Is It Okay To Shoot Someone Else's Art?

[paul6001]

Is it possible to make art by shooting someone else's art? I would argue that it is as long as you're bringing something of your own to the game. You use buildings. You use trees. You wouldn't think twice about shooting them. Why not art? Isn't art a thing? Can't I include it in my picture? Thoughts/comments/criticism?

Clearly, there's a danger of falling into mere mimicry. But I think the picture below is a pretty decent photograph. The installation is "Gray Mirrors" by Gerhard Richter. The place is the Dia Museum in Beacon, NY. The woman with the birthmark is unknown but I've done everything short of using an FBI crime lab to find her. But the mysterious guy lurking in the background, the way the iPhone resembles the mirrors, and the birthmark make it something other than Richter's work. The mirrors are his but the picture is mine.

Once I clear the "Is it art?" hurdle I still have to run through a landmine of "Is it good art or bad art?" And I certainly wouldn't want to go anywhere near a question about whether I've added to or improved on Richter, for whom I have nothing but respect. Still, I think that I've done something of merit. Something like Thomas Struth. Yes, he includes other people's art in his photographs. But they're not the point of his pictures. He brings something of his own to the game.

Richter . . . Struth . . . that's quite a crowd I run with these days. I actually have a whole series called "People And Art" with more shots like this. And I was doing it before Struth was. Or, at least, before I was aware that Struth was. Kind of a Tesla/Marconi thing. Of course, he's Thomas Struth so everyone thinks that I stole the idea from him but such is life.

I'm posting this tonight because tomorrow I'm taking my camera to the Metropolitan Museum with the intention of making art. And my plan is to inch even closer to being derivative because I don't plan to include anything but the art. I've got two ideas in mind. In the Japanese section are lots of those gorgeous ink-brushed-on-paper works. I think I can do something with them. Not sure what but something. Second, they have huge tapestries from all over that tell a story of a battle or religious scene. Twenty feet wide by ten feet high, that sort of thing. (And more up at the Cloisters.) Different characters and different actions happening all over the place. What if I made small, square close-ups of different parts of the tapestry and strung it together like a comic book?

It's just an idea. Obviously, it's all in the execution. But is it a legitimate goal? And not in a Duchamp, "it's art if I say it is" kind of way. I mean in a way that Hilton Kramer (or whoever the leading conservative critic is these days) would give his/her stamp of approval. I'm not conservative in any way that I can think of but art criticism can be so far out that I think it lacks common sense.

 

[koraks]

Is it possible to make art by shooting someone else's art?

Not for me, it isn't. I don't make art - I snap pictures. 'Art' is a difficult term and while we're undoubtedly going to discuss it at length, again, in this thread, it's a discussion I'm probably going to stay away from this time. It's one of those discussions that never reaches a conclusion, anyway, and the insights gained in the process tend to boil down to the same handful of things once you've witnessed or participated in them a couple of times. I'll happily follow the debate in the hope that I might learn something new, though.

In my own photography (snapshottery), I prefer to not snap pictures that end up being literal representations of buildings, sculptures etc. That's not even mimicry - it's just reproduction. I'll happily leave that to those whose occupation involves photographic buildings for architects and project managers, or who photograph paintings for galleries, museums and auctioneers.

What if I made small, square close-ups of different parts of the tapestry and strung it together like a comic book?

Why not - if it pleases you. Conceptually, it's been done before, thousands of times. The message of such an artwork, to me, isn't evident. Don't let it stop you, though. After all, you don't have to answer to my view of what art is, or isn't.

A friend of mine tends to say something about (amateur) photography: that from an artistic viewpoint, it's still stuck around 1900. For the most part, I feel he's right on the money with that observation - give or take a few decades, perhaps. And it's perfectly okay as far as I'm concerned. It's fine to be inspired by Adams or White, to take another spin on Eggleston or to try and make a Lange-like portrait. If you derive pleasure or satisfaction from it, it's meaningful enough in my book.

When making the final print, the only question that matters to me is if I can be bothered to make it. If so, it's apparently a good idea. I try not to let myself be bogged down by the knowledge that billions of photographs are being made every year, that many of those are technically better than mine, and that only a tiny fraction of them will have at best a fleeting impact on the world as such.

Art is a big word. I prefer small things. They're more manageable.

Also, welcome to Photrio, and thanks for taking the time to bring up something meaningful!

 

[Don_ih]

The quick answer to your question is "Yes." As for any definition of what art is or isn't, that's not much of a worry as long as you are engaged in what you consider an artistic activity. "Art" is a general term and your photo doesn't need to match a rubric.

