I too am a little perplexed by all of the above. I know when it comes to photography the best of the best is silver Black & White prints. Todays youth have photoshop, so the skills of fine art printing will slowly become a speciality again.
I feel one day all remaining Black & White Silver prints will be worth something more than a few dollars.
About contemporary art , it's expanding. I recently dug up ,out of my cellar, several old bottles. So exquisite were they, that I want to center my new sculpture around them. I have begun to feel a nice original old bottle in stone might have more value than most modern day digital prints.
But today is there really a big art market anywhere? We still don't have any art hero's now that Warhol, Haring and Basquiate are gone. Schnabells into film and who knows if David is really Sally ?
I doubt that computer generated photography will overshadow silver black-and-white processes as fine art. Even though the photo mechanical/chemical aspect of photography has made it difficult for the field to establish itself as fine art, there's overwhelming agreement that it is. It's the variables of composition, light, et al. If the photograph is altered by digital enhancement to fool the viewer into believe it was a real scene, it's not really kosher. But if it is used to create a viable effect to alter one's perception of reality, it's a creative part of the art of photography. One example of digital alteration was a wild life photographer who took a photo of a herd of Zebras, then digitally repeated some of the images to fill the picture plane with Zebras. That's a deception and wild life photographers are appreciated for the time it takes to capture nature, but in its natural state.
Sure, rarity makes something a collectible and eventually, even before the 100 years rule for being an antique is reached the items can appreciate, driven by a select body of collectors. Cartoon cels, for instance, were sold for a few dollars at Disneyland many years ago but became "collectible." Unfortunately, the studios and artists began producing simulated cells at very high prices. These have now slumped in price considerably and it dragged down the entire market of cels. The limited edition prints have flooded the market -- one begins to look like another, even by different artists.
It still takes around twenty years for these collectibles to do anything in the market and the market has to hold up according to the demand. It's disconcerting that a rare comic book brings more than a twenty year old limited edition print. It's a strange phenomena as interest in a particular collectible can wan and wipe out many years of appreciation. It still follows that only a small percentage of the total output in a particular collectible appreciates. For instance, unless a photographer makes a name for themselves, old silver black-and-white prints will likely follow the rule -- twenty years, a remarketable potential for profit for some images. Sixty years, more market and by one-hundred years, they are all antiques.
Inflation also effects the price, but that follows the twenty year time span )and if the economic control relinquishes slown inflation, that also effects the secondary market prices).
The bugaboo seems to be when market entities try to make something into a collectible and misrepresenting such an item can end up being against the law.
performance art, definately!
