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

[Alan Edward Klein]

Facts are real. Opinions are BS, including mine, but we love them and can't keep from forming them..it is the opposite of "Zenning it" and none of us are Zen masters. We occasionally deal here in facts, but we mostly have opinions about the facts.

I guess we'll just have to keep putting up with each other.

 

[Don_ih]

You cherry picked a small portion of my post and missed my whole point.

Then what is your point?

 

[warden]

The Art Newspaper weighed in on the matter and quoted Aipad's initial response. It seems Aipad are paying attention.

In a statement sent to The Art Newspaper, Aipad says that it is aware of the situation and that it is “a matter we are taking very seriously, and it is being addressed by Aipad’s board of directors and executive directors”. The statement adds that Aipad “holds our membership and those exhibiting at our fair to the highest ethical standards”.​

​

“We are keenly aware of the issues surrounding the use of AI as a tool in the art-making process. The use of AI and how it is used in art practice or even as its own art form raises vital and multifaceted questions and ones we are working to confront conscientiously. As an organisation, we are committed to addressing these issues as we look to the future and the quickly evolving landscape, weighing concerns about artistic integrity and ownership,” Aipad’s statement continues. “In March, the organisation formed an ethics committee, and we are currently deep in the important process of updating and expanding the ethics and presentation sections of our bylaws and adding a new section addressing artificial intelligence. In addition, we are consulting with other arts organisations to discuss these pressing issues that affect not only the world of photography but the art world as a whole.”​

The newly formed ethics committee has quite a project on their hands. I wish them luck and patience!

AI debate erupts over ‘colourised’ version of a classic Ansel Adams photo

The photographer’s estate has accused the dealer James Danziger of leveraging an unauthorised AI-generated piece to push a commercial venture to colourise other artists' works

www.theartnewspaper.com

 

[retina_restoration]

Calling my posts"your usual BS" is insulting. I'm surprised at you.

I’m with Vaughn on this. It’s hard to respect someone who appears to favor volume over quality.

 

[retina_restoration]

“As an organisation, we are committed to addressing these issues as we look to the future and the quickly evolving landscape, weighing concerns about artistic integrity and ownership”

Which suggests that Aipad is looking at the colorized AA piece and asking themselves “Does this have artistic integrity?”
To answer "Does this have artistic integrity?", one must ask: Did the creator use AI as a passive shortcut to copy someone else's brilliance, or did they use AI as an active tool to transform a familiar image into a meaningful new statement?

Allow me to condense my thoughts into a form certain among us may find more digestible:
The piece commanded attention at a prestigious fine-art fair, and commanded price tags of up to $10,000, for one reason only: it relies entirely on the pre-existing fame, visual architecture, and emotional weight of Ansel Adams's labor.

Danziger didn't spend days scouting the location, nor did he possess the technical genius required to capture that exact, fleeting moment in 1941. He took a shortcut through a master's legacy, essentially converting Adams's decades of reputation-building into a quick, “premium product”.
Legally, Danziger hired top copyright lawyers to ensure Moonrise was in the public domain, meaning he has the legal right to do this. But there is a massive gulf between what is legal and what possesses artistic integrity.

Using the public domain argument for private gallery profit, feels like a perversion of what the public domain was intended for. It was meant to enrich collective culture, not to allow commercial dealers to strip-mine historical masterpieces for high-end decor.

That is not an environment I care to encourage. I believe we all have something to lose when this kind of parasitic endeavor passes into the realm of viable art processes. So no — I personally do NOT think this piece by Danziger passes the Artistic Integrity test.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I’m with Vaughn on this. It’s hard to respect someone who appears to favor volume over quality.

You shouldn't point fingers and make cheap ad hominem comments. Your post #280 copied below has over 500 words way more than any of my posts. Additionally, it appears to be written or adapted by AI. You don't even use your own thoughts and words to make a point.

Which suggests that Aipad is looking at the colorized AA piece and asking themselves “Does this have artistic integrity?”
To answer "Does this have artistic integrity?", one must ask: Did the creator use AI as a passive shortcut to copy someone else's brilliance, or did they use AI as an active tool to transform a familiar image into a meaningful new statement? I know where my own response to that questions lands.

