Jim Krantz May Have Finally Gotten His Attribution

Krantz CowboyJust over 2 years ago a story ran in the New York Times that asked the question: “If the Copy Is an Artwork, Then What’s the Original? (here)” The original they were referring to belonged to Jim Krantz and the story went on to explain that Jim had recently paid a visit to the Guggenheim Museum where he discovered one of his photographs included in a retrospective of artist Richard Prince’s work. Most photographers by now are aware of Prince and his practice of using other peoples photographs to make his art and we’ve debated various aspects of the practice including the pending lawsuit by photographer Patrick Cariou (here). What caught my eye recently was that Krantz, a long time artist (here) as well as a big time commercial photographer is starting to get some recognition from the fickle fashion and art communities for his work. His statement in the New York Times article that, “I just want some recognition, and I want some understanding” may be coming true. He’s now represented by Danziger Projects in New York, he recently shot an advertising campaign based on the cowboy work for designer Adam Kimmel (here) and has a show hanging at the Colette in Paris that opened Monday (here). I gave him a call to discuss:

APE: In the time since that article came out about Richard Price using your photography how have things changed for you?

There’s been an awful lot of recognition of my work. So much of the time I work in a vacuum. The work that I produce for my commercial accounts is unconnected from my name. In fact the ad in itself is a very different interpretation from the work I create.

APE: Hasn’t that always been the case with advertising photography?

With tobacco in particular there’s even more of a disconnect because you can’t enter the work in CA or any photo contests. So, you’re really, really in a vacuum.

KrantzDanziger

APE: Do you feel like what happened with Richard Prince changed peoples opinion about your work or brought it more recognition?

The general consensus from over 200 emails that I’ve gotten since that article ran is very negative and people were actually pissed off as far as what he’s done and how he goes about his business. There’s a fine line between appropriation and plagiarism. A lot of the people who write me are photographers and artists and they feel vulnerable to this because they project themselves into the situation I find myself in.

In general I’m not happy about it and artists are not happy about it. Now, if you go talk to a gallerist about it they will look at it as American iconography and describe him as a collector of images. I kind of understand if you take the whole Ad with the Marlboro words with the copy, the header and the cigarette pack stripped out. As opposed to what he’s doing which is stripping all the copy away so you have the photograph in its purest form. That’s a very different thing because at that point it’s not an Ad, which is a departure from what I’ve done, it’s literally exactly what I’ve done. The context is everything. And in the context with all the copy and everything else my work creates a new entity in itself. When he eliminates all of that, it goes back to the core image, which is mine, so yeah I don’t see this as really being a photograph of an advertisement. It’s really just the purest form of the art out of context. That’s exactly how I shoot it, I’m not thinking about cigarettes, I’m not thinking about anything more than fantastic art.

APE: Don’t you think that you have to be Richard Prince to pull it off. He’s dedicated his life to this practice. A lot of people react by saying anyone can do this, but it’s all wrapped up in him.

Yeah, I think you’re right but I think a lot of people take a lot of things all the time because everything is so accessible. I’ll bet there’s a lot of crazy things that take place that we don’t know about. I can’t imagine it, but it’s so accessible you know, why not. People do bad things all the time.

APE: How has it evolved for you from seeing it in the Guggenheim to now where you’re represented by James Danziger in NYC, you shot an advertising campaign for Adam Kimmel based on the cowboy work and you have an opening at the Colette in Paris this week?

What its done is its really illuminated my work and given me the opportunity to take it outside of the advertising world and into the fashion and art world right now. In the last month I’ve been in the New York Times twice, Wallpaper magazine coming up, Bon magazine in Europe, a feature in CA, Arena Hommes Plus, Hercules Magazine in Europe, French Vogue and German GQ.

So the recognition you were seeking for the work happened?

