A few days after the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated in early April 1945, German civilians from the nearby town of Weimar were made to tour the camp, to see with their own eyes what had happened just a few miles from their homes. On one of these days, photographer Margaret Burke-White was present, to record such a visit (see this link; in the above image, that’s MBW taking a reading with her light meter). Up until the Allies’ armies found the many concentration camps, photographers had covered the war in the usual ways, with the usual imagery. But at the camps, the liberators were staring into an abyss of utter horror, and much to their credit the photographers did not hesitate to record it so that everybody could see. The people of Weimar were made to see. Everybody else, who was not there, was made to see, too - newspapers and magazines all over the world reprinted the photographs taken by Margaret Burke-White and her colleagues.
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I’m sure you have seen this already, but just in case you haven’t… (via) Update (9 March 2010): Also see this link.
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The Armory Art Show takes the idea that art isn’t a commodity to be sold like the machines and tools on display at the Hannover industrial trade show (that I used to visit as a teenager) and dispenses with it neatly. If any of the Show’s objects at some stage were in the presence of an artist toiling over their meaning and worth (I’m not talking about money here), you wouldn’t know that once you encountered them at the Piers in New York City. Make no mistake, I had no illusions about the Armory Show before I went. So I did not undergo the kind of shock treatment that someone with romantic ideas about the commercial art world would experience if she or he was exposed to such an abomination of the human spirit for the first time. That said, the Armory Show still was a soul crushing experience, where your soul is not only crushed, it’s actually slowly and steadily ground into a fine powder.
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Ray Dowd has some very smart comments on the recent Korean War Veteran’s Memorial fair-use case.
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“Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rightly decided that the US Post Office’s use of an image, based on a copyrighted sculpture, was not fair use. As a result, the Federal Circuit’s decision holds that the US Post Office is liable to the sculptor and remands the case back to the trial court so that damages may be determined. […] The Center for Internet Society (‘CIS’) filed an amicus on behalf of the Andy Warhol Foundation, and several other amici […]. In the amici, the CIS unsuccessfully argued that the US Post Office’s use was fair use, ‘We think fair use does and should protect this right, which is crucial to huge amounts of expression, including vast amounts of modern art.’” - story Update: Also make sure to read this post.
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“As an English-born student of European history teaching in the US; as a Jew somewhat uncomfortable with much that passes for ‘Jewishness’ in contemporary America; as a social democrat frequently at odds with my self-described radical colleagues, I suppose I should seek comfort in the familiar insult of ‘rootless cosmopolitan.’ But that seems to me too imprecise, too deliberately universal in its ambitions. Far from being rootless, I am all too well rooted in a variety of contrasting heritages. […] I prefer the edge: the place where countries, communities, allegiances, affinities, and roots bump uncomfortably up against one another — where cosmopolitanism is not so much an identity as the normal condition of life. Such places once abounded. Well into the twentieth century there were many cities comprising multiple communities and languages — often mutually antagonistic, occasionally clashing, but somehow coexisting. Sarajevo was one, Alexandria another. Tangiers, Salonica, Odessa, Beirut, and Istanbul all qualified — as did smaller towns like Chernovitz and Uzhhorod. By the standards of American conformism, New York resembles aspects of these lost cosmopolitan cities: that is why I live here.” - Tony Judt
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An interesting post about photography and public art. I’m vehemently pro-fair-use in this case. For me, the focal point is the word “public.” If an artist wants to have her/his art work protected then s/he should not agree to have it used as public art. And, of course, part of my thinking in based on the simple fact that most public art is just so painfully bad (this being my favourite example; here is another photo).
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“The last few years have raised important copyright issues and concerns for artists. There are three main factors which have impacted-and will continue to impact-how visual artists relate to each other, to art institutions, and to other intellectual property right holders when it concerns issues of copyright.” - full story
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“The true affront to Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard’s dignity is that he died young, thousands of miles away from his family, where he was serving the wishes of a government that has a political agenda that it cannot pursue without resorting to violence on a mass scale.” writes Tom White about a photograph of a fatally wounded US soldier, a photo of which caused a bit of a stir some time ago. A must-read post.
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Colin today linked to this interview with Jaron Lanier. I’m sure by now you have heard of Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, and what you might have heard is perfectly mirrored in the introduction of the interview. The book is described as a “doom and gloom manifesto […] even if” - brace yourselves - “Lanier insists that it is, overall, an optimistic book.” You gotta ask yourself: What does the author know, when there’s a journalist to tell it like it is? When you read reviews you will come to the conclusion that the book cannot possibly be “an optimistic book” - except, of course, that it is. How do I know this? The very old-fashioned way: I bought the book, and I read it (I’ll review it here at some stage).
