Danziger Gallery Exhibits "AI-generated color version" of Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernadez, New Mexico" at AIPAD

[Vaughn]

He might be correct about copyright. If it had been clear-cut case of copyright infringement, I believe the AA Trust's lawyer(s) would have gone straight to the jugular and not a public letter to the Gallery/Art World.

With the cloud near the moon, it was an earlier copy that it looks like Ai used.

I think he spent way too much time on it and his process ran away out of reasonable control. He turned it into a postcard. If the $10,000 price tag is due to the time and effort (about 6 months) he put into it, the last 5 and a half months should have been spent doing something else. and then charged less than $1000 for the print.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Statement by James Danziger - - Exhibitions - Danziger Gallery

Since its founding in 1990, the Danziger Gallery has established itself as one of the leading photography venues in the world, known for the originality and diversity of its programming, its representation of established photographers, and the influence of its new discoveries. The gallery was...

www.danzigergallery.com

Interesting that Danziger stated it was transformative. But since it isn't copyrighted and in the public domain, per his belief, then Danziger doesn't have to make it transformative to be legal. Maybe he's confused.

Also, the new color picture seems like he took a later print where Adams darkened the sky. How would anyone know which print he used? If it was the newer one, then it was copyrighted. How would a court know? Of course he claims the picture is in the public domain, which I assume means the original negative and all prints are in the public domain.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The early versions of Moonrise were somewhat splotchy in the sky, requiring a lot of work to print. That's one of the reasons AA later intensified the neg, to hide all of that in sheer blackness.

But anyone with decent PS skills should have been able to clean up all of that within a couple days or so post-scan, prior to colorizing. The AA trust itself offers big authorized b&w inkjet renditions of Moonrise and other images. Maybe this guy was working with some primitive version of Ai; but given his questionable ethics in general, the amount or time and effort claimed to be spent is probably just a bunch of BS itself. He obviously wouldn't have had access to the original neg.

AA also deliberately blacked out the foreground hillside in his famous Lone Pine sunrise shot, to hide his erasure of
the white dolomite LP on the side of the hill. I've seen an early version of that too. Incidentally, that spot is no longer accessible alongside highway 395 as one enters the town, because the property owner has planted a row of trees right beside the highway, blocking the view.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

He might be correct about copyright. If it had been clear-cut case of copyright infringement, I believe the AA Trust's lawyer(s) would have gone straight to the jugular and not a public letter to the Gallery/Art World.

With the cloud near the moon, it was an earlier copy that it looks like Ai used.

I think he spent way too much time on it and his process ran away out of reasonable control. He turned it into a postcard. If the $10,000 price tag is due to the time and effort (about 6 months) he put into it, the last 5 and a half months should have been spent doing something else. and then charged less than $1000 for the print.

I think $10,000 is more than a reasonable price, considering. The more we complain about it, the more its value increases.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The difference being that NFTs could have a viable commercial role if used prudently and conservatively, rather than merely a means toward achieving a speculative profit.

The print wouldn;t be a NFT becasue it's a real object you can hang on your wall..

 

[Stephen Benskin]

How is this different than Sherri Levine's After Walker Evan series? Conceptual art has always thrived on pushing against entrenched perspectives and challenging the establishment. My take is the Ansel Adams Trust played right into Danzinger's hands. If the only intention here was to provoke a copyright fight, then it’s not particularly original. The Walker Evans estate already sued Levine for the same thing forty years ago. A good coversation could be about how new technology plays into the concept art and the artist, but then again Susan Sontag got there first.

In a somewhat ironic jesture, here is what AI has to say about Sherri Levine's series:

Sherrie Levine’s After Walker Evans is not simply a copy—it is a conceptual intervention that:

• dismantles the myth of originality
• critiques patriarchal authorship
• exposes the constructed nature of documentary images
• mourns the loss of modernist ideals
• interrogates the art market’s fetish for uniqueness

It remains a landmark of postmodernism precisely because it forces viewers to confront uncomfortable questions about authenticity, ownership, and the politics of representation.

 

[Vaughn]

I think $10,000 is more than a reasonable price, considering. The more we complain about it, the more its value increases.

And I think not...considering anyone can make a near-equivilent with Ai and a little photoshop...and most likely done as well.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Within my own adult lifetime, real-deal Moonrise prints sold for less than that. By the time the public is done with this pretentious vendor, that fake might not be worth the frame it is put in. Or else he'll start getting compared to Peter Lik, and himself become a pariah within that fine art collector community which he currently depends on for his financial momentum.

 

[warden]

I see he represents some high profile photographers. I wonder if he will lose any......

Responding to myself here after looking at their IG presence.

Danziger's post that contained the Ansel Adams image is receiving a lot of hate as could be expected, and far more engagement than their norm. All negative attention harming their brand.

Danziger's post immediately following the AI hatchet job has nothing to do with Ansel Adams and highlights Hoda Afshar, a good photographer that apparently has a new book out and is represented by Danzinger. Her work was hanging near the Adams AI piece at the show. 99% of the comments on that post are about the Adams stunt rather than her work and one even tags her asking how she feels about being associated with these people. I feel bad for her.

They might as well stop posting to their IG account until this blows over, assuming it does blow over. They will only harm the artists they are paid to help. People are pissed off and will continue hijacking their posts.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Alan - something you seem to miss is that whenever even a legit work of art or photo manipulation is based on the novelty value of some new tech innovation, that value almost instantly collapses once that same technology in its improved fashion is available to every Junior High student, who can do the same thing better and faster.