Jim Krantz and Ansel Adams
Krantz and Adams

The recognition has been fantastic and the source for all of this is the article in the New York Times and it’s funny because I’ve been doing this since I was 19 when I took a photography workshop from Ansel Adams at his house and all these guys were hanging out there like Brett Weston and Jerry Uselman. I’ve been shooting fine art my entire career.

APE: But, that’s the irony isn’t it. Someone steals a photograph and suddenly your work is important to the art community. That’s what it took.

It’s amazing to me that the curators at the Guggenheim would bring this work in without acknowledging the source or giving the viewers the opportunity to see what motivates and inspires a person. You need a footnote in a paper but there’s no source recognized here.

APE: I think that is something that’s changing with the web. There’s suddenly more transparency whether you want it or not. People want to dig down and figure out what inspired something or reveal things that aren’t attributed properly.

This is a very fascinating phenomenon and where did anything originate is a big question.

APE: So, what are you feelings towards Richard Prince now that there’s been some form of attribution?

The recognition has been great because it’s fairly impossible with all the millions and millions of images out there to get recognized for anything now days.

But I still to this day don’t understand what he did. Put yourself in my shoes walking down the street and you see the photograph that I shot in Albany, TX in 1990 of a cowboy with his arms stretched out on those on banners wondering why are my pictures there. It’s bizarre man. So, do I understand it? No. And when I went in and saw the posters for the Richard Prince show with my photograph, I don’t understand that either.

APE: Yeah, I can’t imagine that. I won’t pretend to.

It’s not original and it’s not art. I still don’t understand it and I don’t see the significance of it no matter what.

It’s ballsy as hell, I’ll give him that.

KrantzKimmel

How 2010 Is Shaping Up For Advertising

Advertising Age has a look at how advertising is shaping up for the various categories in 2010 (here):

Automotive
“Ford Motor Co.’s Jim Farley, group VP-global marketing, told a conference that the automaker plans to spend half its 2010 ad budget on ‘experiential’ and online marketing, because 75% of new-vehicle buyers now shop online.”

Beer
“…some beer marketers acknowledge that the brands have, for years, been marketed in a commoditized fashion. ‘People have seen the brands as very much the same,’ said one veteran beer-marketing executive, ‘and that makes the cheaper stuff look like a reasonable replacement.'”

Consumer Package Goods
“…great marketing could substitute for new technology. Innovation can also come by making the experience better.”

Digital Marketing
“…while consumer attention has moved to the web, consumer marketing has not. Instead, the web has, in the words of IAB chief Randall Rothenberg, been colonized ‘by the evil aliens of the direct-response planet.'”

Print
“…this will be the year when publishers find out whether readers will pay for digital content. ”

TV Adertising
“‘I care more about the program than the network that it’s on,’ said Peggy Green, media-buying executive at Publicis Groupe’s Zenith.”

Wireless
“think of the 2.8 million households that hung onto their analog TV sets on the eve of the nation’s switch to digital TV. ‘Migrations take time,’ noted Bob Rosenberg, president of Insight Research.”

how to make a living playing music

“determine if you are actually called to be a musician. if you aren’t called, all the gyrations in the world, won’t make it work. if you are called, no matter what you do, it’s going to work. this determination will solve most of the problems you are going to encounter.”

via Ol’ Danny Barnes.

Are You Ready For The Frustration Decade?

Seth Godin is calling the 2010’s the frustration decade (here). We’ve all experienced the frustration with the old way of doing things not working anymore and now the growing frustration with all the cool technology and new ways of doing business not being robust enough. Combine that with slow economic turnaround and I’ll agree it’s the perfect recipe for frustration. He’s giving you the option to embrace the changes and not fight them but I like his next entry on the “Evolution of every medium” (here):

1. Technicians who invented it, run it
2. Technicians with taste, leverage it
3. Artists take over from the technicians
4. MBAs take over from the artists
5. Bureaucrats drive the medium to banality

This means the next decade will belong to the artists. The people who can make you say wow and stop your busy life for a second to check something out. Taking what’s been created and turning it into something beautiful with impact and meaning is the job of artists. An artists with an MBA sounds like a powerful combination. Anyway, here’s to the decade where the artists take over. That will probably be frustrating for some people, hopefully not you.

