The Meyerbeer Dilemma

[Maris]

What an odd statement. Who else's money would you spend.

Nearly all the major photographic collections in the world are paid for out of company money or taxpayers money. It near the top of any senior curator's job description to preserve and enhance the collection they are responsible for. This is achieved by spending other people's money (external funding) not funding from the curator's own pocket. External funding, in the main, comes from government (taxpayer) sources, company discretional investment, philanthropists, and bequests. Very little of the collecting business is done by people spending their hard earned.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

But the tradition of the artist in his (historically usually his) atelier with a host of assistants doing a lot of the leg-work stretches back hundreds of years at the very least.
Many of the large scale renaissance works bear the mark of the master, but his assistants would have painted in backgrounds and minor figures.
Rodin had dozens of assistants who worked up his small maquettes to the full size figures which would be used for casting - some significant figures in 20th C art had an apprenticeship in his workshop.
The examples go on and on.

But was the intent to create art or to make the most money? By freeing the artist he could sell more paintings. How must would a painting be worth if the background was painted by Leonardo and the subject by some nameless student?

 

[pdeeh]

But was the intent to create art or to make the most money? By freeing the artist he could sell more paintings

collectors (which is a relatively modern notion) already know how artists work, and the people who commissioned (e.g.) Leonardo's works also knew exactly how the piece was likely to be made; some would have even visited his studio.
The idea that artists producing a large volume of work (or a volume of large works) working alone in a frenzy of creation is the stuff of Hollywood, not of the reality of artistic production.
A collector who limited his or her collecting to works which were verifiably the product of a single hand would find themselves quite limited, especially if they are collecting at the "top" (in terms of cost) end of the market in contemporary art.
That isn't to say that there aren't a zillion painters painting away on their own as we speak, but then only the tiniest fraction of those will ever see a gallery, let alone the inside of someone's cheque-book.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Just where does the creative responsibility of a photographer end? Is it with the click of the shutter or with the print on the wall.

It's a long time since camera clubs expected competition participants to make their own prints. I remember from the 1990s a guy who used to complain that the club had gone downhill since participants were no longer required to make their own color prints.

 

[faberryman]

Nearly all the major photographic collections in the world are paid for out of company money or taxpayers money. It near the top of any senior curator's job description to preserve and enhance the collection they are responsible for. This is achieved by spending other people's money (external funding) not funding from the curator's own pocket. External funding, in the main, comes from government (taxpayer) sources, company discretional investment, philanthropists, and bequests. Very little of the collecting business is done by people spending their hard earned.

Again you state the obvious. When I, or anyone else on APUG, buys a photograph, we use our own money. What makes you using your own money worthy of note?

 

[removed account4]

I make photographs but I also collect photographs by paying for them with my own money. My rule is that the picture has to be physically connected to subject matter, made out of light-sensitive materials, and completed start to finish solely by the person who signs it. This restricted approach is a personal way of avoiding:
Digital folderol.
Controvery about authorship.
Controversy about authenticity.
The scholarship of singular art objects by sole authors stays rock solid no matter how aesthetic fashions change.

i can understand your point of view and interests, you have expressed these same ideas countless times in the last 11 years ..
but for me and my own collecting of things i am not that same way.
for me if i buy an image or object it is because it speaks to me not really becasue it fits into a special criteria.
if it was made in collaboration with several people and sold with only the name of one that is ok by me
if it is made through nontradtional and traditional means, that is fine by me. there is a level of trust i have to have
between the thing i buy and me, that mainly it is authentic, and that's about it.
so if i was to buy a portrait by platon or karsh, or a gum-over platinum picturesque landscape by garo, i would be able to.
i'm not sure if you would be able to though ( that is if the work moved you ) since worked with others, to make their work.

 

[cowanw]

And very few Daguerreotypes, that have an identified photographer, were actually taken by that photographer. Almost none of William Notman's Albumin prints were made by him. In fact there is a photograph showing the troop of women hanging the frames in the sunlight to expose the contact print. I fully expect Karsh made at least some of Garo's prints.
As always, very little is absolute.

 

[Maris]

Again you state the obvious. When I, or anyone else on APUG, buys a photograph, we use our own money. What makes you using your own money worthy of note?

Worthy of note? Perhaps because it's unusual. I must confess that most of my photographic collection has come by ways other than on my own dime. To risk the obvious these include gifts, swaps, bequests, goods for services rendered or value exchanged, and dumpster rescues. I dislike paying dealers for photographs. I'll abide buying from other collectors at fair prices. It's often good, if speculative, business to buy early work from start-up photographers. They probably need the money. They might get famous.

 

[faberryman]

Worthy of note? Perhaps because it's unusual.

