guardian.

The exceedingly high figure achieved at this weeks auction could reflect a major change in the way the art world perceives photography, in much the same way Warhols work conceptually changed the way prints have been perceived and priced  in recent decades. It takes quite an intellectual revolution to value a non-unique image at millions, Jones notes.

On the other hand, the market may simply have seized on new terrain in its seemly endless drive skyward. It matters little that photography, once called a proletarian art-form by Marxists, has long since transformed itself by emulating the abstract qualities of modern art. If today reproducible images are valued at millions its because the market wills it so.

The market is an omnivore, Jones concludes, Radicalism becomes conservatism becomes revolution in the world of the art market which, like high fashion, is full of big ideas it doesn't really care about.

The Guardian: The Pictures That Go For a Fortune