{"id":10280,"date":"2011-12-20T15:29:02","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T19:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?page_id=10280"},"modified":"2016-01-30T12:06:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T17:06:04","slug":"the-painter-and-the-photograph","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/major-stories\/major-stories-2011\/the-painter-and-the-photograph\/","title":{"rendered":"The Painter and the Photograph"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bob<\/a>

Bob Dylan, “The Asia Series,” catalogues, 2011<\/p><\/div>\n

Most if not all of Bob Dylan\u2019s “Asia Series” paintings are based on identifiable photographs not of Dylan’s making \u2014 none of them recent, but at least some of which remain under copyright protection.\u00a0This revelation, which came as the paintings got\u00a0exhibited for the first time at Gagosian Gallery in New York in the fall of 2011, sparked my interest as both a photo critic and a dedicated Dylan listener since 1961.<\/p>\n

Those reporting and commenting on this disclosure fell into three categories: art critics who knew little about photography and less about standard practice in roots music; music critics and Dylanologists\u00a0who knew little about photography and less about standard practice in art; and cultural journalists with only a smattering of knowledge about standard practices in art, photography, or roots music. Though collectively they managed to identify the photographic sources of much of Dylan’s iconography for his canvases, they shed more heat than light on Dylan’s usage of photographs as source material specifically and the much more widespread practice of painting from photographs in general.<\/p>\n

Seemed like a context in which a photography critic grounded in Dylan’s music could prove useful, as well as a perfect starting point for a discussion of the two-way interchange between painting and photography in contemporary art. The posts to date:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Photographer and the Painting (5)<\/a> \u2015 3\/8\/15. In which I continue my exploration of the hypocrisy and double standards involved in berating painters and other visual artists for working from photographs while keeping mum when photographers replicate work by other artists \u2014 in this instance, Sandro Miller’s “homages” to three dozen other photographers.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Photographer and the Painting (4)<\/a> \u2015 3\/4\/15. In which I return to the issue of the hypocrisy and double standards involved in berating painters and other visual artists for working from photographs while keeping mum when photographers replicate painters \u2014 or, in this high-profile case, a sculptor, Frank Gaylord.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0The Photographer and the Painting (3)<\/a>\u00a0\u2015 9\/28\/13.\u00a0In which I consider the hypocrisy and double standards involved in berating painters for working from photographs while keeping mum when photographers replicate painters.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0The Photographer and the Painting (2)<\/a> \u2015 9\/22\/13.\u00a0In which I point to projects by\u00a0Peter Lindbergh,\u00a0Hisaji Hara,\u00a0Flora Borsi, Amy Arbus, and the faculty and students of the\u00a0Rochester Institute of Technology\u00a0as examples of photographs specifically created in imitation of copyrighted paintings, wondering how come those who object strenuously to painters working from photos have nothing to say about such acts.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Guest Post 10: J. Ross Baughman on Leon Golub<\/a> \u2015 9\/19\/13. In which, as an illuminating sidebar, this Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist offers an account of a collaborative situation in which the late American painter Leon Golub worked directly from one of Baughman’s photographs.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0The Photographer and the Painting (1)<\/a> \u2015 9\/15\/13.\u00a0In which I recap the earlier series, laying a groundwork for considering the reverse situation \u2015 photographers working from paintings.<\/p>\n

\"Bruce<\/a>

Bruce Gilden, “Asakasa, Japan,” 1998. From his Magnum blog. Photograph copyright \u00a9 by Bruce Gilden.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2022\u00a0Bob Dylan: The Painter and the Photograph (5)<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 10\/30\/11. In which I bring up the long history of painters working from photographs in various ways, consider the response to those practices from knowledgeable art and photography critics and historians, and begin an examination of the IP issues involved.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Bob Dylan: The Painter and the Photograph (4)<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 10\/23\/11. In which I address further examples of duplicitous language from Dylan’s marketers and defenders, and analyze the differences between plagiarism and influence, while at the same time exposing the lamentable ignorance of art, photography, and music manifested by many of the commentators on this matter.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Bob Dylan: The Painter and the Photograph (3)<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 10\/21\/11. In which I\u00a0visit the Gagosian Gallery and spent time with the paintings in\u00a0Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cAsia Series,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0weighing them as artworks based on direct encounter, and going into the larger question of “celebrity art.”<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Bob Dylan: The Painter and the Photograph (2)<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 10\/18\/11. In which I dissect the evasive, disingenuous, and even deceitful language used by Dylan and his gallery representatives in addressing his usage of photographs as source material.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Bob Dylan: The Painter and the Photograph (1)<\/a> \u2014 10\/10\/11. In which I open my own commentary by providing some backstory covering Dylan’s long-term involvement with the visual arts, including his brief but influential period of study with the mysterious Norman Raeben.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

\"A.<\/a>

A. D. Coleman, Critical Focus, 1995<\/p><\/div>\n

Special offer:<\/strong> If you want me to either continue pursuing a particular subject or write on a topic other than the current main story, make a donation of $50 via the PayPal widget below<\/strong>, indicating your preference in a note accompanying your donation. I’ll credit you as that new post’s sponsor, and link to a website of your choosing. Include\u00a0 a note with your snail-mail address (or email it to me separately<\/a>) for a free signed copy of my 1995 book <\/em>Critical Focus!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Bob Dylan, “The Asia Series,” catalogues, 2011<\/p>\n

Most if not all of Bob Dylan\u2019s “Asia Series” paintings are based on identifiable photographs not of Dylan’s making \u2014 none of them recent, but at least some of which remain under copyright protection. This revelation, which came as the paintings got exhibited for the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":25054,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10280","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10280\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}