How is it different when you buy a photograph using your own money and every other member of APUG buys a photograph using his own money.

 

[MattKing]

How is it different when you buy a photograph using your own money and every other member of APUG buys a photograph using his own money.

It isn't.
But what Maris is referring to as the alternative is people who are given a budget and other people's money, and told that they can spend those other peoples' money.
I believe he is right - how we value something is affected by whether it was our carefully directed disposable income that was used to purchase it.

 

[faberryman]

It isn't.
But what Maris is referring to as the alternative is people who are given a budget and other people's money, and told that they can spend those other peoples' money. I believe he is right - how we value something is affected by whether it was our carefully directed disposable income that was used to purchase it.

Remember what Maris said:

I make photographs but I also collect photographs by paying for them with my own money.

as if there were something inherently good, noble, or worthy of admiration about that.

I would agree with you to the limited extent that the person spending his own money may have a greater emotional attachment to the photograph. An institutional collector is likely to make more objective decisions concerning purchases, without allowing emotional attachment (or lack thereof) to get in the way of important acquisitions. In purchasing photographs for yourself, you bear no responsibility to others. Maris, like others here on APUG, is just buying what he likes. So what. Who's to say a given purchase was "carefully directed" as opposed to an impulse buy.

 

[MattKing]

as if there were something inherently good, noble, or worthy of admiration about that.

Ah - an actual question about philosophy in the philosophy sub-forum!
Do those of us who love and enjoy photography value things differently than museums and galleries?
I think we might.
Its not a question of nobility, but it is a question of values that are weighted differently.
To "like" a photograph doesn't really describe it - we can "like" pictures of cute kittens without wanting to own them.
But if a photographic moves us/intrigues us/fascinates us/entertains us upon repeated viewing, we may want to own it even if we don't expect it to appreciate in value or serve the same purposes as something that a museum might wish to acquire.
And if, like most, we have limited funds available to acquire such photographs, our choices are different than the choices we might make when deciding to "like" something on a website.

 

[Alan Klein]

I doubt if I could sell one of my pictures even if I printed it. Hmmm. Maybe especially if I printed it.

 

[CMoore]

Think of all the News/Photo Journal guys that never printed. Dave Burnett for example. He might be in Vietnam or Egypt while his film is being flown back the The States, film developed not by him, contact sheet printed not by him, and an editor (not him) chooses what frames will be shown and how they might be cropped.
Same goes with all those guys.....How many National Geo photographers printed their own frames.?
Lots of these guys won all kinds of prestigious awards and Pulitzer Prizes.
I bought a Beseler 45 from a Pro Photographer. He works for The San Francisco Giants (among other notables) and he Rarely Printed his own stuff. He did not have the time. He hired a full-time person to do that for him.

 

[removed account4]

none of the commercial photographers, except for a few i have ever known have printed or processed their own work ( color or b/w ).
habs photographers often times have to because they need to make sure there is no hardener in the fix and have to be
completely responsible for the submission, very few portrait and assignment photographers do because they need to be
spending their time doing jobs not being locked in a darkroom printing the work. now that most of the commerical labs are gone
things are a bit different.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Speaking of using one's own money or another's reminded me of this quote from Thomas Paine. “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." It does very much matter whose money is spent.

It's a valuable lesson that people should learn early in life. My aunt had a method of teaching her children how to respect their toys and take care of them. The first time a toy was left out and not put back in the toy box they were not allowed to play with it for a month. The second time that toy was left out it was given to a less fortunate child.

 

[Bill Burk]

I think this is the thread where I wanted to add my thoughts on the Diane Arbus exhibit I just saw at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

My buddy David got me in for free with his sponsor-employee ID. He and I often talk about art, he's a sculptor and I'm a... well you know...

I'm a photographer who appreciates silver gelatin prints, printed by the photographer, during the photographer's formative years.

The thing I appreciated most about the show were maybe a hundred different small prints made by Diane Arbus in the late 1950's.

I came away thinking, dang. I can't do that now. Because even if I start making a hundred small prints, I would have to say "1982, printed later".

 

[chrisaisenbrey]

My buddy David got me in for free with his sponsor-employee ID. He and I often talk about art, he's a sculptor and I'm a... well you know...

I'm a photographer who appreciates silver gelatin prints, printed by the photographer, during the photographer's formative years.

In sculpture art there is a very similar “problem” like in photography: The casting in bronze is commonly not done by the artist and it has influence on the final work. And like in photography it is possible to make several very similar copies even after the death of the artist.

Famous example is “the gates of hell” from Rodin. The casting was financed by Jules Mastbaum after the death of Rodin. One copy for Philadelphia and another copy for Paris.

At the end art is never the work of an isolated person.