Why not - and who defines what is or was an original concept? The galleries, the art historians? "Commercialism", yeah...Originally Posted by Greg Blank
In a copy and paste world, appropriation is a daily occurrence, whether it is conscious or not. This takes it one step further.
I am reminded of a certain church in Ranchos de Taos. I must have seen at least 100 different photos of it, and probably as many different paintings too, all of them similar enough to each other to have been labeled "plagiarism", as here. I'm not saying that intentionally reproducing another's idea can't make one a jerk and possibly invalidate the importance of one's art. But, certainly its not a copyright infringement or legally actionable. At least it should not be, it makes the plaintiff into an even bigger douche.
Given easy to access limited numbers of viewpoints, many photographer's will make similar images. Unless there is some intent to misappropriate the ideas of another, there is no problem. It does little for the images' value as art, but its not even necessarily plagiarism.
That's the point.
When you look at the individual images that make up "Horizons", they do not come up as extremely strong images. What makes "Horizons" work is a concept: having a fixed horizon line and a whitish sky in all images of otherwise disparate locations.
It appears that "Sacred and secular" uses the same concept (although it is refined further, with more uniform skies and waters). If you look at this updated post on PDN http://bit.ly/c4dfqy you'll see a comparison of the two installations. I find that more troubling than the similarity of individual images.
While there has been some clever post modern work that was a commentary on photographic originality, that intention was made clear in artist's statements. It doesn't appear to the case here.
Well, that would be terribly boring (read: unoriginal) if it said how to interpret the art right on the package, wouldn't it? Let the audience do a bit of thinking at least...
I can't fault someone shooting a well known scene from a familiar compositional view point. There are simply some scenes that work exceptionally well from a particular spot and those scene are going to get captured that way over and over again even if they're not widely known. If you have to rule out shooting any location that's been shot before you're just going to run out of planet. So in my view you need to bring something different to the image.
Now while the notion of shooting a horizon centric, blank sky, blank foreground style is far from new or original, in fact it's not used that much because most often it's boring, I have to agree with QT that it's the fact that this same style was used with the same subjects from nearly the same POV's that is troubling. I can understand being influenced by or inspired by someone else's work, I can't imagine Burdeny intentionally copying someone else's work. But yet the similarities remain.
The art world as we know it is very different today as concept has become the guiding principle and content has taken a back seat. I still find it incomprehensible that Prince's out and out copy of the Marlboro man photograph/advertisement is not considered plagiarism by the art world and that the piece itself sold for over $1 million. To me concept is the easy way out for art and content the hard way. Anything can be conceptualized and then justified with enough verbiage. But standing in a freezing rain holding an umbrella over a camera day in and day out waiting for the sun and clouds and conditions to be just right for a scene is not easy and few today show that commitment. Not when one can head to the diner, sit down, have some coffee and eggs then take a photo of the messy post breakfast table, spend 20 minutes coming up with a title and post exposure "concept", and head home with a piece of art.
Maybe I'm old school, but to me while a concept of some sort is needed, it isn't some over reaching, self important, aggrandizing theory of universal connectivity that really doesn't even apply to the image in question. It has to be about content. What you put in that image is all that matters, the composition, the elements, the light, the mood, the moment, NOT what you can say about it. If you need to write an essay to justify/explain your imagery, maybe you have chosen the wrong media. Maybe you're a writer NOT a photographer.
So we go back to the "too similar" images. What's funny is that if Burdeny's announced concept was to show the repeatability of photography, or the shared vision of photographers, or some other Prince like rationalization for copying some image, this whole thing would not be considered an issue, in fact Burdeny might be considered bold for examining a common issue in photography.
When did we get away from photography, where the photograph is what mattered, and get to a point where what matters about a photo is what we say about it?
I think this is well said, and to me summarizes the difference between the good/great and the mediocre.
I also think in terms of the plagiarism thing there is a large difference between a similar image and a similar body of work. For example if I post a soft focus picture of model trains here folk might think "one from the Jim Galli school", if I then pursue cowboy weddings, model A Fords.... I would expect eyebrows to be raised. This is essentially what QT is saying above:
As regards this:
this bit of the audience concludes on a charitable day unoriginal hack who is afraid to follow in many great footsteps and acknowledge the precedent (the classical music world has many "variations on a theme of...") , and on an average day rip off merchant.Well, that would be terribly boring (read: unoriginal
QT,
Yep, when you look at the whole it becomes more obvious.
For example writers may use the same words (perfectly good ones like obsequious, derivative, and flounder) as others writers - in the same way photographers may compose their landscape portfolio from majestic peaks, natural arches, flowing rivers or rusting bits of metal which form the basic elements of outdoor photography.
Together these words form sentences, paragraphs and internet screeds and the images form portfolios and exhibitions. This is where the artist earns their pay. Very few can get by with a single word or image - as much as we would like that to be so.
When the portfolio is on display and it matches word for word and image for image with another it is more than coincidence. The near impossibility of a blind photographer selecting the same images at random points to a higher power behind the action.
Last edited by Jack Dahlgren; 23-Feb-2010 at 14:49. Reason: speling
There is a saying from the military: “Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” David Burdeny’s images, taken as a whole, indicate to me that he is copying at least the style of Sze Tsung Leong’s photographs. I have not seen the whole exhibition, so I do not know how completely Burdeny is also copying the content, although the overlap in subjects does not seem coincidental.
Bob
Like all those appropriated songs on my MP3 player, you mean?
There is a certain sense of decorum in not ripping someone elses idea and art off. In some cases its illegal as well as it should be. Its like the jackasses that tailgate at high speed in motor vehicles, best if not done for a variety of reasons.
If your a jack rabbit as a hunter with permit I have a right to shoot you, if I blast your legs and ears off first one at a time then finish you off- someone may take offense at that, because their is no decorumThen again if the hunter is the only witness the fun is all his
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