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“In an interview with the newsmagazine Focus, Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner has called for a law to better protect the private sphere on the Internet and has taken Street View to task. ‘This comprehensive photo offensive is nothing less than a million-fold violation of the private sphere,’ Aigner said. […] ‘I would like to see a reversal of the present system. Citizens shouldn’t have to take action to prevent the publication of their private data. Rather, Google should be required to obtain the consent of citizens when they want to publish a photo of their private home.’” - story
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Another follow-up, this one to my post about fair use. Here is a post about sculptors who produced a piece out of a photo by Alex Brown. I actually knew of that case, Alex had emailed me before I wrote my fair-use post. In my response to Alex’s email I wrote him that I considered this a case of plagiarism. That said, here is a suggestion for how to solve this particular case: Have the sculptors add Alex as a co-creator of the work and have them give him a share of whatever money they might make (if they make any). This solution might actually work for a lot of similar cases, and it would satisfy those who think it’s obvious plagiarism (the creative work of the photographer would be preserved, since he would be given credit for his work), and those who think it’s not (because the derived art work - if we want to call it that - would just remain part of the art world).
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Art critic Regina Hackett just blogged about this portrait painted by Jesse Edwards (see the artist’s website here). I couldn’t help but think about Rob’s post about ‘fair use’ from the other day again: When or where does ‘fair use’ begin (or end)? When is a use not fair? (updated below - twice)
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“Seattle photographer Mike Hipple […] received a letter from the lawers of a sculptor named Jack Mackie. Apparently a photograph that Mike took 10 years previous and was selling as stock, featured a woman dancing along the sidewalk with a portion of Jack’s sculpture ‘Dance Steps on Broadway’ visible. Mr. Mackie claimed copyright infringement in the letter.” (story)
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You’ve probably seen articles like this one, entitled Why information should remain free, by Tom White. It does seem to make a lot of sense, right? After all, the web does away with all those pesky problems about distribution, ink and paper - so why should information not be free? The problem with all of this is that it ignores the fact that someone will have to pay the salaries of the people who put that information online, and curiously enough, that aspect I almost never see addressed anywhere. It’s great to talk about how information should be free - even though it feels a bit like trying to argue with a bumper sticker, doesn’t it? (updated below)
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From what I read and hear from people there seems to be a steadily growing discontent with the coverage of the Haiti earthquake. If I tried to assemble a list of links it would probably be incomplete, here are just two articles I came across that struck me as noteworthy (no doubt there are many more). Haiti coverage: ‘Disaster porn’? is a collection of links plus short summaries itself. More to the point of photography, Does Haiti’s Crisis Call for a New Photojournalism? is a very interesting piece by Michael David Murphy. (updated below)
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“I think the crucial difference is that curating should really imply more than a process of selection. Ideally it should not only be based on in-depth research into a particular area, but it should also attempt to contribute new ideas that shed light on some unseen aspect or that allow us to see things in a new context. When I think of the best curated photography shows over the past decade, they were all based on several years of painstaking research and all attempted to say something new about their subject.” - Marc Feustel
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“Professional and amateur photographers have gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to protest against terror stop and searches.” (story; photo by Michael Perrin, from the BBC’s website)
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When I looked into virginity pledge rings the other day (for use in this post), I had no idea that the concept existed outside of a religious context. Today, the Ostkreuz blog features an interview with photographer Pepa Hristová about “sworn virgins” in Albania: “‘Sworn Virgins’ are women, who have sworn for a life-long virginity in order to fit into the role of men. This has nothing to do with transsexualism. Instead, it is about a rise in the hierarchy of the strictly patriarchal society in Albania; from there on they are classified as men.”
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There are two must-read blog posts, both filled to the brim with links, about Haiti and photography there. dvafoto have this post, with some thoughts about photojournalism and its role. And Pete has a huge post, telling you where to look if you want to donate, see photos, see in-depth coverage, get some background, …
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If you’re following art blogs I’m sure you have heard about commercial gallerist Jeffrey Deitch getting hired as director by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art - Tyler collects up some responses and reacts to them here. When I heard about LA MoCA’s decision my first reaction was a bit of surprise, and then I was reminded of what we often get to see in the world of Washington politics.