When you look closely at what happened at the AIPAD show, the argument for exploitation becomes difficult to ignore, resting on three main pillars:

1. The Value is Borrowed, Not Created

If James Danziger had used AI to generate a beautiful, original color landscape of Hernandez, New Mexico from scratch, it would likely be sitting unnoticed in a corner of the internet.

The piece commanded attention at a prestigious fine-art fair, and commanded price tags of up to $10,000, for one reason only: it relies entirely on the pre-existing fame, visual architecture, and emotional weight of Ansel Adams's labor.

Danziger didn't spend days scouting the location, nor did he possess the technical genius required to capture that exact, fleeting moment in 1941. He took a shortcut through a master's legacy, essentially converting Adams's decades of reputation-building into a quick, “premium product”.


2. The Lack of Consent and Candor

As the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust pointed out, this wasn't a conceptual artist openly engaging in a dialogue with Adams’s work; it was a commercial gallery operating entirely in secret. They didn't consult the Trust or notify them beforehand.

Worse still, the Trust revealed that even after they asked Danziger to take the piece down, he allegedly used the presentation to pitch a broader commercial AI colorization venture to other artists' estates. This strongly reinforces a point: the exercise appears less about a unique artistic experiment and more about proof-of-concept for a scalable business model designed to monetize deceased artists' archives.


3. The Shield of the Public Domain

Legally, Danziger hired top copyright lawyers to ensure Moonrise was in the public domain, meaning he has the legal right to do this. But there is a massive gulf between what is legal and what possesses artistic integrity.

Using the public domain to protect corporate overreach, or to print a master photographer's work in limited "editions of 10" for private gallery profit, feels like a perversion of what the public domain was intended for. It was meant to enrich collective culture, not to allow commercial dealers to strip-mine historical masterpieces for high-end decor.

In art history, appropriation art (like Duchamp drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa) succeeds when it punches up at the establishment, challenges our ideas of art, or offers a profound critique.

When a prominent gallery colorizes a beloved photograph to sell it back to high-net-worth collectors—while using the original artist's name as the primary marketing hook—it doesn't feel like a critique. It feels like a premium cash-in.

Photographers like Pete Souza and the estate itself have argued that this brand of "parasitism" actively endangers the moral rights of all creators, proving that even after you pass away, your life's work can be fed into a machine and sold by the highest bidder.

That is not an environment I care to encourage. I believe we all have something to lose when this kind of parasitic endeavor passes into the realm of viable art processes. So no — I personally do NOT think this piece by Danziger passes the Artistic Integrity test.

 

[BrianShaw]

But there is a massive gulf between what is legal and what possesses artistic integrity.

Delete the work "artistic" and you have a statement that describes a lot of situations in life; nothing new there.

 

[retina_restoration]

You shouldn't point fingers and make cheap ad hominem comments. Your post #280 copied below has over 500 words way more than any of my posts. Additionally, it appears to be written or adapted by AI. You don't even use your own thoughts and words to make a point.

You're a hoot, Alan.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Then what is your point?

Don:
1. Certain photographers like Adams should not get special treatment for their photographs after the copyright protections end. Everyone's photos in the Public Domain should be treated the same way. That's the legal, ethcal and best way of handling the matter. In our society, some people should not get better treatment than others. It creates animosity in society if you create a two-teir system of rights.

2. Ending copyright protection as we have instituted in our laws after a period of time is a public good. We don't want to lock up copyrights (and patents) forever. It defeats the advantages that are created by allowing other artists and scientists to improve, create or change the original for the better or just different. The period of protection in the law is long enough to encourage new work and protect the originator and their heirs to profit from it (the original).

 

[koraks]

OK guys, let's knock it off. Debating the issue is fine, but let's steer clear from the personal as well as the political. Likewise, playing the devil's advocate doesn't always pan out as we see here, so maybe try to avoid it as much as possible. Thanks all, and please carry on with the on-topic discussion.

 

[Vaughn]

I guess we'll just have to keep putting up with each other.

That's true...but unfortunately I now have to discount what you say, as I do not know if the opinion you are stating is one you actually have or if you are just stirring the pot. It is the danger that Koraks warning that "...playing the devil's advocate" speaks about.

