in the scheme of artists work not being represented well by said photo pic…i say let it go to a certain degree. or just send the author a better jpg and ask them to replace it. both sides should really have no big deal with any of this.

When I read this post a couple of weeks ago, I figured that the gallerists were merely asserting their status as purveyors of luxury items by rebuffing the hoi polloi of bloggers streaming in and out of their spaces, snapping all the expensive essence out of each and every work. I figured that death by overexposure seems a real threat to someone who is creating value out of thin air. While the bloggers were technically right, and while the gallerist’s behavior is boorish, I was amused that everyone was getting in a huff about a gallerist being a snob.

But I like RuthK’s argument. It made me think about how I’d feel if a bunch of nasty orange snapshots of my work were the first things you saw when you do an image search on my name.

What kind of personal use is a blog? It’s very public, quasi-journalistic “personal use” in a vehicle that’s designed to create a high search-engine ranking. I say this as someone who is very lazy with other people’s images on my own blog. I don’t include a photo credit as I should, and sometimes I don’t even identify an artist carefully. I don’t really blame myself, but I am thinking about this right now with a different sensibility.

There is a common-sense angle to all this that’s getting forgotten. Artists are told upways and down that they really must control their photographed presence. Take good slides, know how to submit a decent jpeg, know how your work looks to other people. We applaud artists who are proud enough of their work to photograph and otherwise present it carefully. And yet when gallerists attempt to pay similar attention to how work is presented, they get the smack!

I think that both sides are right. Blogs are personal diaries, and you should be able to take a snapshot of a sculpture or painting without diluting its essence or whatever. But bloggers should also see that they are re-presenting unauthorized versions of other people’s work in ways that might hurt the artist, at least a little, in their effort to have high-quality images that accurately represent the work.

I don’t blame the gallerists for wanting to control which images make it online. And I think it’s so freaking easy to get good images from gallerists that there’s no excuse not to at least try to play nice.

Eric F, you are comparing apples to oranges here. Videotaping a film is copying the work and is considered piracy when it’s done for profit, as it generally is. Photographing a piece of fine art is depicting that piece in another medium, as well as having an entirely different purpose. Plus, you have the additional wrinkle of the fact that film is a collaborative process, so not only is the film itself a protected work, but the actors also have a right to control their images, as per union rules. Since there is no profit motive, it could be argued that posting a picture of an artwork on a blog is Fair Use, since technically it is personal use.