Ansel Adams Trust slams AI-colorized "Moonrise"

[Tanuki]

https://hyperallergic.com/ansel-adams-trust-decries-dealers-sale-of-photo-colorized-using-ai/

"The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust has lambasted New York City gallerist Peter Danziger for offering AI-colorized editions of one of the late artist’s most recognized photos for sale at an art fair last month. In a recent online statement, the Trust said Danziger never notified them of his use of the photo, adding that it “exploited Ansel’s name, reputation, and his most iconic image.”

The gallerist pushed back against the Trust in a public statement yesterday, May 25, asserting that he “had every right to create a new and transformative artwork” because Adams’s black-and-white photo, “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico” (1941), was in the public domain.

Danziger, whose namesake gallery had a booth at The Photography Show presented by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) last April, exhibited an AI-generated image he fashioned using the following prompt: “Make a realistic color version of Ansel Adams’ iconic ‘Moonrise Over Hernandez.’” The untitled image was accompanied by a wall text disclosing the AI prompt and was displayed alongside new work by Hoda Afshar and Giuseppe Lo Schiavo, as well as pieces by Seydou Keïta, Matthew Porter, and Tod Papageorge.

Danziger had the image printed in editions of 10 in three different sizes for sale at the fair. The gallerist declined to disclose to Hyperallergic the number of prints sold, if any, or the asking prices."....(more)

[Walleye]

1. I can't understand a person who would mess up someone's work like this

[Tanuki]

2. Some people will do anything to make a quick buck.

[Walleye]

3. It's part of the larger situation of people not respecting expertise or creativity anymore

[msongs]

4. if it's public domain he can do what he wants. like anti copyright people

want

[mopinko]

5. editions of 10. meaningless marketing bullshit.

he’ll print 10 more in a heartbeat if he manages to sell those 10.
i hope this guy fails spectacularly.

[Marie Marie]

6. That is just wrong. Looks wrong and is wrong.

[Tanuki]

7. I didn't know that the original photo was part of a project

commissioned in October 1941 by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. It grieves me to think how far we have fallen and how unimaginable it would be today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonrise,_Hernandez,_New_Mexico

..."October 1941, United States Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes hired Adams for six months to create photographs of lands under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, for use as mural-sized prints for decoration of the department's new Interior Museum.[3] "....(more about the original at link)

[groundloop]

8. Thanks, I'd never heard that either. A no, the current administration.....

would NEVER commission a work such as this, mostly because there would be no personal gain involved for the oligarchs.

And as for the topic at hand, I get that this work was in the public domain but it's still pretty sleazy to try to make a profit off of someone else's work (especially when all the effort involved was typing a few words).