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Chris Hedges wrote an article about two photography books (Peter van Agtmael’s “2nd Tour Hope I don’t Die” and Lori Grinker’s “Afterwar: Veterans From a World in Conflict”) entitled The Pictures of War You Aren’t Supposed to See. In response, Jim Johnson wrote a very smart post (where I found Chris’ original article), noting that “Hedges neglects at least two crucial matters. The first is whether war photographs might have the effect he supposes. […] the second […] is whether even if photographs had the requisite effects it would or could matter to the underlying reality of war and collective violence.” Two important posts, which touch upon many aspects of what war photography might be able to do, what its limitations might be, and what those limitations might arise from.
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“At first glance the new issue of Germany’s Brigitte looks just like a normal fashion magazine. Attractive, perfectly made-up young women show off stylish clothes from labels like French Connection, Escada and H&M, glancing flirtatiously over their shoulders, pouting their lips or staring pensively into the distance. But something about the photos looks different. A prominent tummy here and noticeable wrinkles there reveal that these are not size-zero Amazons straight from the catwalk, but real women. As of the January issue, which hit the newsstands Saturday, Brigitte will use only amateur models in its fashion shoots.” - story
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The first (and only) time I went to the New Museum, and of course I was snapping some photos with my little digital camera (mind you, not of the utterly forgettable art on display, but of the building). A “security” guard approached me and told me “You can’t take pictures here,” and I almost responded “Oh yeah? I just did.” But I ended up being a good boy and put my camera away. This experience will be familiar to many people taking photos, and a new post over at the Smithsonian talks in length about the various cases (the UK seems to have become a particularly bad place for photographers; see Michael’s new post).
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“The best criticism is written for only one person. It is up to the writer to decide who this person should be. Of the thousands of art reviews I have written over the last 40 years, the most effective, in my view, have been the great many silently addressed to my sister, Erin. […] Erin is a traveller; she is socially active, interested in art and writing and architecture, and open to new experiences, but not easily impressed. I have always believed that, if I could convince Erin that such-and-such an artwork or work of architecture was worth her attention - if I could argue my way past her flourishing scepticism - then I could convince anyone. I would urge every new writer to adopt this approach—to find one questioning person to write for, framing every review as a fervent message to him or her.” - John Bentley Mays (via)
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“The art world is already divided into unknowns, emerging, established, mid-career, international artists, and according to what graduate program you went to, who you’re friends with and your social pedigree. It’s more like a high-school cafeteria.” - William Powhida
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“I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. Visual artists are conflicted as to where they stand in relation to copyright laws. To be more precise, there seems to be two camps: those that favor strong copyright protection for artists and their copyrights, and those that favor either a relaxed form of fair use or worse yet, a ‘right’ to appropriate and lift from copyright owners without any legal repercussions. As a friend of mine noticed […] this makes complete sense. Those artists who favor stronger copyright laws are making money from their work, many times substantially. Those favoring ‘free culture’ or, ‘let information flow,’ are usually those artists making little to no money from their artwork. […] Hidden underneath this dilemma is a reality that many artists […] are reluctant to accept: that a viable artistic practice (at least in the so-called ‘art world’) is in fact no different than operating a for-profit business. One can veil or name this what one wants, but the reality is that successful artists […] face legal and business issues similar to those of a bar owner, an employer, a publisher, an Internet company, a shipping company, etc.” - Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento
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The two most exciting things about New York’s New Museum are a) the building and b) the semi-hip abbreviation used when people talk about it: NuMu. Of course, that’s just me, and all I’ve seen at the NuMu was its very first show. Anyway, you have probably heard about the current kerfuffle about the museum, now elevated from Tyler’s blog to all over the web and media world via an article in the New York Times. (slightly updated below)
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“Germany’s most popular women’s magazine is banning professional models from its pages and replacing them with images of “real life” women instead.” (story, via).
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“To me the big thing in this moment is not so much the decline of newspapers but the failure of almost everybody so far to find a way to sustain accountability journalism online.” - Nicholas Lemann
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There are a lot of good and interesting points being made by William Patry in this interview (found here), which, I am sure, will have a lot of people get very upset. I don’t agree with all the various details, but I do agree very strongly with these following statements: “I would rather not draw a sharp distinction between creators and users. One of the transformational attributes of the Internet is to make all of us potential creators. The same is true of fair use: fair use is of benefit to all creators, including large corporations.” and “I would like to see copyright return to the U.S. Copyright Act, where we had a shorter term, and formalities, a copyright law that gave copyright owners enough incentives but not too much.”
