Removal of People from Portraits

Markus Albertz · Apr 8, 2008

In my humble opinion, this sort of approach is ironic:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/arts/art/5681569.html

I am curious to hear comments, opinions, etc. on the article.

Regards, Markus Albertz

thuggins · Apr 8, 2008

Moronic, pointless... The "artist" needs to get a life and stop corrupting someone else's work in an attempt to be "clever". This makes colorizing black and white films look like the epitome of creativity!

Vaughn · Apr 8, 2008

I think it is a wonder concept, especially when presented with the originals, or at least some awareness of he originals. I think they become especially meaningful in the context of so many people "disappearing" during Hitler's Germany. I congratulate Somoroff and his team.

I consider Somoroff to have produced a work of art. In the context it is presented, it is very moving...and it interesting from a photographer's viewpoint in that it explores what is not the original "subject" of the images, but instead the edges and the areas' surroundings. It is not "photography" as we know it, but that is besides the point. Such work can not be judges from the standpoint of original photographs, but instead, of photographs used to creat more art.

I see no connection between Somoroff's work and the colorization of old movies, nor to the artist who, for example, rephotographed and printed EW's work. This is a new idea, interestingly presented -- espicially with the added movement that the article talks about -- I'd like to see that.

Vaughn

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 8, 2008

I like them as well. They're interesting on their own as images, and they draw attention to something that most people ignore in Sander's work.

There's something of a connection I think between these images and Robert Rauschenberg erasing a drawing by de Kooning, though part of that was the act of destroying the original work, which Somoroff is not doing.

Murray@uptowngallery · Apr 8, 2008

A former co-worker was asked to do that once at a store he worked at from a wedding photo - the person removed must have done something very uncool. No, not the groom, but a sister bridesmaid's ex-fiance.

I had a Chinese roommate in college (PRC) & he said it was not uncommon at some point in history there for political portraits on buildings to be obliterated & declared 'unpersons'. He said it was illegal to ask about the unperson on the building...so it was just ignored.

Re: The empty chair. Wouldn't it have been a whole lot easier to realize the envisioned image by taking a chair out there? I didn't read the whole article, but I'd take less offense to a new image over alteration of someone else's work.

geeno · Apr 8, 2008

I think it has some merit. However the images are much more thought provoking if you know the background, and it doesn't appear that you can get all of the information you need from the images themselves. You can't walk up to the picture and know what it is about without more info. Maybe seeing the old and the new together would make sense.

Geeno

JBrunner · Apr 9, 2008

I find it a little disturbing. I'm not knocking it mind you, that's just my gut reaction. I'll have to ponder why.

bjorke · Apr 9, 2008

Dead Link Removed

Garfield without Garfield

JBrunner · Apr 9, 2008

Ok, the Garfield thing is really disturbing me. I'm gonna go leave my shrink a voice mail...

Curt · Apr 9, 2008

Wasn't Stalin, or was it Karl Marks, an expert at the removal of images from all kinds of artwork? Ancient Egypt was doing it in stone a long time ago.
What man makes, man can break.

Akalai · Apr 9, 2008

Stalin had a penchant for airbrushing Trotsky out of photographs...and therefore history.

Some good examples are here in this Wikipedia entry, "Censorship of images in the Soviet Union."

Bill Mobbs · Apr 9, 2008

Just thinking out loud... Spent a lot of money on cameras, the best film, really great paper & chemicals, then hours washing prints, so that nothing bad happens to them years from now.... Then have some guy come out of nowhere and mess about them with photoshop... cuts out what you thought was the main subject.... then put his name on them.....

Does this sound OK to you?

Bill

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 9, 2008

Here's a good page on Soviet "image management"--

http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/

digiconvert · Apr 9, 2008

geeno said:
I think it has some merit. However the images are much more thought provoking if you know the background, and it doesn't appear that you can get all of the information you need from the images themselves. You can't walk up to the picture and know what it is about without more info. Maybe seeing the old and the new together would make sense.

Geeno

I think they should be seen alongside accredited versions of the original , after all it is a tribute to the original author and that's a long standing artistic tradition. A note on the background is also IMHO an essential addition.
The poignancy of a 'lost' family from Nazi Germany is incredibly powerful and the subtext of how modern technology gives us even greater power to eliminate others in an increasingly virtual world should also not be lost.

Hope that doesn't sound too pretentiouss.

ntenny · Apr 9, 2008

geeno said:
I think it has some merit. However the images are much more thought provoking if you know the background, and it doesn't appear that you can get all of the information you need from the images themselves.

I don't know. You can see the fact that a composition that "should" be around a person is missing its person; you don't know exactly what's missing, but maybe that's part of the point.

I think it's an interesting project. I wouldn't call it a *photographic* project exactly---it just uses photographs as its raw material.

Someone---maybe Mondrian, before his famous abstractions?---did a number of paintings like this, where an obvious, conventional composition was missing its central element. They're very disconcerting to look at, and I get something of the same effect from the Somoroff picture. (And from the Garfield strip.)