As a father, I would like to pass down to my children some of the value that my making of art has created, or will create. This is no different than a business person wanting to leave some of their lifetime earnings for their kids. Having the work copyrighted for 70 years after my death will do that. Good luck to them with that! At least they'll have some prints.

Edit added: I do wish we had a society that did not need copyright and patent laws.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

That's true...but unfortunately I now have to discount what you say, as I do not know if the opinion you are stating is one you actually have or if you are just stirring the pot. It is the danger that Koraks warning that "...playing the devil's advocate" speaks about.

As a father, I would like to pass down to my children some of the value that my making of art has created, or will create. This is no different than a business person wanting to leave some of their lifetime earnings for their kids. Having the work copyrighted for 70 years after my death will do that. Good luck to them with that! At least they'll have some prints.

Edit added: I do wish we had a society that did not need copyright and patent laws.

My initial reaction was like many others, Vaughn. How dare someone mess with my hero Ansel's work? But then I began to realize that my initial belief came up short. It was based on emotion not clear thinking. Hence the opposite position. I think that's a healthy way to approach life. It's important to look at the other side if only to prove your original beliefs.

Regarding the need for patents and copyright laws, it;s for the same reason we have other laws. People are all sinners and will do what they want. Frankly, without them, many artists would become bus drivers because if you can't make a living from your work, you won;t do it. Even with these laws, most artists are starving artists. Let's face it. If making money wasn't an incentive, artists would not sell their work.

 

[Dr. no]

(I think the ReMax baloon over a graveyard makes it seem the realtor is selling plots for the deceased.)

I took it (as I think most New Mexicans would) as a balloon far of course from the Festival. We have almost as many balloons plastered on signs and beer cans as we have ristras.

I try to get the colors to look right in my eyes. I never compare the scanned anmd edited colors on my calibrated screen to see if they match the original film colors. My theory is that the color designed into Velvia 50 was done by some Japanese engineer decades ago. He's probably dead by now. He's certainly not checking my shots. Who cares what the palette he designed is? The film's design is only a reference point. In the end, I'm the one who has to be satisfied with the final colors. Does a painter try to match the colors he sees in nature or does he pick his own color oils?

As I and others have said before, almost all of us are more interested in the vision that the film (or sensor) (or film+sensor) (and then printer/chromogenic dyes) can communicate rather than absolute faithful chromatic fidelity, as have ALL artists through the millennia. And Kodachrome had a palate that was pleasing to most of the people who used it. That is the only requirement for it to be desired and missed as an artistic medium.

Legally, Danziger hired top copyright lawyers to ensure Moonrise was in the public domain, meaning he has the legal right to do this. But there is a massive gulf between what is legal and what possesses artistic integrity.

Delete the work "artistic" and you have a statement that describes a lot of situations in life; nothing new there.

This is the root of my objection to the Danziger abomination--the integrity of it. But...we don't have integrity laws (enforceable ethical code) in photography, just the surrogates from what started as trademark/copyright/patent that have now become "intellectual property". Non-governmental groups often impose their version of these as a condition of participation, apparently AIPAD is belatedly looking at this.
As a group of enthusiasts/professionals we can shun this type of work as unethical, but is will (has) find its way into the market, just as snuff films, extreme violence +/- pornography etc can be seen as unethical although often "legal" but still have sellers and buyers.

And as a side note, the colorized version is not awful other than in context, but neither is it a standalone masterpiece (I agree with the postcard categorization).
Has anyone else visited the "walk-though" van Gogh show? That was a very nice transformative trans-interpretation of artwork. Well past copyright of course, and with substantial outcry by some purists for spectacular rather than understated appeal. I've spent hours in the van Gogh museum as well, and there is room for both (once was enough for the walk-through, but I can always look at the originals again).

 

[cowanw]

After an exhaustive 10 minute Internet search where I couldn't find the actual clause in Canada's Copyright Act, the automatic death + 70 years rule applies to foreign artists and their works as well.

So, I'm guessing a Canadian gallery could be sued for making and selling such a print in Canada.

Could a Canadian gallery be sued if they showed and sold one of the prints (made in the US) in question? I don't know.

