So, now that you have gotten your daily dose of photo hotness out of the way, even if it wasn't what you expected, now we get to what this post is really about.
The news this past week, at least in the photography and internet privacy circles, has been Richard Prince selling slightly altered images from other people's instagram feeds for insane prices at high end New York Galleries. There's a whole mess of articles and follow ups on this one, and whether it was a copywrite violation or not. Based on what I have read, as much as it sucks to think, it seems like he was within the letter of the law. You can read all that and come to your own conclusions, that isn't what this post is about.
This post is about my thought process, which went something like this:
First though: "WTF?"
Second thought: "Seriously, WTF?" Ok, let's skip down a few because it took me a bit to get past that stage."
15th though: "Some one was willing to pay $90K for a picture they could have gotten for free on the internet..... WTF?"
And this is where my thoughts started to get into something I thought may be worth a blog post. What makes something ART? And what makes that ART worth $90,000. Or, in another recent story, what makes a photograph worth $6.5 Million, like Peter Lik's recent sale.
I am not even remotely prepared to address the question of what makes something art. I have so many different opinions on this even in my own head, that I don't feel qualified in any way to put out a definition that would stick. The closest I can come is that ART is something you make not just because you want to, but because you have to. Your soul can't rest until it's done. If it meets that criteria, then it's art, whether any particular viewer likes it or not, whether anyone is willing to pay anything for it or not. ART doesn't need to make a statement, other than, "here I am."
Once upon a time, in the technical theatre days of my youth, someone swept up the backstage area of the theatre. On a whim, these techies (some booze and drugs may have been involved, I can neither confirm nor deny that) took the resultant pile of sawdust, screws, random pieces parts and whatnot, superglued it into a giant ball, spray painted it various colors, gave it a super pretentious name like, "cosmic disentegration of the universe," entered it into an art competition, and won. Now, was this art, or just silliness? Is there a distinction? Was the statement- "you art judges are all F'd up and stupid?" This leads me back to Richard Prince. I saw that he has a history of doing this sort of thing, testing the limits of copywrite and such. I have to wonder if he started out on a bender and just threw some slightly derivative work of something public out there and said, "no way is anyone stupid enough to actually pay me for this.... right.... holy shit... someone is actually that stupid.... mother fuck... seriously.... ok.... if you are actually willing to pay me for stealing shit I guess I'll keep doing it..."
Which leads to the question of what is ART worth. The only answer I have been able to come up with is that your art is worth whatever you can convince some jackass..... er.... art lover.... to pay you for. If you have the balls to throw some slightly altered instagram screen captures up on a wall, someone else is willing to give you gallery space for it, and someone is willing to pay you $90k for it, then I guess that's what your art is worth. Once, in a gallery, I saw- this is not exaggeration, a completely BLANK canvas. I think it was roughly 3x4ft, with the title "WHITE" and a $5k price tag. Seriously. Someone had the sheer balls to put a completely blank canvas on a wall and see if they could get someone to pay $5k for something they probably got at the Micheal's five cent sale.
Which leads me to what the hell I am doing wrong and why I think I will have trouble making it as an artist. I simply don't have that sort of chutzpah. I feel like I need to give you some sort of value for your money. When I shoot artists performing, it's hard for me to ask for money, because it's something I enjoy and would do for free if I had some other source of money that was sufficient to allow me to do so. So when it comes to charging, I will base my prices on what I need to get by, not what I think I can get from the audience. I am just not built that way. I'll add a modifier because time spent shooting is time I am not spending with my family, but it's still time spent doing something I love. I don't want to strike it rich, all I want to do is make enough to take care of my family doing something I love.
Which brings me back to Peter Lik and his super sale. A year ago, before he became news, I randomly stumbled into his gallery in Waikiki while my ship was in port in Pearl Harbor. I was blown away by his work. His shots were beautiful, but even beyond that, he had developed some incredible ways to print and display his work. That's what you can't see in the internet articles. His large scale prints looked almost 3D, and managed to shine even in the dark, without the traditional glow in the dark paint effect. When I saw that one of his prints went for $6.5 mil, I wasn't really that shocked. He put in the time. He did the work. He came up with his own unique style and his own printing processes. He built the galleries, he did the marketing. He made a bet on his own skills, abilities and images, and he won big. He earned it, more power to him.
Richard Prince is a hack. Maybe he is trying to make some sort of statement about copywright and public domain, I really don't care. He is making a living stealing other people's work and using the veneer of making an artistic statement to justify it. If this was the first time he'd done it I'd be more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but really I think he falls into the same category as patent trolls and most of the lawyers you see advertising on tv looking for class action clients. I think he has just realized that not only can he get away with it, he can also make a killing getting away with it. (Mr. Prince, if you are reading this and want to disagree, feel free to shoot me a message and we'll discuss it over a beer- your treat, you can afford it). But I don't think what he does is art. Lik, on the other hand, despite the insane prices on his work, I think really does it for the art. I think he'd still be shooting landscapes even if people weren't buying them. (Mr. Lik, if you're reading this and wish to discuss anything over drinks, same offer applies- I know you can afford to buy) Maybe Prince would still be stealing your instagram photos if he wasn't getting paid to do it, but that's just creepy.
Anyway, I know this is not one of my most coherent posts, but my thoughts on art are a jumble of stuff, all over the map, like art itself. And, like art, even if it isn't perfect, sometimes you just have to put it out there because it's tearing its' way out of you whether you want it to or not. So you give it to the world as it is. I think all good art does make the viewer question something, even if that question is an generic as "why," or "WTF," so on that note I will leave with two images and a question for you: Are these ART?
The first one, in the spirit of Richard Prince, is a slightly edited copy of someone else's art, in this case an edited picture of a painting someone else made. So, is my copy of some else's work art? What if I gave it some pretentious title, say, "Cosmic Swirly," and listed it for $50k? Then is it ART?
The second, in the spirit of Peter Lik, is only stolen in that I saw something in nature that I thought was beautiful, in this case a single leaf dangling by a strand of spider web, spinning in the breeze, and took a picture of it, which I then edited and tried to make into something beautiful. If it was hanging in a gallery space I bought in some major city along side more of my work, would it be worth millions?
One thing I am sure of is that art raises questions. So I would love to hear yours, and am always open to serious, or even whimsical, discussion of any of my opinions- as long as you're buying. Until then, I will keep posting about NAKED WOMEN, because even if it isn't art, it sells!
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