auctions et cetera

1
Auckland auction house Art+Object's sale of 18 May is entitled "Important Photographs". Never has an adjective been so degraded to meaninglessness by over-use. What "important" means here is familiar images by well-known photographers likely to sell. Is that what "important" means vis a vis the medium? I don't think so. In terms of what photography is and does, such trading is very, very unimportant. One yearns to see a sale of "Unimportant Photographs". But, could they tell the difference?

2
In an essay about the auction's opening lot, one of A+O's directors writes "... Shelton's diptychs somehow manage, at a time when photography's aesthetic value is constantly being called into question by the sheer profusion of the photographic image, to distance the photograph from its subject and, as Francis Pound so eloquently puts it, to 'place it in the luminous realm of the aesthetic'. Should we be grateful that photography is being admitted to the pantheon on such condescending terms? It's akin to being told "You're at our place now, so leave your shoes at the door in case you muddy the fine carpet of our aesthetic judgement". This is armchair Oscar Wilde - but without the Wildean acuity and irony.

3
Neither of the two writers of the catalogue's introductory pieces seems to have much purchase on the use of the apostrophe. Is it too old-fashioned to expect that basic grammatical competency be one of the foundations of professionalism? Good designers and printers have been employed on the publication - why not a proof-reader?

4
In a short piece on Laurence Aberhart, the writer refers to "the recent touring exhibition and superb catalogue". Such a pity, then, the show wasn't seen in Auckland.

5
On his blog, Peter Peryer has queried the implications of the use of the phrase "art and photography". Try finding a medical text referring to "life and breathing". In both cases one tends to assume the other.