Previous news story Next news story

Chronicler of NYC art scene can't give away his collection

Jun 5, 2013 at 18:03:56 GMT

Print view

For nearly forty years, photographer D. James Dee documented artwork and installations for seminal artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schanbel and prominent New York City galleries. Shooting everything from 35mm slides to 8 x 10 large format transparencies, Dee, like any responsible pro always shot one or two extra frames on each assignment to safeguard against film loss or damage. As he tells The New York Times in an interview, 'If they [the client] ordered 10 slides, I’d shoot 12. It was cheaper to shoot extras than to go back and reshoot. Instead of throwing them out, I put them in a box.'

It's that last line that's responsible for a roughly 250,000-image archive of color slides and negatives that chronicle the explosive growth of the Soho art scene of the 70s, 80s and 90s. He's now closing up shop and retiring to Miami, but having never made an attempt to categorize or even label his work by artist or gallery, he has so far found no takers for his offer to donate the archive.

Dee, who has no further interest in housing the collection is set to move at the end of July and if he doesn't find a willing taker soon, says, 'At some point I've got to get a Dumpster to put them in.' Who knows how this will play out. But one thing's for sure. It would make for an interesting Craigslist ad.

Click to read the full story at The New York Times.

D. James Dee has more than 250,000 remnants of his 39 years as a photographer documenting the work of modern artists.
Photograph: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times

OTHER NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY

Comments

Total comments: 73

Have him contact the, Academy of Art in San Francisco. I know they would like this collection for illustrative purposes.

I just cannot believe this.

Comment edited 2 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

With all the focus on I phone photography, blogs, Tumblers, Instagrams and G*d knows what is to come, etc, I wonder if someone out there is working on high speed scanners for just this reason.
Perhaps the soon to be unemployed newspaper photogs whose jobs are being phased out to the reporters with I-phones thing can scan some pics while sitting at home collecting unemployment

( he says as he types on a forum when he should be scanning...lol )

2 of 2

0 upvotes

As someone who has boxes full of negatives and prints that I've promising myself to digitize, well since digitizing became easy and cheap for years now, I can sympathize and empathize with this scenario.
rotf

But i digress....

What really interests me is seeing the work from NYC galleries in the 70's.

I worked in Soho as an electrician building galleries in cheap as dirt storefronts, where the lighting was "track lights" constructed from lengths of tubing and clamp on lights...Oh the memories.

It would be interesting to see some of the old stuff this guy shot.

I hope someone takes him up on his collection.

Hasn't anyone invented a cellphone app for this yet? ( just kidding)
Or even better, a fast loading, self feeding scanner like the one advertised on TV for documents.

1 of 2

0 upvotes

Scan, upload. The internet can be your museum.

0 upvotes

Easier said than done. If it takes 1 min to scan and upload each slide, and you work 8 hours a day with no rest, 5 days a week, it will you about 2 full years to go through 250,000 slides.

0 upvotes

What if it take 1/250th of a second? The web does not need high resolution (although it would be nice)

0 upvotes

I was talking about total time commitment, including sorting (notice how there are different sizes), managing, tagging, etc. I think 1 min. per scan is actually an underestimate. You could build a process to automate this, but it's gonna cost you. My point was, whoever takes on this should not have the illusion that they are 'free.'

0 upvotes

What can you do with them? They are all essentially someone else's copyrighted work. If some one wants to keep them for another 50 - 100 years for the copyright to expire perhaps then they will have some value. In reality he has a duty to his past clients to destroy them.

Comment edited 2 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

It would seem history and preservation of culturally significant information would be at odds with the desire of others to make money. If the artist is dead, let the work out into the world.

0 upvotes

NYC Art teacher here... I've got the truck. Where can I pick these up? Seriously.

0 upvotes

So this man can't find a taker for his 39-year span of documenting some of the most fantastic modern artists' work... and Andreas Gursky gets 4,3 million dollars for a nondescript photograph of a river. (cf. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/8884829/Why-is-Andreas-Gurskys-Rhine-II-the-most-expensive-photograph.html)
Go figure.

