Let's make it commercial

$1.888.000 is what someone was willing to pay for a photograph by Hiroshi Sugimoto in 2007 (I can't even find it online, and I was looking for like 15 seconds, I swear!). When I was on the ferry from France to England (yes people still take ferries when they have time and don't want to spend 252 euro on a train ticket because they decided to only book one day in advance), the weather had a Sugimoto feel about it. 
Now, there are many things I could have done. I could have sounded the alarm, taken all my clothes off and insert the horrible sandwich I was eating up my anus. But that was really never going to work out in my advantage. I could have also taken my expensive camera with its beautiful lens, pushed the ship's emergency brake (do ships have emergency breaks? I think they should), stolen a tripod from the photography shop (because my tripod was all the way in my suitcase), gone outside, take a long exposure and produce a copy of the Japanese guy's work. Everything's a copy of a copy of course. I bet you the first man who ever took a picture of the ocean must be spinning in his grave (or twirling in his urn if he was cremated) for not having copyrighted his picture, then everyone else who ever photographed the sea again would have to pay him royalties. 
Still, I saved myself a lot of effort and did what every modern man does. Snap it with his mobile. Since I knew I could crop and turn it later, there was also no need to get the framing level or the sea in the middle (and it's not even in the middle here, that would have just been more effort). Actually, what is up with that central framing of Sugimoto? Didn't they teach him anything on his bamboo farm (not what I wanted to say, but I forgot what that was). 

In my biography, someone could say about this photo: "When Timotheus was still pretending to be an artist, that was before he became president of Europe and before he proclaimed himself emperor and "Roi Soleil of Europa" and killed 13 billion people and one fluffy kitten (aw! poor kitten!), he produced a photograph that would shock the world. Perhaps "shock" is an overstatement, let's call it "stir-fry" or "bubble". Anyway, with this, he clearly showed how art evolves from one thing to the next. On the picture, we see the pixelated water drops, are they tears? Or are they just raindrops because it happened to be raining outside? Sugimoto later complained from his Japanese mansion, but nobody spoke Japanese or was awake to hear his complaints over here in the real world. While they are eerily similar, Timotheus took Sugimoto's subject a step further, reflecting on a modern world, safely inside, locked away from the real outside, all the while raising a huge middle finger to Sugimoto's castle in Japan. Historians now believe that the fact that this picture was never sold turned Timotheus bitter. He knew it was his best work to date, intertextual, innovative, boring, it had it all. He turned down an offer of 250.000$ for the picture, saying that he was no cheap whore, but an expensive one! A lot of researchers now believe that if someone had produced the amount to buy it, the Third and Fourth World Wars could have been prevented, along with the deaths of 13 billion people and one really fluffy kitten (awww!!! she really died too young!). Still, no use in hypothesising..." 


Anyway, lets talk business. I will let you have it for 1.5 million (not including the 1 metre by 1 metre print, which will set you back at least 10 more euros). I will not consider bids below € 0.90.
Buy now and get a free "Clone-your-Own-Timmy-Kit" (basically, just some semen and a vodka bottle). 





"It's just some water, man!"
Mobile phone picture, ink on paper, 100x100cm.
Courtesy of the Artist. ©