Dispute over African photographer's images

[Bruce Schultz]

Good article in NY Times on African photographer's legacy, with 5x7 fotos:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/arts/design/22rips.html?th&emc=th

[Bill_1856]

Well, that was certainly a confusing article. It brings up again the ambiguity between the value of prints of photographers who make great images but can't print worth doodly (Dorothea Lange, Cartier-Bresson, etc) and those whose magnificant prints have been made by countless hours toiling in their own darkroom (Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, etc.).

[tim atherton]

"It brings up again the
ambiguity between the value of prints of photographers who make great
images but can't print worth doodly (Dorothea Lange, Cartier-Bresson,
etc) and those whose magnificant prints have been made by countless hours
toiling in their own darkroom (Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, etc.)."

really ? I don't think there is any correlation between the two? And this story is more about cheating reps and agents - who seem to exist around every artistic endeavour.

[Paddy Quinn]

this is in some ways similar to the case a few years ago where the gallery owner/negative owner was busy re-printing Atgets and passing them off as originals

[Bill_1856]

Does it really matter if its an original print by the photographer or a superb, perhaps even better, print made from his negative by a master printer? If a prime criterion for an items value lies in its rarity, then Yes it certainly does matter. It is true of collecting photographs, Rembrandts, or Ferraris.

$100 will buy you a custom, museum quality, print of "Migrant Mother" from the Library Of Congress -- I doubt that a million dollars would get you one actually printed by Lang. Personally, I'd rather have the LOC version, but that's not what drives "the market".

[jim Ryder]

In some ways this article makes the point of the authenticity of vision. Similiar to musical performances. Beethoven symphonies performed by a late 20th century metropolitan orchestra is very different than one performed on original instruments in small venues. The difference between one of Keita's hand printed gray 5x7s and the super enlargments on modern materials featuring much greater and trendier contrast. The negative as the score and the print as the performance is very apt. But the audience and the experience change as well. As the article makes plain these are not easy issues. To me there is no substitute for a beautiful, vintage print made by the maker of the negative. But perhaps that is just a question of taste and the truth lies in a broader social and technological context which ebbs and flows, revealing different meanings than originally intended. The truth of this story is that a very obscure photographer using primitive materials and with very limited intentions is the trigger of a tale that is an examplar of such post modern sensibilities. To me what it means is there is hope in the process. Photography as a very democratic reflection of all kinds of visions in all kinds of methods. We throw our images into a river and who knows what the birds who find them will think.

[paulr]

it hints at a kind of revisionism (or at least questions about revisionism). here's someone from decades ago being presented as decades ahead of his time ... but a fair amount of that presentation has to do with the print style, which has nothing to do with the original vision.

it would be a little like printing Migrant Mother in high contrast, 4 feet by 6 feet, with the edges of the negative showing, tacking it to a wall in chelsea, and saying "look how ahead of her time Dorothea Lang was."

Of course, I havent's seen the work in question, and it sounds like it may have other remarkable and even anachronistic qualities too.

[Leonard Evens]

Whatever the merits of the various arguments about different prints, I found the images quite impressive. I could be wrong, but I think I would also have seen the basic quality in badly made prints from the same negatives, albeit needing improvement in printing. But perhaps those of us who regularly make our own prints find it easier to see such things.

[paulr]

Well, it's not really a question of whether or not they're impressive. The question is are they a hugely important art-historical find, worthy of big buzz and collector salivation. It takes a lot more than a good picture to generate that.

[Terence Spross]

If I can correlate this to the music world:

Right now there are various popular artists whose work are re-released as re-mixes by people who are usually famous club DJ’s. The re-mixes are usually done without the original artist present. The record co. who owns the artist literally, sells the rights as it sees fit although contractually the original performer may be compensated for the additional releases. The result is a artistic collaboration, even if the two individuals could never be in the same room without some confrontation. Then there are the Rap artists who use samples of others work and weave that into their own and might not even acknowledge the original work. All if this results in a lot of behind the scenes legal maneuvers, court cases and contracts.

I expect the same to be true of photography, the Seydou Keïta case being an early example, and the future holds even more parallels. I expect to see re-printing of the classics, with or without the originals photographers consent. With digital techniques, whole other compositions could be printed with the result being completely different compositions in completely different sub-genres of the art. I expect major names to be solely re-printers with the originals photographers name sometimes minimized. Sometimes, as with Rap, you might have to look deeply to even see the remnants of the originals photographers(s) work. Yet the result is still art.