Those are some nice books!

On the same day that Christie’s auctioned off Michel Comte’s portrait of Carla Bruni for $91,000, the auction house sold a collection of photography books. 183 books brought in more than $2.5 million (!) It’s interesting to see how a collection of books writes a history of photography- just as their sale at auction establishes the value not only of those books but of that version of history.  In this case, it’s a really interesting mix of work that are all the work of artists self-consciously pushing the borders of photography as art.

Meanwhile, nothing against Michel Comte, but for better or for worse, that portrait of Bruni has now entered the pantheon, affirming that the value of collectable photography can be drawn up by celebrity associations  and PR, and not just by the importance of particular images in relation to artist/ provenance/ rarity… and history. (Ok, enough about Bruni)

5B4 did a little run down comparing individual book prices with the annual median incomes of families in different countries around the world. (via 5B4 )