{"id":1327,"date":"2009-08-27T21:17:41","date_gmt":"2009-08-28T01:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2009-08-27T21:17:41","modified_gmt":"2009-08-28T01:17:41","slug":"guest-post-4-george-slade-on-polaroid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/2009\/08\/27\/guest-post-4-george-slade-on-polaroid\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post 4: George Slade on Polaroid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Polaroid on the Docket<\/strong><\/p>\n

August 27, 2009,\u00a0St. Paul, MN \u2014\u00a0Maximizing profits appears to have won out over maintaining historic unity.<\/p>\n

\"seal3\"<\/a>This afternoon, just before 2 p.m. Central time, discussion of the motion to sell Polaroid\u2019s fine-art photography collection began, in front of the Honorable Gregory F. Kishel in U. S. Bankruptcy Court proceedings. Attorney George H. Singer, representing the debtor (Polaroid, Petters-ized), spoke for about 45 minutes, answered a small number of questions from Judge Kishel, turned the dais over to the opposing counsel (whose name sounded like \u201cDiCorcia\u201d) who expressed nothing more than that the committee she represented supported the debtor\u2019s motion, and then Judge Kishel issued his ruling granting the motion in its entirety and authorizing the sale process to move forward.<\/p>\n

\"Polaroid<\/a>

Polaroid ColorPack II camera packaging<\/p><\/div>\n

Courtroom 2A in the Warren Burger Federal building in downtown St. Paul was sparsely populated but dense with interest. Among the audience (as identified by attorney Singer) were the man who will lead the resolutions beginning next Monday (Stavner? Identified by the judge as having been \u201changing around for months\u201d in the courtroom), and two representatives of Sotheby\u2019s \u2014 Mitchell Zuckerman<\/a>, Chairman, Sotheby’s Financial Services, Inc. and President, Sotheby’s Ventures, LLC, sitting in the first audience row next to Denise Bethel<\/a>, Senior Vice-President, Director, Photographs in the New York office. Sotheby\u2019s appears to be one of the major beneficiaries of the ruling; they have already fulfilled a March 2009 court-authorized commission to assess the collection<\/a> and now have received permission to\u00a0arrange for a sale, with proceeds going to benefit the estate (the committee representing the claimants) and buyers’ fees to benefit Sotheby\u2019s, per standard auction-house operating procedures.<\/p>\n

\"SX-70<\/a>

SX-70 Necklace Charm<\/p><\/div>\n

The assertion arose, early in Singer\u2019s presentation, that, according to an initial survey, approximately 99% of the monetary value of the 16,000-item Polaroid fine-art collection resides in about 1700 items. Having revealed where the money is at, Singer had set the stage for the ultimate ruling, which was based on the fact that this collection represents significant money and is allegedly costing its owners nearly half a million dollars in annual maintenance costs. The need to generate income far outweighed the \u201csentimental\u201d objections that had been filed to protest the motion; in his ruling, the judge affirmed that there was no contractual obligation attached to these assets that would link them as a collection.<\/p>\n

The context of bankruptcy court was inhospitable to the tenor of letters received from such artists as Judy Dater, Bea Nettles, Joan Lyons, John Divola, Eileen Cowin, and Melanie Walker (for the trust overseeing hers and her father Todd Walker\u2019s ongoing interests). Indeed, Judge Kishel chastised the writers in absentia for not having used his correct address, for using an outdated title, and for chiming in much too late in the process (though he admitted that he had been on vacation and out of his St. Paul office until yesterday). [Note: They used the title and address I provided to them, which I got from\u00a0the court’s official website<\/a>. My bad, I’m sure, Your Excellency. \u2014 A. D. Coleman]<\/p>\n

Kishel labeled the objections \u201cdisingenuous\u201d and overruled them with the further statement that the documents the writers supplied didn\u2019t support the claims being made, and that the statute of limitations for disputing ownership had expired (and been made moot by an earlier bankruptcy proceeding).<\/p>\n