-NT

Videbaek · Apr 9, 2008

Garfield without Garfield... that warm sensation running down my legs, god, I didn't... Bjorke you kill me!
Don't know -- this takes "Photoshopping out" to a new level of obsession. All too easy to generate art-crit
blather about Nazis making people disappear and bringing the context out as the subject. To me it's an idea
in development, a sketchbook/notebook thing, that might or might not go somewhere. Needs work. A lot of "art photography"
is like this -- not there yet, why is it on the wall?

colrehogan · Apr 9, 2008

JBrunner said:
I find it a little disturbing. I'm not knocking it mind you, that's just my gut reaction. I'll have to ponder why.

What bothers me about it is that without an explanation, future generations might not understand what/why this alteration was done and think that is how they were originally made.

Paul Howell · Apr 9, 2008

There is Art and then there is NEWS, altering NEWS is altering history and is just plain wrong. Altering Art, well that goes with the territory.

Vaughn · Apr 9, 2008

Svend Videbak said:
A lot of "art photography"
is like this -- not there yet, why is it on the wall?

I see it as art .. not art photography. Just because some uses PhotoShop does not make the end result photography.

How are we going to see it, judge it, get moved by it, enjoy it, if it does not get on the walls? How well it affects people will be part of the process of determining if it stays on the walls.

Vaughn

Bill...in this case it sounds okay to me. The next person to try it probably will seem a bit trite.

Markus Albertz · Apr 9, 2008

My first reaction to the article was very strong (but it was at 6:00 am...). I found it to be rather outrageous plagiarism and the fact that the original artwork was altered by removing the very thing that is the central theme seemed pathetic. Having calmed down and read the responses, however, I am beginning to think maybe that is the most interesting aspect of this work: to remove from the photographs what was the ultimate purpose of taking them. On the other hand I can't help thinking: what would August Sander have to say about this?

I am paging through my "Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts" as I type and I would find it a lot more interesting to remove the sitters from their environments and have them float in white space or something of that sort. If I remove the people in my mind, the images seem fuzzy, empty and boring to me.

A note on the "lost families from Germany": Sander created a body of work that spanned nearly the entire population of Germany between ca. 1892-1952 (btw, this interval spans the old German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and the early Federal Republic), including farmers, brick layers, coal miners, engineers, inventors, industials, bankers, politicians and artists. The majority of the images were made before 1933, so I do not see any connection in this regard, at least not from the perspective of Sander. The Nazis confiscated and destroyed any from of art that was considered contractory to their doctrines. I am not sure what the author implies by stating: "Maybe the subjects are absent because of the Nazi curse". The people that Sander photographed were not among those that were "lost" but a portion of the sitters may have been involved.

Anyway, thanks everyone for sharing your views.

Regards, Markus Albertz

Akalai · Apr 9, 2008

Paul Howell said:
There is Art and then there is NEWS, altering NEWS is altering history and is just plain wrong. Altering Art, well that goes with the territory.

If only it was that simple.

Take the photograph, "Dead Taliban Fighter, Afghanistan" from the book "History" by Luc Delahaye. <photograph is visible here at the bottom of the page>

This is a photograph that has appeared both in newsprint as well as on the walls of art galleries.

Now is it "Art", "NEWS", both or neither?

Markus Albertz · Apr 9, 2008

...more thoughts: isn't the fact that the original photographs contained people a crucial piece of information that ought not to be missing? How would the viewer respond to the artwork if they did not know that they are (were) portraits by August Sander? It seems to suggest that the photographer found an 'innovative' way to utilize a well-known name to gain publicity.

Regards, MA

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 9, 2008

A good deal of contemporary art (as well as a fair amount of not-so-contemporary art) is art about art, so I think that knowing that the original photographs were by August Sander is part of appreciating the work. Not to know that would be like reading half of a book and believing you had read the whole thing.

John Koehrer · Apr 10, 2008

This is a perfect example IMO of marketing in the art world.
The artist has found someone he could influence & convince that this is art.
In my tiny little mind I find art like this a curiosity & not much more. Unless you're familiar with Sander's work would you recognize the new work as being derived from it? Would you care? Who cares?

arigram · Apr 10, 2008

I got through all this agony to get people IN my photographs and a schmuck comes and removes them?
I am sure there are pros working with photoshop charging for the removal of unwanted faces off photographs...

Removal of People from Portraits

Markus Albertz

thuggins

Vaughn

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

Murray@uptowngallery

geeno

JBrunner

Moderator

bjorke

JBrunner

Moderator

Curt

Akalai

Bill Mobbs

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

digiconvert

ntenny

Videbaek

colrehogan

Paul Howell

Vaughn

Markus Albertz

Akalai

Markus Albertz

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

John Koehrer

arigram

Removal of People from Portraits

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

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Privacy & Transparency