Michael Kenna Donates all of his work to France

[Steve@f8]

Why France when Michael Kenna is from Widnes?

 

[Pieter12]

Why France when Michael Kenna is from Widnes?

Maybe you should go to the beginning of the thread.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

all that's true and reasonable, but it doesn't prevent the curator convincing the other museum operators that the collection is junk. It also doesn't prevent the collection from going to the highest bidder if the institution loses all its funding and vanishes.

There is nothing to stop the institution or curator from doing as they please, except maybe public outrage. I am unsure if the French government has rules in place to regulate such an action.

Since we are talking about France, the rules are even stricter than the AAMC guidelines. In the US, museums are private institutions (apart from the Smithsonian, I believe). No so in France. There, museums are government institutions. Essentially, Kenna gave his works to the French state, not to a museum. Whatever a curator may think of the artistic value of his work is irrelevant. The work is there to stay.

Moreover, I believe that, as opposed to the American museums, French museums cannot sell any work belonging to their collection—pretty sure it's the case, but I'd have to dig a little to confirm. They can only lend them.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

P.S., the work will be housed at the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie (the Heritage and Photography Media Center). The info about it, on the Ministère de la culture's website, states that it has "the specificity of preserving complete photographic collections." This plus the fact that it is more a library than a museum ensures that Kenna's work is there forever.

Heritage and Photography Library (MPP)

As an international reference collection in the field of photography, the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie (MPP) has the specificity of preserving complete photographic collections.

www.culture.gouv.fr

 

[awty]

Why France when Michael Kenna is from Widnes?

I'm sure the French would be most grateful to have the works of an contemporary English superstar.

 

[Pieter12]

I'm sure the French would be most grateful to have the works of an contemporary English superstar.

They are. They have accepted the collection.

 

[awty]

They are. They have accepted the collection.

The government and the people don't always agree on where their taxes go.
Don't you watch any world news.

 

[Pieter12]

The government and the people don't always agree on where their taxes go.
Don't you watch any world news.

If anything the French government is more chauvinist than the people when it comes to culture.

 

[Don_ih]

Since we are talking about France, the rules are even stricter than the AAMC guidelines. In the US, museums are private institutions (apart from the Smithsonian, I believe). No so in France. There, museums are government institutions. Essentially, Kenna gave his works to the French state, not to a museum.

Yet it still doesn't mean the policies and their enforcement can't change in the future. There is an infinite stretch of time out ahead of us. I doubt any of this will mean much in 100000000 years.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I think you may not have seen enough of his work, Hassasin. I had only a slight idea of what he'd done until about 3 weeks ago, maybe from a few pics I'd seen in magazines many years ago. Then I watched a long ( 2hrs+ ) Youtube video of his work in the 'Great Photographers' series. There's a very wide range of pictures and styles over the years in many interesting locations. I can see what you mean about 'office wall photographs' in some cases, but there were for example hundreds of shots of industrial subjects which I thought were particularly strong.

Welcome to APUG Photrio!!​

 

[Pieter12]

Yet it still doesn't mean the policies and their enforcement can't change in the future. There is an infinite stretch of time out ahead of us. I doubt any of this will mean much in 100000000 years.

I doubt humans or any evidence of humanity will be around then anyway.

 

[Don_ih]

I doubt humans or any evidence of humanity will be around then anyway.

I exaggerated the number, but it could have been 500 years. I doubt there's room to maintain a physical archive of all the work done by all the worthwhile photographers or other artists.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Wouldn't the museum eventually digitize the work under the understanding the original negatives and prints will deteriorate? Then they don't need much storage to maintain the collection.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

If anything the French government is more chauvinist than the people when it comes to culture.

In NYC, the government has a Landmark Preservation Commission. It decides which buildings are "landmarks" including privately owned structures. No changes or replacement of these buildings are allowed without approval from the commission. The attempt is to preserve the architecture and look of the landmarks.

About LPC - LPC

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation. It is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status, and regulating them after designation.

The agency is comprised of a panel of 11 commissioners who are appointed by the Mayor and supported by a staff of approximately 80 preservationists, researchers, architects, historians, attorneys, archaeologists, and administrative employees.

There are more than 37,800 landmark properties in New York City, most of which are located in 155 historic districts and historic district extensions in all five boroughs. The total number of protected sites also includes 1,449 individual landmarks, 121 interior landmarks, and 11 scenic landmarks.