\""Rabble-rouser"<\/a>

"Rabble-rouser" A. D. Coleman<\/p><\/div>\n

Singer and Kishel showed little respect for A. D. Coleman, either. Though acknowledging him as an established figure in the photography field, they observed that \u201cA. C.\u201d was not an artist, not included in the Polaroid collection, and that his goal, advancing a moral rights claim and principle, was, Singer said, to \u201crabble-rouse an army full of people concerned with photography.\u201d Kishel suggested that all the letters received seemed based on a template and \u201cvoiced the same theory.\u201d Singer said that the objections, including a letter by A. D. Coleman, were the result of an \u201corchestrated and engineered\u201d campaign, and that Coleman suffered from a \u201cmisapprehension\u201d of the laws in bankruptcy court. Coleman\u2019s \u201caltruistic concern was not well thought out on a legal basis,\u201d Singer concluded, asking the judge to overrule all objections.<\/p>\n

Chief among Singer\u2019s arguments and oppositions to the written objections were the question of copyright. As Judge Kishel clarified, the Polaroid collection at issue in this hearing is a collection of physical objects, not licensing rights, and that documents, including one sent by Bea Nettles as an attachment to her letter, show that artists had, in fact, ceded ownership and title to the prints.<\/p>\n

\"George<\/a>

George Slade, 2008, by Marc Norberg<\/p><\/div>\n

Furthermore, Singer and Kishel expounded, the fact that Polaroid underwent a prior bankruptcy, in Delaware nearly twenty years ago, means that all the company\u2019s assets, including the fine-art collection, had been sold, free and clear of any claims or titles, physical or rights-based, that may have redounded to the photographers. [Note: Polaroid’s Delaware bankruptcy proceedings took place in delaware in 2002, not 1989. \u2014 A. D. Coleman]\u00a0Roughly 200 images had entered the collection since that bankruptcy; these do not figure in the motion, and are not among the 1700 \u201cauction items\u201d being skimmed off the collection.<\/p>\n

There is some small hope remaining, however, for those who would like to see the collection remain intact. There is no clear disposition of the roughly 14,300 less valuable objects, which remain in the hands of whoever runs Polaroid as of August 31, when Polaroid converts from Chapter 11 bankruptcy to Chapter 7. (Friday, August 28 is the last day for all employees, though some will transfer roles and become contractors.) Sotheby\u2019s has, apparently, offered to serve as an agent for institutions that might want to acquire the collection. Although earlier attempts to find buyers, with the 1700 “cream” works still part of the bargain, met with no acceptable offers, the auction house now has the freedom to go through the entire collection and make unspecified further arrangements regarding the items it has been given permission to auction.<\/p>\n

Thinking it will make a huge (14,300-piece) gift to some lucky institutional repository? Not likely; the court relayed the fact that Sotheby\u2019s, a \u201csuperior auction house\u201d (having nudged Christie’s aside), promises a \u201crobust\u201d ad campaign to secure significant funds, piece by hammered-down piece, for the sake of Polaroid\u2019s creditors.<\/p>\n

\u2014 George Slade<\/p>\n

St. Paul, MN<\/p>\n

George Slade is the former director of the Minnesota Center for Photography, and editor of the book Minnesota in Our Time: A Photographic Portrait<\/a><\/em> (2000). He was the recipient of a\u00a0Creative Capital\/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers\u00a0Grant in 2007.<\/p>\n

Text copyright \u00a9 2009 by George Slade. All rights reserved. Published by permission of the author. To contact George Slade, email him at georgeslade [AT] mac [DOT] com.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

For an index of links to all posts related to this story,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no clear disposition of the roughly 14,300 less valuable objects, which remain in the hands of whoever runs Polaroid as of August 31, when Polaroid converts from Chapter 11 bankruptcy to Chapter 7. (Friday, August 28 is the last day for all employees, though some will transfer roles and become contractors.) Sotheby\u2019s has, apparently, offered to serve as an agent for institutions that might want to acquire the collection. Although earlier attempts to find buyers, with the 1700 “cream” works still part of the bargain, met with no acceptable offers, the auction house now has the freedom to go through the entire collection and make unspecified further arrangements regarding the items it has been given permission to auction. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15],"tags":[125,127,148,205,206,215,238,352,429,430,483],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-post","category-news-commentary","tag-copyright-law","tag-corporate-support","tag-denise-bethel","tag-george-h-singer","tag-george-slade","tag-gregory-kishel","tag-intellectual-property","tag-mitchell-zuckerman","tag-polaroid","tag-polaroid-collection","tag-sothebys","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}