In this case, the poser had to have been somehow scanning and pirating an actual Hernandez print with 90% of the work already put in by either AA or his assistants, perhaps even a modern mechanical or inkjet repro. All the heavy lifting - the dodging, burning, cleanup, was already there, even before it was goofy colorized.

I've seen famous photographers themselves become inebriated with new technology and spend a ton of time and money with early PS coming up with novel tweaks on their own compositions. Now those aren't viewed in any pioneering sense at all, but as just outdated new toy syndrome curiosities at best, forgotten and worthless. If anyone is sucker enough to buy one of the AA fakes in question, that's their problem if they decide to sue over it later.

 

[Pieter12]

I wonder if Danzinger just took AI and Wikipedia's word for the copyright status. The "most respected copyright lawyer" might be a bluff. One would think that talking to the AA Trust beforehand would be what a most respected lawyer would do in this situation. All lawyers I know are so risk averse that they'd never recommend such a project without formal written consent even if some research indicates an image is in the public domain, especially since other instances of that image clearly are still under copyright protection.

Other than that, it was a very tempered and thoughtful statement.

The legal catfight will be fascinating...

I doubt the copyright lawyer reference is a bluff. Danziger is a long-standing gallery with a stable of well-respected, high-dollar photographers. He would not go out on a limb risking lawsuits unless he was pretty sure he could legally do what he did.

 

[DREW WILEY]

People have done stupid things before which ended their once reputable business. Galleries are a tightwalk rope to begin with. And in that neck of the woods, far bigger ones have collapsed over unsavory incidents. I've seen it happen here several times. Ruin someone's work in your hands, or their reputation, and the name of the game changes awfully fast. He might not have only gone out on a limb, but started sawing it off behind him. Lawyers win either way.

 

[Don_ih]

He might be correct about copyright. If it had been clear-cut case of copyright infringement, I believe the AA Trust's lawyer(s) would have gone straight to the jugular and not a public letter to the Gallery/Art World.

That's what I'm thinking, too. I don't think the copyright issue is as straightforward as it superficially seems. If they had any doubt about the availability to use that image, I can't see them offering prints for sale. Muddling with someone else's photo is one thing - it's quite another to seek profit from it.

 

[Arthurwg]

It's a colourized print. That is neither transformative nor derivative.

Just wondering, what would make it "transformative"?

 

[Arthurwg]

What moron would pay money for it?

What moron would pay $183 million for a Jackson Pollock?

 

[BrianShaw]

I don't think the copyright issue is as straightforward as it superficially seems.

It isn't as strightforward as one would hope. The copyright law has evolved considerably. If it wree straightforward there wouldn't be this much discussion.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Just wondering, what would make it "transformative"?

The US Supreme Court ruled that a vibrantly coloured Warhol silk screen print of a B&W photograph was derivative.

The Warhol piece in question was essentially a high contrast copy of the original photograph, so even though it was presented via a completely different medium, was deemed derivative.

You would have to "reimagine" the work to make it transformative, while merely altering a copy doesn't pass the smell test.

Using this bar, the colourized print in question is definitely derivative and required consent...unless US copyright law between 1931 and 1978 released it from copyright. This is where things get mushy...

Derivative works need consent from the copyright holder, transformative works don't.

 

[Don_ih]

Just wondering, what would make it "transformative"?

Transformative implies transformation - turning it into something else. Making a b&w photo colour isn't transformative - it's something you could accomplish with crayons.

Making an animation based on the photo would potentially count as transformative, assuming it wasn't simply the photo with some clouds passing over the moon (it would need to be significantly distinct from the original).

It's all a matter of you know it when you see it.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The only hopeful thing about what Stephen quoted from Ai, is that is so obfuscated with sophistries, that it won't be long till Ai replaces lawyers themselves.

 

[Don_ih]

it won't be long till Ai replaces lawyers themselves.

It won't be.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Why? Just because lawyers will turn out cheaper once everyone figures out how much their utility bills have shot up after Ai data centers hogged all the juice?

 

[MattKing]

The only hopeful thing about what Stephen quoted from Ai, is that is so obfuscated with sophistries, that it won't be long till Ai replaces lawyers themselves.

Only the poor ones.

How is this different than Sherri Levine's After Walker Evan series? Conceptual art has always thrived on pushing against entrenched perspectives and challenging the establishment. My take is the Ansel Adams Trust played right into Danzinger's hands. If the only intention here was to provoke a copyright fight, then it’s not particularly original. The Walker Evans estate already sued Levine for the same thing forty years ago. A good coversation could be about how new technology plays into the concept art and the artist, but then again Susan Sontag got there first.

This observation is entirely appropriate. Whether the AI generated summary that Stephen referenced afterwards is a perfect encapsulation of that issue is a good one should probably be addressed without considering the AI nature of the source - it seems apropos to me.

 

[Pieter12]

It all boils down to the fact that Moonrise is in the public domain, and permission is not required to do whatever one wants with the image.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

It all boils down to the fact that Moonrise is in the public domain, and permission is not required to do whatever one wants with the image.

Has that been definitively established?

 

[Pieter12]

Has that been definitively established?

According to Wikipedia, the copyright was not renewed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moonrise,_Hernandez,_New_Mexico_(cropped).jpg