I bin away. The thing about Canada is that anything published before 1949 is in the public domain. Period. (ish)
The suggestion that works in the public domain might be removed from the Public Domain as a result of changes made in 1999 has not been tried. Students of the law have suggested that Karsh's Churchill photograph which was (is) in the public domain in 1998 might have reverted to Karsh's estate. But as I said this has not been tried. Karsh's estate has not opposed the public domain assignation. And It might be difficult to take public ownership away once it has been granted to all Canadians.
So as it stands the Moonrise photograph is in the Public domain in Canada.
I ran into this for a half dozen of photographs in my book of Eleventyone Portraits.
The estates of Man Ray, Nicholas Muray, Van Vechten, Fred Stein, Clara Sipprell, Lotte Jacobi, and Karsh were all very kind.
One Family of a European photographer wanted a copy of the book. I think they were sensitized by the photographer having had some associations centred in Germany in the 1930-1940's.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

2026-70=1956, so anything from artists who died in 1955 or earlier should be free of copyright, right?

 

[Chan Tran]

Well it's definitely unethical but since they can do it legally let them do it. I don't have an opinion. However, they did sell some and wonder why would anyone buy it because they could do it themselves?

 

[cowanw]

2026-70=1956, so anything from artists who died in 1955 or earlier should be free of copyright, right?

In that case not published before Jan 1 1999 work is protected to December 31, 2049. Published work before he died, yes. Work published in between 1955 and 1998, copyright is 50 years after publishing.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The colorized version looks fake because it is fake. But there's no law against bad taste. And serious collectors are collecting a vintage authentic autograph as much as the image itself, or some other fashion of vintage authentication; otherwise, there's no long-term value. This new color version is nothing more than stereotypical sofa decor. Buy something big in a frame at Ikea instead and save the money.

 

[Don_ih]

Don:
1. Certain photographers like Adams should not get special treatment for their photographs after the copyright protections end. Everyone's photos in the Public Domain should be treated the same way. That's the legal, ethcal and best way of handling the matter. In our society, some people should not get better treatment than others. It creates animosity in society if you create a two-teir system of rights.

2. Ending copyright protection as we have instituted in our laws after a period of time is a public good. We don't want to lock up copyrights (and patents) forever. It defeats the advantages that are created by allowing other artists and scientists to improve, create or change the original for the better or just different. The period of protection in the law is long enough to encourage new work and protect the originator and their heirs to profit from it (the original).

You see, Alan, I don't think any of that is relevant. I don't disagree with it. It's just not something I find particularly useful when discussing this particular issue. As you could read from what I already wrote, I agree with @retina_restoration above and with what the Aipad said they were undertaking in the post by @warden. The colourized version that's been printed and shown and priced so high doesn't stand on its own as a distinct artwork - it's not distinct from Ansel Adams' original. I mostly would just think anyone who bought it got hoodwinked.

 

[cowanw]

All this reminds me of Captain Reynaud; to misquote him
"I'm shocked! Shocked to find that copying is going on in here. ; Accountant: Your earnings, sir.

 

[DREW WILEY]

These kinds of highbrow art fairs attract a lot of conspicuous consumption types. If they can afford a 50K pair of shoes for a one night gala, this is nothing by comparison. It doesn't mean they have taste. To some of them, throwing away money is simply bragging rights. And they might throw away the print itself just as easily, if it doesn't match the next sofa.

 

[Don_ih]

And they might throw away the print itself just as easily, if it doesn't match the next sofa.

I'd hope it wouldn't match any sofa....

 

[Vaughn]

...The colourized version that's been printed and shown and priced so high doesn't stand on its own as a distinct artwork - it's not distinct from Ansel Adams' original. I mostly would just think anyone who bought it got hoodwinked.

It was the pricing that first raised alarms for me. I imagine Danziger might consider $10,000 to be a fair price for his work. He probably burnt through a bit of ink and paper in the few months he worked on the project. I also imagine that many of us might disagree, but that would be what the buyers are paying for with both eyes open.

In fairness, Danziger should have had an equal sized original "Moonrise" next to his version...and perhaps with a photo staged like above with AA under his two versions!

 

[Don_ih]

In fairness

I think a third party should be stationed directly in front of the colourized exhibit selling t-shirts with the colour photo on it for $5. That would make more of a statement.

 

[Pieter12]

A well-known photographer I know who is represented by Danziger just left because of the Ansel Adams appropriation and colorization. It hurt doubly, his photos had been appropriated by Richard Prince in the past.