The First Law Of Self Promotion

I like this response by Neil Binkley of Wonderful Machine to a question about self promotion:

As someone who has reviewed so many outstanding portfolios and self-promotional pieces, what distinguishes the very best?

Certainly, the “wow” factor of an unorthodox or expensive portfolio/promotion is always something that catches my attention. However, if that “wow” isn’t met by “wow #2,” ie. excellent photography presented in a cohesive form, then I feel sorry that the photographer spent so much money putting lipstick on a pig.

The interview is on a blog promoting a book called, No Plastic Sleeves: The Complete Portfolio Guide for Photographers and Designers (here) that I found via, Wonderful Machine Blog.

The book looks great and the blog seems like it will become a wealth of information and inspiration for portfolios and promos.

Here’s another quote from an interview with Art Director Robin Milgrim, a recent PDN Self-Promo Judge:

What do you think is the most challenging and rewarding part of being a judge for an awards competition, such as the PDN Self-Promo Awards?

There are so many talented people out there. When reviewing work for the photo-annuals I am most struck by how many people do not understand their audience, or how to distinguish themselves. At this level everyone is good, but only few are great. It’s easy to choose the winner’s. I am saddened by how many very capable talented people do not understand whom they are talking to. When submitting work for these competitions, keep in mind that the judges, as well as those that will hire you, see an enormous amount of work everyday. They devour creative. They have seen it all, and are hungry for something that breaks with convention.

2010 Is All About Getting Personal

I’m actually phasing [E-blasts] out of my marketing plans for the coming year. The open rates and click through rates are down considerably…click through used to be almost 20%, now I’m lucky to get 2 or 3%. And all the art buyers I talk to are actively opting out and/or deleting without viewing.

2010 is all about getting personal with our marketing. E-blasts don’t fit into that.

From an email discussion with a studio producer. Used with permission.

Predictions for 2010

Folio Magazine has their annual Magazine and Media Predictions for 2010 (here) and there are a few choice quotes I’ve highlighted below. I’ve got a few of my own predictions:

Slightly down is the new up.

We will see fire sale buyouts (a la Business Week) of a few big titles rather than shuttering (a la Gourmet).

More photographers will get into the workshop, book writing and teaching side of the photography business. This is proving by all appearances to be super lucrative, but will get very crowded and competitive as people with an impressive oeuvre enter the market.

Photographers who market with ideas and innovation will be snapped up by marketers who need fresh ideas and innovation.

Product photography will heat up as companies realize products online need great photography to convert online shoppers into buyers.

Local markets will go red hot as local online markets get competitive and companies that normally needed no photos for a yellowpage ad now need lots of photography for a nice looking website.

Video goes nuclear, because nothing is commissioned anymore without video and hey, “doesn’t that camera shoot video too.”

Web 2.0 ideas will give way to Web 3.0 which is fundamentally the joining of content with social tools.

–Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO, The Spanfeller Group (formerly CEO of Forbes.com)

Staff sizes will rebound as managers realize that staffs designed for print can’t do print and a whole host of new initiatives on top of that, at least not effectively.

–Tony Silber, general manager, FOLIO: and Audience Development

Only one or two magazines for most major vertical markets will survive.

There will be many changes at the top of editorial mastheads with more e-community management skills supplementing traditional journalistic skills for the winners.

Print will become richer, better paper will be used, graphics will improve, quality of content will improve and distribution/circulation numbers will drop.

–Don Pazour, CEO, Access Intelligence

One hopeful breakthrough: the four color e-reader. It will be really helpful. Some of the big publications will probably get a few hundred thousand digital e-reader subscribers paying anywhere from $10 to $50. This will bring in anywhere from $3 million to $15 million in subscriber revenue. Unfortunately, some of those same magazines have seen their ad revs drop by $100 million. Get the picture.

