At the request of court-appointed Trustee John R. Stoebner, charged with the task of recovering as much money as possible for the creditors of the collapsed Ponzi scheme created by the now-jailed Tom Petters, the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court has approved the transfer of the cluster of works known collectively known as the “Sotheby’s Assets” from Sotheby’s in New York City to Swann Auction Galleries in the same metropolis, for inclusion in a series of auctions, beginning with one coming up in April 2012. […]
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What I can’t do in this blog is create the reputable, influential, multi-author, multi-subject periodical in which my writing on photography coexists with and gets contextualized by writings on different subjects from a flock of equally informed others, as it once did. That’s a publishing enterprise far beyond my scope, requiring pockets much deeper than mine and an editorial/managerial skill set I just don’t have. […] While the California authorities, and the mass media, celebrate the arrest and prosecution of a dangerous predator, let’s beware of any tendency to use this case to justify a skein of laws that have resulted in far more persecutions of innocent people than the capture of guilty ones. Meanwhile, this caution for photographers, amateur and professional alike: Do not use a processing lab anywhere in the U.S. to develop or print any images of children (your own or anyone’s else’s) naked, partially clothed, or clothed but striking poses that anyone might construe as sexually provocative. You’ve been warned. […] Perhaps I’m not alone in finding it surprising that a prominent right-wing spokesperson has come out in defense of creative photographers harassed by the police for making pictures in public places. Especially since the police excesses have happened in the name of fighting terrorism. Whether or not I have company, I consider it worth […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Polaroid Collection: Update 26
These two dozen works from the Polaroid Collection included in the upcoming April 4 auction represent a very small selection from the almost 700 items consigned to Swann. Keep in mind that while a few of these items were withdrawn from the Sotheby’s auction due to protest by the artists, Sotheby’s skimmed the cream off the collection for those sales. What’s left, then, are either the few globules of fat left floating on the surface or else the best of the skimmed milk that remains — from the perspective of the secondary market, that is. (I’d consider all of this group of works historically significant and museum-worthy, though some of it primarily as study material.) […]