Gregory Colbert

[Kirk Gittings]

Clay,

Its been a rough week and I just feel like arguing. I agree with you about Colberts deception and we all know why that is being done. Same with silly names like Gicle. I was taking issue with you taking issue with Tim over ink vs. inkjet.

Frankly I wish I had Colberts resources and marketing. If I had the time resources and a staff of ten I would love to explore a dozen or so mediums that I haven't like gravure for instance. So on top of making a living in photography and trying to do my art I am only able to explore one arena deeply at a time and I am already seeing at the ripe age of 56 that I probably will not get to explore many of the things I would like to.

[clay harmon]

Kirk,

No offense was intended on either of our parts, and none was taken, I hope. The only two points I was trying to make about the ink versus inkjet nomenclature was "why bother?" and that the work ends up speaking for itself. I agree with you that Colbert's marketing is impressive and enviable. Sort of sets a new benchmark. Wow.

[Kirk Gittings]

Michael I fail to understand your point. If I have a print hanging on a wall at a gallery and call it a pigment ink print someone is going to confuse it with a comic book? Ridiculous. And an ink print is a flowery name? It is one thing to disagree with Colbert over his obvious bullshit. It is another to disagree with the simple honest term ink print.

My friend mentioned above who airbrushes uses automotive paint. Are you saying he should call his medium "airbrushed automotive paint on canvas"? To be consistent you should call your other prints 'contact printed platinum/ paladium prints" or something. To be honest with you I don't see anyone care about what digital printers are calling their prints but the p/p guys or the odd silver printer and they are losing the battle.

[Sanders McNew]

"Sort of sets a new benchmark." Gosh, I sure hope not.

After wondering whether I was the only curmudgeon who finds Colbert's work disturbing in its excess and vanity, I went online and found most everybody raving about his work. The one notable exception was the March 12, 2005, New York Times review which savaged it for all the reasons that have troubled me. The critic, Roberta Smith, speaks highly of the architect Colbert hired to build the gallery, though she adds that Colbert finished the interior in a style that is "Anne Rice by way of Pottery Barn."

Smith calls the exhibit "a kind of vanity production." She notes the derivative nature of Colbert's work:

"Mr. Colbert's sepia-toned images prove once again that while colonialism may be dead or dying, its tropes are ever with us. ... Many of these images are striking for their simplicity, serenity and how-did-they-do-that? drama. Who doesn't love majestic animals, or ''nature's masterpieces,'' as Mr. Colbert calls them? But you would barely think twice about these photographs if you saw them framed under glass in a Chelsea art gallery. They're too derivative.

"They take us back to nature along the familiar routes of fashion photography, spare-no-expense ad campaigns and National Geographic cultural tourism. They evoke Richard Avedon's 1955 fashion classic ''Dovima With Elephants,'' Irving Penn's images of stoic Peruvian peasants, images of the young Dalai Lama and bus stop posters for expensive spas. They hark back to the 19th century, when early photographers traipsed the globe to record the alien glories of empire for the folks back home, and the early 20th, when Isadora Duncan was photographed dancing among Greek ruins."

The exhibit concluded with a film, its narrative written by Colbert and read by the portentous Laurence Fishburn, complete with sentiments like: "I want to see through the elephant's eyes. I want to dance the dance that has no steps. I want to become the dance.'' After several more observations about Colbert's appearance in the film as the only "white guy" surrounded by African and Asian women, children and big game (you can guess Ms. Smith's sentiments here), Smith concludes: "This exhibition pulls out all the stops to sensitize us to the natural world, but mainly it reveals that selfless sincerity is often close to overweaning egomania and that the path between them is unconsciousness."

The complete review is at this URL if you want to read it through:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E3DC143CF931A25750C0A9639C8B63&sec=&pagewanted=1

Sanders McNew

[tim atherton]

"I've got to take exception to that statement, as there are many processes out there that use ink in some manner, and because of that some use the delivery system as part of the naming convention. To call an inkjet print an 'ink print' flies in the face of all the other ink and paper processes out there that could just as well be called an 'ink print'. "

but as far as I recall none of them "are" called that?

I feel "ink print" is the good basic term adapted in many cases depending on the process and materials to something like "pigment ink print" (and some may choose dyes for stronger colours say and those could a "dye ink print" etc).

"These mixed media photographic works marry umber and sepia tones in a distinctive encaustic process on handmade Japanese paper."

Colbert's stuff really doesn't do it for me, and I'm still not entirely sure what he means by encaustic - but the whole thing about the handmade Japanese paper etc a). One of the exciting things about digital/inkjet printing the the ability to print photographs on many different types of substrate - and b) It's exactly the sort of spiel you see on many a mediocre alt-photo type site trying to justify all the time and effort that was put into the process

Finally - - wow - what a load of sour grapes. The history of art (and also photography) has a good few in it who were extravagant and effective promoters of their work and had the funds to do so - some made good work others not so good....

