NYT: Legal Battle Over Vivian Maier’s Work

[ic-racer]

Most players feel like they are doing her and the photography community a great service bringing her work to light.

All accounts I have read or seen in the movie indicate that this is not the case. She did not want it. Did I miss something?

Maloof has spent himself almost into bankruptcy to bring her work to the attention of the public so being able to sell her prints is vital to his financial survival and the recovery of his investment.

From what I read or saw in the movie, the work did not cost that much. How much extra is a scanner and Facebook account?

He is truly an evangelist for her work.

If that were the case he would be making it free to view.

[Wayne]

Did she work at this or are they unintentional captures of the street? We'll never know, but I think it's too minimal for me.

Many have tried and most have failed in doing what she accomplished. Its impossible for me to call that unintentional. I don't know what percentage of her work has it, but most of what I've seen has it. I suppose if only 1 in a 100 of her total #shots is any good you could call it luck.

[Kirk Gittings]

All accounts I have read or seen in the movie indicate that this is not the case. She did not want it. Did I miss something?

Actually we do not know do we? But regardless, her unknown intentions says nothing about what the current promoters' intentions are.

From what I read or saw in the movie, the work did not cost that much.

Printing major shows of 50+ 16x20 prints costs nothing?

How much extra is a scanner and Facebook account?

So I guess you are one of those people who think a photographer's time is worth nothing?

If that were the case he would be making it free to view.

There are tons of images free to see on the website and the show I saw was free. In fact, he is making them free to view.

[Willie]

All accounts I have read or seen in the movie indicate that this is not the case. She did not want it. Did I miss something?



From what I read or saw in the movie, the work did not cost that much. How much extra is a scanner and Facebook account?



If that were the case he would be making it free to view.

When have you seen Evangelists not raking in dollars?

[John Jarosz]

I'd like to try it another way.

I'm a reasonably big fan of Garry Winogrand. He died leaving many undeveloped rolls of film. Since his death those negs were developed, culled, printed and shown. While I have many of his books that he was involved in I'm really not interested in those images he did not select. If he didn't select them I can't be sure what I'm looking at.

I feel the same way about Vivian Maier

What if the unpublished/unused negatives of Cartier-Bresson or any other 'mainstream' photographer were gone thru to select images that were 'interesting' so a show could be mounted? Would they be received the same way as images the photographer selected?

Winogrand said that he photographed things to see what they looked like photographed. If he liked the photograph he would show it. Isn't that the essence of photography for display?

[Fred L]

I saw a number of the bindered and catalogued negatives Stephen has and I was surprised (since I didn't really follow her story as I was not feeling the feeding frenzy) to see 35 and colour work. I'd like to see a good portion of her body of work, or close to it, to be able to form a personal opinion.

[Jac@stafford.net]

[...] What if the unpublished/unused negatives of Cartier-Bresson or any other 'mainstream' photographer were gone thru to select images that were 'interesting' so a show could be mounted?

That is an entirely counterfactual conjecture. The posited has not occurred. It is fantasy for the sake of an impressionistic argument. A Trumpish kind of statement.

[Kirk Gittings]

However more adventurous museums, curators and historians are fond of digging up long lost, forgotten or obscure unknown work. Some thrive on it. And I have long wondered how much input Atget had on the publication, exhibition and printing of his work since most of it happened shortly before and long after his death.

Atget had published almost no work before "his genius was first recognized"[2] by Man Ray and Berenice Abbott, two young American photographers working in Paris at the time.[2] When Berenice Abbott reportedly asked him if the French appreciated his art, he responded, "No, only young foreigners."[1] His discovery by Ray and Abbott happened around 1925,[2] just two years before his death, and Berenice Abbott first published most of his work in the United States only after his death.[2] She exhibited, printed and wrote about his work, as well as assembled a substantial archive of writings about his portfolio by herself and others.[13] Abbott published Atget, Photographe de Paris in 1930, the first overview of his photographic oeuvre and the beginning of his international fame.[3][4] She also published a book with prints she made from Atget's negatives: The World of Atget (1964).[14] Berenice Abbott and Eugene Atget was published in 2002.[15]

[Struan Gray]

I've seen a couple of Disfarmer exhibitions. One, a tightly-edited summary made him look incredibly sophisticated and experimental, within a nominally straightforward aesthetic. A more complete, survey-style exhibition made it clear that the first show achieved it's impact from the editing as much as the photography.

What lesson you draw from that is up to you. Editors can do a good job. Photographers can be better than they know themselves. Parasites will pick over any sufficiently rich corpse. Everybody loves a good story.

Nostalgia plays a large part. Maier ticks the boxes for everyone who wishes the greats of her era had produced more work in the same style. I note that none of these discovered photographers ever seem to use colour film.

[Jac@stafford.net]

[... snip good stuff ...]
Nostalgia plays a large part. Maier ticks the boxes for everyone who wishes the greats of her era had produced more work in the same style. I note that none of these discovered photographers ever seem to use colour film.

Thanks to the estate settlement with the city of Chicago, we might be lucky to see some work from the hundreds of rolls of color that Maier did not have developed. It becomes more interesting!