Someone else's art exists in a context somewhere or other and you get to choose your viewpoint on it and take your photo. Even straight reproduction is still your doing (even if no one finds it particularly meaningful and a court doesn't find it transformative).

I like that you said:

Once I clear the "Is it art?" hurdle I still have to run through a landmine of "Is it good art or bad art?"

which is something a lot of people miss with the whole idea. Too many people think "art" means "good art" or even "great art" or even "sublime, spiritually elevating art" -- when "art" is a type of human product that can be any number of things, including a total failure or downright depressing or vapidly meaningless. Or even just plain bad.

 

[Bronson Dugnutt]

Did you plant the tree or saw it down?

 

[Don_ih]

I have been photographing artwork professionally for decades

In your instance, you were trying to make as representative a reproduction as possible. That's not exactly what @paul6001 is asking. He's not trying to make a copy of the art but incorporate it into his own artistic efforts.

 

[Dustin McAmera]

This is between you and your conscience some of the time; if a sculptor thought of, and then made, a particularly nice curve or texture, and your photo depends on that element, then you stole it, and you will know that.

At Flickr, they use the Creative Commons system. I can say for each photo whether I object to people using the photo to make derived works. You should respect other people's reasonable wishes. Now mostly, I won't ever know if someone has downloaded my photo and is printing tee-shirts of it; the system relies on the majority of people obeying the rules because it's nice to be nice. If you mean to show those photos from the gallery anywhere, you might want to ask permission first; some artists will object, and some of them will come after you.

I challenge myself about this sometimes. Lately, a lot of my photography is on the streets of my city, and they put sculpture out on the street. Now, I'm allowed by most authorities to take a simple photo that's a frank record of Reclining Woman because I want to remind myself of it later; an aid to study, perhaps. And I allow myself to take photos of the street, without slavishly avoiding Reclining Woman, because the street is literally the public domain. The presence of the sculpture in such photos is Fair Use in the terms of copyright. I will even take photos that acknowledge Reclining Woman as a prominent feature of the street; but sometimes I ask myself 'Is this a photo of the sculpture? - a derived work, in which Reclining Woman is the main source of value?'. I don't let myself take those. This test is a bit vague; sometimes I may be more rigorous than other times.
It's not just sculpture: buildings have the same problems. If I catch myself taking a photo that relies on an effect of light that the architect must have foreseen and wanted, then there's nobody stopping me taking it, and I might take a 'tourist' photo, with little invested in it, to show people what was there, but it won't be part of 'my photography'. I just saw the building in a way the architect expected me to.

It's not always between you and your conscience. Some galleries will control what people can photograph, if anything. Here, even the city market says you need to go to their management office and explain yourself before starting to photograph, or they boot you out.

 

[guangong]

A piece of art is simply another object that can be incorporated into a photograph, if not simply attempting a reproduction. In museums I use photography as a form of note taking. For example, when the Met had a loan of the famous Roman statue “The Boxer” I photographed it from multiple angles because published reproductions usually consist of viewing only from one angle. I was also trying to demonstrate (unsuccessfully) a trick used by the artist to improve its composition. As a sculptor in stone this point fascinated me. In the recent past some students (and artists are forever students!) were able to paint copies of paintings. I don’t see much of that today.

 

[Dustin McAmera]

Without wanting to start a fight, I wouldn't take a photo of a woman that close up without asking permission. And trying to trace her afterwards is dodgy too.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Sherrie Levine went around an exhibition of Walker Evans' photographs, taking pictures of each one and then making an exhibition of her own. Very post-modern.

This inspired me:

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

FWIW, this genre of 'art' is called Appropriation Art, and is, Gawd knows how, considered legitamate.

Appropriation (art) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Saganich]

How would you feel if you saw a painting made from a photograph you took in a gallery for $5K? I do it mostly with construction site posters/advertainments that have decayed over time. It doesn't bother me to incorporate anything I might see in the world into my personal frame of reference.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

I was asked by a group of local painters if they could use some of my Nature photographs as inspiration and/or reinterpreting for a show at our local museum gallery.

I said no thanks.

My immediate reaction was, that they should wander around in forests until they find something which inspires them to paint.

So, based on that, I'd say photographers should come up with their own ideas.

 

[VinceInMT]

Sherrie Levine ….

Yes, I was going to mention her as well. There seems to be a continuum from the type of work she did to the OP’s photo where the art is incidental to the scene.

If allowed, I regularly photograph art in museums, along with its didactic, that I can look at later for inspiration in my own work. Sometimes its just a snapshot shot of the work, like when I saw the drawings of Tatsuo Ikeda at the Venice Biennale 2 years ago or the adjacent work of Elias Sime that I asked as friend to stand near so I could record the scale of the work.