2 upvotes

Works of Caravaggio, Titian and many other masters were not valued at all during some periods. A lot went into dumpster , rats ate some, some works were burned.... and many works were not recorded at all and some have no signature....some were painted over.
History of neglect and stupidity follows art.

Perhaps the slides are not all so important - but perhaps 1/1000 is.

1 upvote

The "master works" you allude to amounted to a very small number, relative to the thousands and thousands of commercial or artsy works done in the 20th century. Anything that is too bulky for the connoiseur to catalog or annotate is probably worth disposal. The owner should cull some favorites, assemble some notes or stories, share these by blog or video, and deep-six the rest.

0 upvotes

Makes me want to go out and shoot a lot of useless graffiti (vandalism) and bad modern art. One man's treasure is another man's junk. Photo hoarding is common. Just shoot for yourself and enjoy your cameras while you are above ground.

2 upvotes

I've known his daughter since the 90's (she was a camper at the summer camp where I worked). She told me about this a few days before the Times article came out. I asked about the usual places and she said they'd talked to them all...wow...so sad...

2 upvotes

Is it that nobody will *take* them or that nobody will *pay for* them ?

1 upvote

What might you charge him to clean-up and dispose the scraps and bins of stuff he wants to be rid of?

0 upvotes

Perhaps you should consider reading the whole N.Y. Times article rather than just commenting on the synopsis.

"It would help if you represent a nonprofit organization, because Mr. Dee hopes to receive a tax deduction for donating his life’s work."

0 upvotes

If an NPO bids $0.01 for the collection, what sort of tax deduction will that earn? The IRS would beg plenty of attestations about the tangible value, which will be difficult if much of the stuff is an unlabeled jumble. There will also be the copyright hazard that artists whose works are protrayed will claim a share of the credit. Every tourist who takes pictures at the Met or MOM would have an easier time proving that their photos "document" articles with a sales history or critical pedigree.

0 upvotes

There is an old saying: "If you keep things long enough, you can throw them away". Sooner or later, that's what usually happens.

0 upvotes

It would be a nice documentation base for restoration purposes if the art degrades faster than the slides. It is probably cheaper for musea, galleries, collectors to get still existing art documented digitally now when needed than sorting, archiving, searching and digitizing the slides. They do not represent the art in its existing state either.

Ernst Dinkla

2 upvotes

Actually he should just donate to the Library of Congress but I'm not sure they'd want to go though it either. I think the real problem is the artwork had value, photographs of the artwork, not so much.

1 upvote

When I was spring-cleaning once, my cousin reminded me that that all the stuff we've accumulated will all eventually get burnt up.

2 Peter 3:10-11 in the Bible states: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives."

Comment edited 16 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

What the?...

touting religion on photographic forums?

10 upvotes

No thanks. I'd rather live a truthful life than subscribe to a load of primitive superstition. What's the religion rubbish doing on here?

3 upvotes

ugh keep religion in the church... this is a photography forum

1 upvote

Photographic forum: temple of gear-worshippers and image idolators, born in dark-rooms and aging on hard drives. Zealots of the ritual of pixel-peeping. Vanity of vanities: all that they worship is, to the rest of the universe, mere trash doomed to perish in a dumpster or computer recycling bin.

2 upvotes

Better a pixel-peeper than a religious zealot with a knife or gun. Can we have the planet back when you've finished fighting?

0 upvotes

Camera fanboy wars are rather gruesome.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=awq90APEVgw

1 upvote

This was sarcasm - or was it?
Of course everything disappears some day - there are not so many dinosaurs walking around. But really! After some decades or some hundred years some scientist would love this collection. Because all digital files will go to "the fire" quite soon.
Art should be more holy IMO !

0 upvotes

Great video jkoch2 and so true. Reminded me of the local bird reserve. Thanks for the link.

0 upvotes

In other words, he wants the government to pay his collection through a big Tax deduction, while he can simply give them to someone like me. It all depends how much he wants to deduct. I will not be surprised non-profit organizations are reluctant in participating such scheme, if the deduction is a big number .

0 upvotes

No, I'm pretty sure he just wants to give away some photos.

1 upvote

Can I have them? I live in NYC.