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This article provides addresses some of the issues that enter the discussions surrounding Pieter Hugo’s work, and it’s an important read.
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As I noted elsewhere, a little while ago Jim Johnson published a pretty harsh criticism of Pieter Hugo’s work, saying that the photographer seemed “to portray Africa as a freak show”. I’m torn about Hugo’s work, some I like very much (such as Looking Aside or Messina / Musina), some I think deserves to be called out by Jim (this would be The Hyena and Other Men and Nollywood). Of course, my preferences are solely based on looking at the photographs (I own two of the books) and on reacting to them based on a) what I know about photography, b) how I view photography, c) what I like and don’t like in photography, and d) what I know about Africa from reading about it (I have never been there myself) and from talking with a good photographer friend who spent a long time taking photos there. Today, Amy Stein published a piece written by Sebastien Boncy, which makes Jim’s post sound pretty tame. Of course, throwing in the word “racism” means pouring a lot of kerosine into the flames; but hopefully, the piece will initiate a debate that will talk about the issues and help clearing things up a bit.
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“Irving Penn, one of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential photographers of fashion and the famous, whose signature blend of classical elegance and cool minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide, died Wednesday morning at his home in Manhattan.” - obit (Rob’s blog alerted me to this)
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Following up on this earlier post, here’s On The Media reporting on ‘Ruin Porn’ (btw, that’s not photographs of naked women in abandoned buildings - the supposed appeal of which escapes me, but that’s another topic). Jerry Redfern, a photojournalist, sent this to me, pointing out the major shortcoming of On The Media’s report: They make it sound as if photographers are sent to Detroit with unlimited budgets and the general instruction to take photos of whatever they want (my way of phrasing this, not Jerry’s). Obviously, that’s not the case. Of course, there are photographers who go to Detroit just because it’s something they want to do, but the photography you see in, for example, Time Magazine was done for that magazine, to illustrate some story. So making it sound as if ‘Ruin Porn’ was just the photographers’ fault really doesn’t cut it: In the world of Time et al. ‘Ruin Porn’ might just be a symptom of larger problems in the world of journalism.
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Here is a classical case of ridiculous Photoshopping meeting the fashion industry meeting corporate bullying: “Last month, Xeni [a boing boing writerer] blogged about the photoshop disaster that is this Ralph Lauren advertisement, in which a model’s proportions appear to have been altered to give her an impossibly skinny body (‘Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis’). Naturally, Xeni reproduced the ad in question. This is classic fair use: a reproduction ‘for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting,’ etc. However, Ralph Lauren’s marketing arm and its law firm don’t see it that way. According to them, this is an ‘infringing image,’ and they thoughtfully took the time to send a DMCA takedown notice to our awesome ISP, Canada’s Priority Colo. […] So, to Ralph Lauren, GreenbergTraurig, and PRL Holdings, Inc: sue and be damned. Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better.”
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“Art that engages with popular culture isn’t necessarily any good - in fact, often it’s the opposite” argues Jonathan Jones
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I won’t pretend I find the photography featured in this presentation very interesting, but I do like the combination of text plus images plus multimedia. This might be the future of magazines - where you “flip through” a magazine online, and if there’s anything that interests you, you can watch some movie or hear some audio file.
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Tyler Green posted some comments on the National Arts Journalism Program’s National Summit on Arts Journalism (as did Ian Aleksander Adams). After Ian’s post I looked at the project, and Tyler’s commentary matches what I thought, in particular: “however well-intentioned, the NAJP project is a lost opportunity. It fails to address significant recent developments and the realities of contemporary journalism, especially as they apply to niche topics such as art journalism. […] NAJP’s decision to focus on profit-generating models is the result of a misreading of the current media environment. Not even the wealthiest, smartest legacy-media companies have figured out how to be profitable in the fast-emerging digital-first environment. […] for the foreseeable future, it is not realistic to expect advertising and traditional, for-profit revenue models (such as those focused on subscribers) to sustain niche journalism.”
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Using the headline Pictures that please us, Lucy Danziger, editor-in-chief of the women’s health magazine Self openly admits and defends her magazine’s retouching transformation of singer Kelly Clarkson for their cover. Before you read on look at this page to see images of what Ms Clarkson looks like on the cover and in reality.
