All Things Art & Photography
File this under “the irony of our modern world”.
I went to read an article on the New York Times site and low and behold they were running a conflicting ad directly next to the article on how women are portrayed in Stock Photos. I guess they have no idea what ad runs where?
They should…
The La Perla Ad is a bit of a problem in this context…LOL
New York Times And the Portrayal of Women
Photography is at its best when it becomes more than just the thing photographed. Jackie Nickerson gives us both photograph as human sculpture and a faceless portrait of the thankless tasks preformed by the farm workers of Zimbabwe; which then becomes a metaphor for the invisible workers everywhere who provide the modern world with all its material desires. See this incredible series: TERRAIN
TERRAIN
JANUARY 16 – FEBRUARY 15, 2014 @ JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY
513 WEST 20TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011
“Jackie Nickerson began photographing Zimbabwean farm workers in 1996 as a way to change the perception that those who work in African agriculture are dis-empowered, un-modern people. The resulting series, Farm, focused on the unique and beautiful clothing the workers made for themselves, and by doing so highlighted the worker’s identity, individuality, and ultimately their modernism.
This was published by Jonathan Cape in September 2002. German edition, ‘Leben Mit Der Erde’, published by Frederking and Thaler, 2002; French edition, ‘Une Autre Afrique’, published by Flammarion 2002.
For her most recent series, TERRAIN, Nickerson turns her attention to the roles in which workers play in the production and commodification of agricultural goods. TERRAIN focuses on the synergy between cultivation, workers and the environment, employing a reduced artistic language to draw attention to important debates around crop specialization, subsistence farming and food security.
Nickerson was born in Boston, USA in 1960 and divides her time between Ireland and southern Africa. Her work is held in many important private and public collections and has been exhibited in venues which include the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; National Portrait Gallery, London and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.”
She is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.
Exhibition: Jackie Nickerson Photographs
Philip-Lorca diCorcia is one of the greatest photographers of his generation. His series East of Eden was his response to the George Bush era’s wonderful banking crisis, which of course we now call the Great Recession. ( To date no one has gone to jail for the collapse of the USA and the world economy )
Think about it…
Iolanda, 2011 Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner Gallery
On East of Eden, a series he started in 2008.
“That was obviously a traumatic year for alot of people,” he said. “I felt I needed to respond to the situation, to what was the culmination of George Bush’s era. So this idea of the Fall, this ejection from Eden, is what inspired the pictures, a sense that everybody’s optimism and fever to have a great life had been completely overturned. And to some degree, as in the Biblical story, it was knowledge that did it.”
“Suddenly people realised that they don’t get everything for free; that you can’t have a mortgage that you don’t have to pay back; that you can’t constantly leverage your life on your credit card. And we’d been led into two wars that were disastrous failures and misguided to begin with. I just took that as a jumping-off point for the imagery.”
via Jobey, Liz. “The Lost Eden.” Financial Times Magazine. (August 31, 2013): 24-27 [ill.]
The Photographs of Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Another great article by Carolyn E. Wright covering the Lil’ Kim copyright infringement case. Lil’ Kim stole Makeup Artist Samantha Ravndahl’s work to promote her latest single Dead Gal Walking and violated just about every copyright law on the books. If Samantha’s lawyers loose this case then pretty much anything can be stolen on the internet and used to make money without the artist permission or compensation.
You be the judge:
Li’l Kim’s image for her new single
Samantha’s published makeup work
“Back in October, Canadian artist Samantha Ravndahl produced a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a “glam zombie” look using makeup and posted it to her Instagram and other social media outlets.
About a month later, Lil’ Kim announced cover for her new single “Dead Gal Walking” and, much to Ravndahl’s surprise, the cover was her image with only slight retouching.
That kicked off a flurry activity that saw Ravndahl try to get in touch with Lil’ Kim’s camp and resolve the issue but, after more than two months of trying, Ravndahl gave up and, earlier this week, filed suit against the singer, her agent and others involved.
On the surface, this looks to be a pretty straightforward case. If Ravndahl’s description of what happened is accurate, then the use is a definite infringement and, to put it modestly, an egregious one. But the actual lawsuit raises some issues, questions and concerns that should have every photographer paying attention as they could set the tone for how photographers are positioned in similar cases down the road.
Reading the complaint, the bulk of the argument centers, as one would expect, around the traditional copyright violation. By taking the photo and using it as a cover for the single, Lil’ Kim’s camp made a variety of unauthorized, commercial copies of the work, posting it to various social media platforms and using it in promotional material.
While this is definitely an extreme example of copyright infringement, it’s also fairly straightforward. For all of the case’s egregiousness, the issues here are fairly mundane. If it is indeed Ravndahl’s photo and Lil’ Kim did not have a license for it, then it is an infringement – end of story.
However, the complaint also made a series of other arguments that are much less common and could play a big role in determining just how large of a lawsuit this becomes”.
via http://www.photoattorney.com/photogs-watch-lil-kim-case/
Why You Should Watch the Lil’ Kim Copyright Infringement Case
I can’t wait to see this show…
Remember if it were up to the dealers the photography world would be stuck in the 19th century forever. (Too much emphasis on selling antiquities and thus antiquated ideas). Try to remember it is not a lens and shutter that defines a photograph. It is now about the “ideas and concepts” behind the image and any artist should be able to embrace every tool of the trade to bring their vision to light.
There will always be those that “take” a photo and then there are those that “make” one. ( The latter is far more interesting in my opinion and where I live and think; See my new Light Projections and Infinities).
Is a scanner a type of camera? You bet it is. If there is a rule that defines what a photograph is today it is simply that there are no rules – only questions. Those that pose the most interesting questions and push the medium will succeed because change must happen. ( The type of work I am talking about can not be made with a Photoshop filter…) Embrace the changes, as this is the most exciting time for Photography I have seen in 25 years.
Matthew Brandt, Grays Lake, ID 7, 2013. © Matthew Brandt, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.
JANUARY 31–MAY 4, 2014
Organized by ICP Curator Carol Squiers, What Is a Photograph? will explore the intense creative experimentation in photography that has occurred since the 1970s. Conceptual art introduced photography into contemporary art making, using the medium in ways that challenged it artistically, intellectually, and technically and broadened the notion of what a photograph could be in art. A new generation of artists began an equally rigorous but more aesthetically adventurous analysis, which probed photography itself—from the role of light, color, composition, to materiality and the subject. What Is a Photograph? brings together these artists, who reinvented photography.
Artists
Matthew Brandt
Marco Breuer
Liz Deschenes
Adam Fuss
Owen Kydd
Floris Neusüss
Marlo PascualSigmar Polke
Eileen Quinlan
Jon Rafman
Gerhard Richter
Mariah Robertson
Alison Rossiter
Lucas SamarasTravess Smalley
David Benjamin Sherry
Kate Steciw
Artie Vierkant
James Welling
Christopher Williams
Letha Wilsonvia ICP
Exhibitions New York: What is a Photograph at ICP