Comment edited 4 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

Incredibly sad that there isn't some organization that would want these images. They need to be saved, preserved, gone through, and edited. We're all like Dee, we don't make notes on our slides either. I have thousands I've shot over the years, tens of thousands of slides and negatives, and very few have notes. So what? Dee isn't a bad guy, he was a businessman and a photographer. The images he has are extras, and who knew? Suddenly they are important. But not important enough I guess. Hope someone will come and save them. Hey Mr. Dee! Put them up on eBay!! Start bidding at 99 cents and mark it "Local Pickup Only"

0 upvotes

As wonderful as this collection appears on first reading, the real issue is that most of the slides are unlabeled and uncategorized. I can see why major galleries and institutes don't want it, because the work required to label and document 39 years worth of artwork is crazy. He probably never thought about what he would be doing with them in the future, and just kept storing extras as a matter of habit.

3 upvotes

I hear a lot of photographers who believe it is a waste of time to add keywords, GPS locations, or other metadata to their images because "I don't need any help searching, I can remember exactly where I took each photo" or who was in them.

By selfishly limiting the scope of their photography to their own lifespan (or as long as their memories hold out, which can't be assumed to last one's own lifetime), they rob their family and community of data that would keep their photographic legacy relevant and valuable after their death.

2 upvotes

Labels or GPS coordinates don't necessarily add any value. Most of the artworks photographed have merely conjectural names or numbers anyway. If they don't tell a story, a label won't take its place. What are 35,000 GPS coordinates, if all are in about the same place, or if they do no more than suggest whether a street was in Moline, Illinois or Kinderhook, NY? Does that create monetary value?

2 upvotes

Sadly, what we as photographers consider valuable, the rest of the world does not. He put in the effort to capture and save images of other artist's work, now no one seems to find his efforts relevant.

On a similar note, even original art is rarely appreciated today. I truly believe this is a reflection of the new generation. People today care little for art or history; they value more what technology can do to impress or entertain them. There is little, if any, soul in this new generation.

1 upvote

There's plenty of soul in this new generation, and it's in the technology. Just check out the rest of the internet.

Even photography is arguably more impressive, now that digital makes it 'free' to experiment. This new generation has been defined by wanting to push boundaries, and being able to do so (with everything being digital, making experimentation not too costly)

0 upvotes

But who, if anyone are your clients? Playing around with the latest digital toys is fun, but who is paying for the "boundary-pushing art" being produced? Answer; no one.

The internet? Relatively free access to information posted by "boundary-pushing" young, struggling artists.

Photography more impressive today because of digital? Try capturing the moment on a roll of film and developing that image to perfection. That, my friend, is true talent. Anyone can shoot off a thousand digital pictures and pick/choose a few to post process; capturing a perfect image right out of the camera with only 24 or 36 shots is talent. Yes, most Pulitzer Prize-winning photos were captured on film by dedicated photographers who had one thing in common; soul.

1 upvote

Ah, so you're saying the harder something is, the more worthwhile it is? Got it, thanks. I'll attempt to take all my pictures from now on using a can of tuna instead of a camera. It might take a while to get decent results, but my God, when I do it will have such soul!

3 upvotes

Pin hole cameras are tops! Make your own silver nitrate plates too! Why buy matches? Real men make fires by rubbing sticks, go barefoot, catch wild game with clever nooses, and eat it raw. Yes, Neanderthals knew the taste of real meat! Later generations were all spoiled and degenerate. How far Generation Y has fallen!

1 upvote

nobody wants slides of 'modern art'? im not surprised.

4 upvotes

Is modern art from 39 years ago still modern? A modern car from 39 years ago is....? Or is it now classical art?

1 upvote

"Somewhere in that pile is a gem waiting to be cut and polished..."

1 upvote

I guess scanning them and then archiving the scans might be a good idea. There are plenty of films (still and moving picture) that have deteriorated badly and should have been backed up to a digital file.

0 upvotes

"...backed up by a digital file..." that no one will pay for or want either.

