Before classes started, I stumbled upon a New York Times article about Annie Leibovitz and how she’s in a bit of financial trouble (about a $24 million loan that still hasn’t been paid off). If you’re unfamiliar with the situation, Ms. Leibovitz took out a hefty loan, and as collateral she put up a lot of her possessions (three apartments in the Village and all of her world renowned photography, just to name two), no big deal, right? WRONG! When her time was up to pay her dues, suddenly giving up all the rights to her negatives and homes, probably wasn’t her best idea (although, it could’ve been the only), because the big bad wolf, Art Capital Group, came knocking at a door they would soon hope to own. Anyways, long story short, an agreement was reached this past Friday, which extended the deadline of owning up to her debt.
Check it out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/arts/12leibovitz.html?scp=5&sq=rights%20of%20photographs&st=cse
Also, just to acquaint yourself with some of Annie Leibovitz’s work (you probably know it without even realizing it), check out:
"All You Need Is Love..." And Maybe Some Clothes John (Second slide)
(If those don’t work, Google it up)
So this whole financial mess keeps reminding me of the discussions we have in class about who really has the right to copyright art. Let’s take a look into a crystal ball for Annie Leibovitz. Of course, one outcome is that she actually pays off the debt and she remains the owner of her work and houses/apartments, good for her! But the crystal ball I look into, for the sake of class participation and not actually wishing this upon Leibovitz, I see a future where the debt did not get paid off after the extension and the rights to all her works are up for grabs. So what happens next? I see a future of people wearing t-shirts with the oh-so-pregnant Demi Moore’s picture as a logo with a caption that says, “MILF.” Do I want that to happen, no. Do I think it’s a tasteless shirt, yes. Would I laugh if I passed someone on the street wearing it, I might chuckle. Regardless, this brings me to the point we were talking about in class of the Molotov Man and Che Guevara. These two figures have been decontextualized because of how mainstream their image has become. Most middle-schoolers probably don’t even know A) Who Che Guevara was, and B) How to even spell his name. His face is on a bright red t-shirt, so that has to make him cool, right? As for the Molotov Man, good job on Pepsi using him for a campaign. Nothing quenches my thirst like a Pepsi, and once I’m done with it I’m going to make the bottle into a lethal weapon! So this brings me back to the Demi Moore t-shirts that could be gracing t-shirt huts at your local mall. The photo that Leibovitz took of Demi was historic; no one has ever taken a nude photo of a pregnant woman, especially for the cover of a popular magazine (Vanity Fair). There was a whole controversy surrounding just this one photo, a lot of newsstands removed it from their shelves, people were upset that a woman, who was seven months pregnant, would pose in the nude (good example for the kids), which made people scream sexual objectification (“How could she?!”). If the rights to this photo, as well as all the other works of Annie Leibovitz join the bidding market, it’s hard to say what will exactly happen to them. It is in my opinion that they will become very mainstream and that people will not fully understand the power of the image, and the historic controversy behind each and every photograph. I hope that Ms. Leibovitz gets to keep her properties and that the importance of her works prevails
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