[clay harmon]

Well, for what it's worth, I am more impressed by the marketing juggernaut than anything in the photos. My first impression is that it all seems a little precious and twee. No pictures here of a human corpse eviscerated by a lion. That happens too, if you think about it. Not that I would want to look at that either, but this whole kinship with the animals things seems like the over-the-top idealism often seen in someone who has never fought off a vicious domestic dog (I delivered papers in my youth, and I have no idealistic ideas that animals love us like there is no tomorrow). Anyway, it apparently makes some people feel really good to look at this work, and I guess that is not a bad thing.

[Michael Mutmansky]

Kirk,

If I have a print hanging on a wall at a gallery and call it a pigment ink print someone is going to confuse it with a comic book? Ridiculous. And an ink print is a flowery name?

I am suggesting that the term 'ink print' is not truly a proper way to define an inkjet print because the world is loaded with processes and methods that just as suitably could be called 'ink print'. All of them came before the inkjet print. I'm not suggesting that anyone will confuse a cheap offset print with a printer spurt print, but in deference to the world of existing ink on paper arts out there, I think the name should be indicitive of it's origins in some manner, as is a rotogravure and photogravure.

Most alt process printing processes didn't need to have a name more specific than the primary vehicle used (silver, Pt/PD, carbon, etc.) because there aren't enough variations in the processes to require distinctions in that manner. And in cases where variations did show up, the name of the process was generally made more specific in some manner, not less specific. That's what happens in an increasing complex environment as specialization increases.

Now, if inkjet prints were the first ink on paper process, then I would have no problem calling them 'ink prints'. But they aren't and it is somewhat disrespectful of the other media that use ink on paper to upsurpt a generic name that can rightly describe an entire category of images.

When I used the term flowery, I was referring to the Colbert designation, not 'ink print'.

Ultimately, I haven't seen a single legitimate reason to not call them by their commonly given name, and I will continue to do so. It simply strikes me as aggrandizement to do otherwise, but if someone is comfortable doing so, it's not really my interest to change them, unless they have appropriated a terminology that is or was of a meaningful different process at some point, like calling them 'carbon prints', as has been done by some photographers.

---Michael

[Kirk Gittings]

Long before (years) I ever made an ink print, I thought the term inkjet print was a misnomer as was the term Gicle.

"I haven't seen a single legitimate reason to not call them by their commonly given name"

I personally don't give a hoot about common usage if the common usage is wrong or misleading.

The plain fact is that for generations in most artistic media a piece of art is identified by the materials used NOT by the delivery system. What do I care what the general public's common terminology is? I rarely deal with the general public. For better or worse I operate in the art world and have since 1970 and the common means of identifying art in the art world is by the media used.

Perhaps it is as simple as that-our backgrounds are different. We are coming at this from a different point of reference.

[QT Luong]

Colbert's work troubles me. On the one hand, the work has undeniable power. On the other, his is, quite literally, a manufactured celebrity.

Who ever becomes famous and succesful without benefiting from promotion ?



He dumped many millions of dollars into the project; bought himself his own gallery to show his work in; underwrote an incredibly-expensive mass marketing campaign when the show was in New York, with signage and print ads everywhere; paid Jon Cone to print his work for him; and so on.

None of this would have been sufficient if the work had no power. And why is it less honorable to
represent yourself than play by the rules of established galleries ?



Was Colbert a photographer or a project manager?

Why should that be mutually exclusive ? There are many advertising photographers who run large studios that require complex project management skills as well.



At the end of the day I am left with questions that trouble me. Where is the honesty in the way these images are presented to the public? Where is the integrity in this work?

Where is the dishonesty and lack of integrity ? (remember one is innocent until proved guilty).



How did Colbert make it?

I'd certainly be interested to learn that as well, but why should any artist be under obligation to reveal
his methods ?

Did he make it?

Obviously he did not take the pictures in which he appears himself, and credits "Colbert and collaborators".





Where did the money come from to underwrite such an enormous effort?

Rolex is acknowledged. It also seems that the exhibits earned a respectable amount of money just from ticket sales. And then, there are print sales... But again why would that matter ? Salguado worked on no less monumental projects despicting the human condition. Did it matter that he was able to do so because at one point he was the only photographer present during Reagan's assassination attempt ?



Is it okay to buy your way into the ranks of accepted photographers?

Nobody can do that. What made him accepted is his work. He had a vision and found a way to mobilize resources to make it happen, not the other way around. It took him 14 years of full-time work to complete the project. Many other careers have been built in less time than that.

[Sal Santamaura]

"...(remember one is innocent until proved guilty)."

As far as the US is concerned, that's true only true in a court of law, not in the court of public opinion.