–Keith Kelly, “Media Ink” columnist, New York Post

Plenty more to see (here).

Another Digital Concept Magazine

Publisher Bonnier worked with design agency BERG to come up with the Mag+ tablet:

via, Gizmodo

I like this guy already because he says the page flipping is lame (my word) and scrolling is more natural. I also like the idea where you find the things you’re interested in reading in an image based environment and then when you want to drill down in a story the images fade back and it becomes a pure reading experience. This allows the device to be quite small. Of course, photography is so critical to the future of media, I can’t overstate how well it works to communicate ideas quickly and helps you navigate a ton of information.

The only critical piece of the puzzle left here (besides building the damn thing) is the price. This is where the magazine industry will inevitably drop the ball because they’d quickly like to get back to the large profits they were used to. I think cell phone pricing will be critical for mass adoption. The device should be $100 or even free and then users will pay for a tiered number of magazines or articles to look at each month and lock into one and two year plans. On the other hand if they want to charge $800 for the device the yearly subscription for a magazine should be $1. The cost of making a copy and distributing it is zero. I would pay the dollar to have access to a bunch of magazines where I might read a couple articles a year or only look at the pictures. Sort of a newsstand type of arrangement.

The publishing industry is looking a little brighter these days. Just in time.

thx, anthea.

Photographers & Social Media Survey Results

A little while back I linked to a survey Jim M. Goldstein was conducting (here) to see how photographers are using Social Media. The results are in (here) and can be seen in this slide presentation:

Social Media Photography Survey Results 2009

We all now know the value of social media in strengthening a community or bringing together groups of people with similar interests but the big question hanging out there is always “can it bring me new business.” Certainly, it’s been proven that you can build your reputation as a very connected photographer online and garner assignments because of this and you can also sell products back into the community you’ve created, but what about your average professional photographer looking to add blogging, tweeting or facebook as a component to their overall marketing? This survey doesn’t seem to prove that it works (Jim says the potential is there), but I do think we are trending this way faster than we think, just not the way you might expect. It’s less about your connections buying something from you in the 1000 true fans model and more about them spreading the word about something you’re working on or buying into a product your been assigned to shoot.

Looking at it from a magazines perspective I think that hiring 20 photographers and writers each month who are each connected to 1000 people who might then each be connected to 100 people makes a lot of sense as a consideration in the hiring decision.

The Future of Photography (Popular Photography 1944)

I FEEL THAT the camera finds its main importance as a recording and communicating mechanism, and I should like to see it develop until it takes its place with the pencil and the typewriter as an instrument of our everyday language. Photography should be taught in the schools along with penmanship as part of postwar education’s expansion.

It is possible to perfect the camera to the point where it will become an automatic instrument which will focus, expose and process the film by the mere push of a button. In this way we will be able to realize a medium possessing an immediacy between seeing and recording unachieved by any other art.

via A Photo Student

A Guide To Paper Buying

Of all the things that make up a magazine, paper buying is probably the least understood. It’s also the most expensive line item in the monthly production of magazines. The quality of the paper was always a huge gripe in the Art Department, but I would have gladly taken a cut in quality for an increase in the photography budget.

Dead Tree Edition has a post called “The 10 Most Common Paper-Purchasing Mistakes” and I think it may even be possible to apply some of these cost savings ideas and not take a hit on paper quality. Wouldn’t that be awesome. People working in management positions at magazines owe it to themselves to understand the jobs of the other people in the office who have a stake in the monthly budget pie. And, who knows maybe some day you’ll find yourself creating a magazine on your own and need to buy paper. More insight (here).

Is Content Still King?

“some problems don’t have answers. That is the flaw in the ‘they will find a business model’ logic. As if business models grow on trees. Don’t assume there is always an answer.”

via Daily Intel.