0 upvotes

very interesting article, especially for me.
I've been photographing artworks professionally since early 90s (first assisting, then on my own) - and I have an expansive collection of 4x5 and 8x10 chromes of some pretty important works.
However, copywork is copywork and I am sure if I tried to market these images I would face a major wrath from art community, and it's likely to be a career-ending move, aside of getting sued for copyright breach.

I wonder what Dr.Dee is thinking about legal framework for selling this collection.

0 upvotes

He's looking to donate, not sell them. All he's asking is that the recipient be an institution so he can get a tax deduction from the contribution.

Comment edited 26 seconds after posting

1 upvote

In this context it's just semantics, isn't it?
The artists he worked for are sure to be thrilled to have their stuff at some institution.

What I think Dr.Dee should do is to scan them all, pack the chromes safely away and submit the thumbnails to getty, corbis, gug and and all the usual suspects. Over the years this archive will gain tremendous value even just as a resource for restoration work. Not to mention prints, etc.

Comment edited 4 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

I'll take them.

0 upvotes

Here is what needs to be remembered about this collection:

It is a collection.

Unlike all his clients who have smaller elements of this, he has the scope of the scene, he has a whole of their parts...

I hope someone does something with them :)

2 upvotes

"'If they [the client] ordered 10 slides, I’d shoot 12. It was cheaper to shoot extras than to go back and reshoot."

If I understand this correctly, these are the leftovers of the photos that he took for his clients. Presumably, they got the best of the bunch. It also appears that he didn't catalog them in any way so there is no idea, unless you go visit, what the subjects are and how many of them are actually decent photos.

It's like someone having a hockey card collection where all of the popular and mint condition cards were sold off and the rest were thrown in a box.

Is it really worth the effort? After all, presumably the actual art pieces and the original photos provided to the clients still exist.

Comment edited 1 minute after posting

0 upvotes

The backups were just that, providing a spare identical slide/tranny in case the original was lost/damaged. Same lighting, angle, etc as the ones that went to clients.

2 upvotes

Strange - this discussion - and the situation. That collection is so huge , that it contains also (how much?) some important things about art not just trendiness - what ever that is. People who try to write about art in a historical perspective after some decades will be very happy if the archives exist in 2063.

If these slides are destroyed there will be nothing much left of that period - after some 50-100 years also our digital work has disappeared in to the graveyard of ancient useless file formats.

There will b a huge black hole - renaissance will be better documented - ink on paper.... Should some institution think about future researchers - i do not know. Perhaps all that art and art scene should go into oblivion. If it has no value. I'm not talking about money as a measure of value.

3 upvotes

Many retired or deceased photographers can't give away their original artwork. It's not uncommon for whoever inherited the work to throw them away. This had been discussed in a recent issue of LensWork.

4 upvotes

That has nothing to do with what happened here this isn't his work it is reproduction work of others artist. He can't give it away because he doesn't have the rights to the work

2 upvotes

BS. If it's any good there'll be takers.

1 upvote

The problem is it is all reproduction work of copyrighted pieces. There fore no one can publish or display them publicly. What would be the point.

1 upvote

Think like a business person. If you had a Piccaso slide (use your imagination) it would be worth something, because someone out there would pay just to have it in their collection whether it's displayed or not. How much would that one slide be worth? How much would it be worth 3 generations from now?

I wouldn't pay $5 for the stuff, but you get my point ;)

0 upvotes

" it is all reproduction work of copyrighted pieces. There fore no one can publish or display them publicly"
False. Photographs of copyrighted works are fine, unless they are slavish reproductions. If you take a photo of a statue, the copyright is yours. If you take a photo of a painting, the photo MAY be yours, assuming you've added your own take on it.

"What would be the point."
Even if these were slavish reproductions, there are many institutions (libraries, archives, etc.) that aren't worried about publishing or displaying. The point is maintaining an archive of knowledge that may not exist elsewhere, or that exists elsewhere but is potentially fragile.

3 upvotes

You don't understand this guy copied 2d art that is how it used to be done before scanners still is sometimes it is not original work

0 upvotes

What would the point be of slides of artwork be that you couldn't print. Especially well known art that reproductions are availible. Maybe some of the large format slides would be cool

0 upvotes

It's a good example of how current copyright laws fail at the purpose they're intended to serve.