 

[Don_ih]

Wouldn't the museum eventually digitize the work under the understanding the original negatives and prints will deteriorate? Then they don't need much storage to maintain the collection.

Digitizing an archive is a long and labour-intensive process, so whether and when the archive does it depends on if they can afford to pay someone to do it.

But, yes - unless he made a pile of Dagerrotypes, the physical originals of all of his photos and negatives will likely be non-existent in 500 years.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Digitizing an archive is a long and labour-intensive process, so whether and when the archive does it depends on if they can afford to pay someone to do it.

But, yes - unless he made a pile of Dagerrotypes, the physical originals of all of his photos and negatives will likely be non-existent in 500 years.

I assume the French National museum has this capability and is already doing it regularly to preserve old collections. Also, government museums in particular often want to make collections available to the public via the internet. After all, the taxpayer pays for this public archiving and would like to see it conveniently. They don't necessarily want to travel to the museum and then need a special appointment and knowing someone who will "let them in" So digitizing may be a regular practice right from the beginning of accepting the collection. Of course, I don't know what arrangements Kenna made in his case.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Wouldn't the museum eventually digitize the work under the understanding the original negatives and prints will deteriorate? Then they don't need much storage to maintain the collection.

Digitizing is work intense but more importantly the files must be renewed or eventually the magnetic storage decays over time. Plus every time the standard storage method, jpeg for example, changes or the computer OS changes all the digital files must be converted which is a lossy process [information is irretrievably lost] or the files become irretrievably lost. The pre Apollo survey photographs were almost lost because the tape readers and software had been junked. Digital is not all as wonderful as some people believe.

 

[Mark J]

Now you're reminding me of all those great documentaries that I copied from VHS to DVD-R ....

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Digitizing is work intense but more importantly the files must be renewed or eventually the magnetic storage decays over time. Plus every time the standard storage method, jpeg for example, changes or the computer OS changes all the digital files must be converted which is a lossy process [information is irretrievably lost] or the files become irretrievably lost. The pre Apollo survey photographs were almost lost because the tape readers and software had been junked. Digital is not all as wonderful as some people believe.

I assume museums are aware of this issue and regular update their backup files. In any case, what's the alternative?

 

[Sirius Glass]

I assume museums are aware of this issue and regular update their backup files. In any case, what's the alternative?

One should not make assumptions without hard information to substanicate to facts. Store the negatives properly as a back up for digital storage.

 

[MattKing]

As I understand it, museums digitize collections for two purposes.
1) to safely increase public access to the contents of their collections; and
2) to provide an alternate, duplicate as a backup to the conservation steps they take to protect the originals.
With the exception of media which is already in electronic form, or media that is particularly fragile and vulnerable, I don't believe museums look to digitization as a primary means of conservation.

 

[Sirius Glass]

As I understand it, museums digitize collections for two purposes.
1) to safely increase public access to the contents of their collections; and
2) to provide an alternate, duplicate as a backup to the conservation steps they take to protect the originals.
With the exception of media which is already in electronic form, or media that is particularly fragile and vulnerable, I don't believe museums look to digitization as a primary means of conservation.

Thank you for the clarifications.

 

[Don_ih]

I don't believe museums look to digitization as a primary means of conservation.

The physical media of photography, particularly colour photography, cannot be preserved indefinitely. It's just plain not possible, Reproductions will, at some point, be the only remaining record. The wisest course of action is to employ the currently most accurate means of recording to copy the work, before the work further degrades. A copy made today may be much more legible than the original in 100 years.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

One should not make assumptions without hard information to substanicate to facts. Store the negatives properly as a back up for digital storage.

If I had hard facts about Kenna's deal, I wouldn't be making an assumption. You're also not considering that prints may be involved as well as negatives. Scanning them is a reasonable approach to "preserving" them as a record.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

As I understand it, museums digitize collections for two purposes.
1) to safely increase public access to the contents of their collections; and
2) to provide an alternate, duplicate as a backup to the conservation steps they take to protect the originals.
With the exception of media which is already in electronic form, or media that is particularly fragile and vulnerable, I don't believe museums look to digitization as a primary means of conservation.

If you do 1) you automatically have done 2).