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“This corner says that the Chelsea gallery scene will be gone within a year with the exception of half a dozen megaspaces, feeder galleriess for Fashionland and ClubLand. It is weird right now to see vast swathes of Chelsea territory which resemble the bad parts of Staten Island dotted by visually claustrophobic Frank Gehry buildings and their spawn. When everyone who still has cash is dancing in the High Line sky and staring into each other’s wealthy windows, then the junkies and whores can seize the streets below.” - story/opinion
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Remember the days when you would receive postcards from friends in the mail (and by “mail” I mean that box that’s next to your door, which these days is filled only with junk mail and bills), maybe because they were on vacation somewhere? I don’t know about you, but seeing them “Twitter” something like “Checked in now. Seats 34C and D” is not quite the same experience as holding an actual postcard - even if the information on it is the same or comparable: “We had OK seats on the flight” (Theorists might now start long discussions about the “tangible”).
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Via art collectors I found these useful art gallery terms. Some very funny, such as “Limited edition” meaning “Generally, art produced in sufficient quantities that its practical availability will be unlimited.” (“Isn’t that cute, isn’t that true?” - Dusty Towne) or “Secondary market”: “The art world equivalent of a used-car lot, where work is sold with no benefit to the artist, except the rise or fall of his reputation.”
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Paddy Johnson over at artfagcity certainly claims it is. I don’t see how I am putting an “awfully positive spin on the value of reproductions” given that most photography books - and this is a photography blog - are well, if not extremely well produced objects. Compared with a $2,000 or $10,000 print a $80 book is in fact not only very much affordable (as an aside, some photography might in fact actually work better in book form) but indeed “a valuable alternative aesthetic experience”, because we’re talking about photography here. If you don’t believe it, look at the photography books I have been reviewing on Fridays on this blog! Some of those books are so well produced and printed that you could cut out pages, frame them and hang them on the wall.
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These days, barely a week goes by without yet another announcement of some photography now on sale for cheap somewhere. You will never see the word “cheap”, of course - you might see “affordable”. But regardless, prices seem to be coming down; or maybe the range of prices now extends to numbers, which the art world has not seen in many years. I’d be the first to admit that part of me welcomes this trend, because given that photography has such a wide appeal it should be affordable for large numbers of people.
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“A pair of photograph collectors in Maryland, USA, have uncovered what they believe to be the first and only ever photographic record of Phineas Gage - the railway worker who survived an iron tamping rod passing straight through the front of his brain, following an explosives accident in 1848.” (story) (Updated below)
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If you’re not immensely bored by the Fairey saga (you know, where a hipster/amazing artist took/stole someone else’s photograph to transform/convert/rip off it into a political campaign poster/an amazing piece of art/an utterly shallow piece of nonsense - your picks - and then got sued), here is the latest update: The photographer who took the photo now claims he owns the copyright and not AP. It’s hard to predict what will happen next; but I’m sure there will be new “developments” for a while.
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You might have heard of Chris Anderson’s new book ‘Free’, which, if what I hear is correct (I haven’t read it, yet), is all about how “free” is the new black. It certainly sounds great, right? After “always low prices” there’s now “free”! Of course, just like “always low prices” comes at a price (a new book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, explores this), “free” does, too. Malcolm Gladwell took ‘Free’ apart, and this review from the New York Times also notes quite a few problems.
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Ed Winkleman just published a post about political art, which is worth the read. For once, I do not agree with Ed, even though that doesn’t mean that I feel compelled to embrace each and every bit of art that proclaims and/or pretends to be political. When I think about photography, it’s straightforward to come up with a large number of artists whose work is quite political, while it still is wonderful art. I don’t know whether he would agree, but for me, Brian Ulrich’s work is one of the examples I can think of (there are many others).
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“So the other day, I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Slate’s editors were, ‘ironically, unable to get permission’ to reproduce Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy), 2003 for Sarah Boxer’s slideshow review of ‘Into The Sunset,’ MoMA’s exhibition of photography’s role in creating the concept of the American West. [The irony, of course, is that Prince’s work is actually a rephotograph of a Marlboro Man ad, which was probably photographed originally by Jim Krantz.] And so I blithely grabbed an image of Untitled (Cowboy) online, resized and retitled it, and republished it as my own work, 300 x 404, After Untitled (Cowboy) 2003 by Richard Prince, and offered to let Slate show it instead. Though I’ve written for Slate before, they have not, as yet, taken me up on my offer.” - greg.org; also see the follow-up post.
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