The vast majority of my own photography is in the same vein as koraks’s “snapshottery” and while I do print up some of it for my own gratification, not much of it goes into my current portfolio as these days I am doing more drawing than photography.

It’s also interesting that while photography might be banned, or at least discouraged, in some venues, there doesn’t seem to be the same ban on drawing. Our local urban sketchers group has met up at our contemporary art museum and while individual exhibits might discourage photography, the only limitation of drawing is that no liquid materials are allowed. Many of our group include the art work in their drawings.

Regarding the inclusion of people, I draw in all kinds of places and regularly include people. A few times I’ve been “caught” and the subjects want to see how I’ve represented them. They are usually OK with what they see.

 

[VinceInMT]

FWIW, this genre of 'art' is called Appropriation Art, and is, Gawd knows how, considered legitamate….

And a minefield if “cultural appropriation” goes into the mix.

 

[Don_ih]

Let's reflect on the famous puddle-jumper:

Part of what "makes" this photo is this:

But the photo isn't a copy of it.

Anyway, if you try to exclude everything you didn't make and isn't "intellectually" yours from your photos, you won't be taking many photos. From your socks to your car to the house that you're in, someone designed everything - and it usually wasn't you.

 

[grain elevator]

I don't see how

And a minefield if “cultural appropriation” goes into the mix.

I don't see how it does in the above cases. But I've taken photographs of objects in ethnological museums, and there it sure does. And the perhaps more interesting question of where we draw lines when it's pictures of objects that aren't pure art but somewhere else on the spectrum of art, craft, everyday and ritual objects.
Like others I'm not hung up on whether or not what I do is art. But pure reproduction / appropriation is problematic unless for educational purposes.

 

[Sirius Glass]

When one makes money on someone else's art, then there are copyright issues come to bear. The subject of derivative use is one for the lawyers and legal authorities.

 

[MattKing]

Some shows and contests have rules that prohibit entering your work or displaying it there if it consists mainly of another's Art.
And if you want to publish, you may run into demands from publishers for "used with permission" agreements.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

I think three dimensional art and architecture are different in this conversation compared to paintings.

When a photographer chooses their lens and vantage point, the elements within the work change their relationship to each other, and to the environment where it is situated.

 

[Pieter12]

It can be art if the photographer's hand is evident, such as showing people's interaction with the piece of art. Erwitt's "Prado Museum" is a humorous example. Thomas Struth has done an extensive series of large-format photos of people looking at art in museums. I regularly photograph in museums not to copy the art there, but to incorporate people in a specific environment.

 

[Pieter12]

I don't want to judge nor to rule, who am I anyway, but to my feeling, the presence of these two affiches might be considered collateral, but I couldn't imagine that photograph to radiate the same power without this small yet so important detail in it.

I know that defining what art is and what isn't is certainly not aleatory but I think that everybody should do it personally, and free of any doctrine dictating what, and how, to think...

Perhaps, some respect, appreciation and tolerance is a staring point?

And, perhaps, putting yourself into perspective too...

It is coincidental that the poster mimics the man in this photo, but it does make a difference. The fact that is is a piece of commercial art is insignificant. It could just as well have been light pattern, tree branches or another figure in a similar position.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

It can be art if the photographer's hand is evident, such as showing people's interaction with the piece of art. Erwitt's "Prado Museum" is a humorous example. Thomas Struth has done an extensive series of large-format photos of people looking at art in museums. I regularly photograph in museums not to copy the art there, but to incorporate people in a specific environment.

View attachment 363422

I'd call that a great example of a photograph of people interacting with art, not a photograph of art...big difference.

 

[Pieter12]

I'd call that a great example of a photograph of people interacting with art, not a photograph of art...big difference.

Call it what you want, but without the paintings it is just a photo of people's backs. The art is what makes it interesting and relevant. I will also remind you of the photo in the original post. This is not about just copying art, but incorporating it into a photo.

 

[Vaughn]

When one makes money on someone else's art, then there are copyright issues come to bear. The subject of derivative use is one for the lawyers and legal authorities.

I have heard that production crews will empty a house they are to film in, and replace everything with their own props. Considering possible copyright issues for any art pieces that might be in the house (and brand-names showing, etc) and show up in the film, it is safer to start from scratch. Less headaches for the Legal Department.

 

[Pieter12]

I have heard that production crews will empty a house they are to film in, and replace everything with their own props. Considering possible copyright issues for any art pieces that might be in the house (and brand-names showing, etc) and show up in the film, it is safer to start from scratch. Less headaches for the Legal Department.

Also, family photos. Plus the liability of damaging the property with a wayward boom.