0 upvotes

But you have to remember that there is a time limit how long the copyright is still valid, even if these photos are just reproductions.

1 upvote

Yeah copyright laws, in U.S. I suppose, as well as in Italy, are not very contemporary.
One thing that I would not take as granted is the "slides being copies of other 2D work" so what? what it is the intrinsic worth of an artist's work if it is taken out of context? There is no meaning to art without context to its message, therefore, a slide of a given work, or experience, at that, being removed from the original piece, is already a different thing.

0 upvotes

what would be the point of copyright law if it didnt make it illegal to make copies of artwork? honestly the claims made by those who hate the rights of artist have gone from the odd to the sureal. copyright law is outmoted because it stops you from making copies. This guy has extra slides from copywork he did over the years witch are really only useful to the copyright holder who probably still has the copies he already made ergo this guys collection isnt that useful. maybe a museum would like to have the large format slides but the point of having a bunch of the 35 mm and medium format slides you cant reproduce for a long time escapes me. and once they fall in the public domain the works they are of than anyone cares about already exist in forms that can be reproduced.

0 upvotes

I am sure someone will take it in now that it is in the NYTimes. That said, most of SOHO art scene is just trendiness, not art.

2 upvotes

Obviously scores of people find artistic value in it whether you or I like it or not. Bottom line... it's art. I've seen stuff from the great painters that I thought was worse than what my kids have doodled.
Either way- it's all art irrespective of your opinion of it.

0 upvotes

30 years of trendiness is history. Someone's interested.

3 upvotes

@Teila Day

Art is only art if enough the peer group of artists, curators, and buyers agree that it is. They also conspire to determine its worth.

Is his collection of sufficient value to merit the cost and effort of archiving it? That it hasn't been snapped up already suggests it might be a borderline case, but maybe it just needed for word of its availability to get out.

0 upvotes

If "crowd-funding" can work, why can't "crowd-archiving". SImply give the photos out at random to 1000 people, have them do a will that passes on the photos, and record who these people were. If they are photo nuts and squirrels (maybe evaluate them based on a photo of their junk room or shed or garage) then you will have at least 50% of the photos still around in 100 years.

0 upvotes

Total comments: 73

Editorial content

Product database

Community


National Geographic's 125th anniversary celebrations continue Sep 30, 2013	IFA roundup: What's new in mobile photography tech Sep 14, 2013	Young man with autism turns to photography for communication Sep 9, 2013	When Bad Weather Means Great Photography Aug 19, 2013

	Nikon 1 AW1 Sep 19, 2013
	Fujifilm X-A1 Sep 17, 2013
	Olympus OM-D E-M1 Sep 10, 2013
	Leica C (Typ112) Sep 8, 2013
	Nikon Coolpix P7800 Sep 5, 2013
	Nikon Coolpix S02 Sep 5, 2013
	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX10 Sep 4, 2013
	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX100 Sep 4, 2013
	Sony Alpha A3000 Aug 27, 2013
	Sony Alpha NEX-5T Aug 27, 2013

Here is the K3	136
Okay Fuji, so now that the experiment is over....	107
D610 to be announced within 48 hours (as of 10/5)	101
How many shots do you take to get a shot?	86
More leaks about K3 specifications	84
While everyone ooohs and aaaahs over the ...	79
After 3 weeks & thousands of shots: NEX-6 + ...	77
Anyone for Sunday Scapes (2013-10-06) ?	60
E-M1 Trouble focusing on moving objects	56
The Sunday BIRD Volume 9, Issue 15 October 6, 2013	53
E-M1 as E-5 successor - first week experience	50
Counterfeit lens caps from Amazon	49
GX7: Extended ISO125 Image Degradation?	48
Worth selling my Canon DSLR to move to Olympus ...	44
Shutter shock verdict is not present here. ...	40
Camera For Landscape Photography....NEED ...	34
I'm going broke buying E-M5 Eyecups!	32
Sensor Technology (The Software Engineer Way)	31
Why you shouldn't become a professional	30
Five Worst Clichés About Photography	29

Your email address:
Your name: