Vivian Maier: A life's work seen for first time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12247395

by rythie • 16 years ago

89 51 16 years ago

bbc.co.uk

bluishgreen• 16 years ago

fascinating! thanks for posting.

rythie3• 16 years ago

Kickstarter project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/800508197/finding-vivian...

Jun82• 16 years ago

Just pledged. Currently it's got $67K+ pledged for its $20K goal

Jun82• 16 years ago

Very poignant story! Her photos are exquisite. Her solitary and obscure life brought tears to my eyes on this cold Chicago morning.

Yet, this story gets only 3 points (so far)? Guys, there are more things to heaven and earth than tech and financial stuff. I hope it makes to first page.

rythie3• 16 years ago

There is a analogy with failed startups, in that she created something of value, but was never was able to promote it (assuming she tried).

edw519• 16 years ago

Maier was untrained, but her images are artfully framed and detailed

So much has been accomplished by those who were "untrained, but". I wonder if that says as much about the training as it does about the accomplishments.

rythie3• 16 years ago

I don't think you can really train someone to be an artist or be creative anyway.

alexophile2• 16 years ago

Disagreed. I think everyone has the potential for creativity, it just gets scared out of us as we grow up. Teaching someone to paint or take well-structured photographs is pretty much trivial as long as they put in the effort. And once you give somebody a tool to adequately express the way they see the world, most can barely help but be creative.

neilk3• 16 years ago

It depends what you mean by 'an artist'. Consider that every one of us is constantly expressing ourselves, in unique ways and with a unique personality, in language. There's no reason you can't train someone to have similar competency to express themselves in another medium.

People who attend those 'drawing from life' courses invariably are much better by the end of it. I knew a guy who didn't have a lot of artistic flair, but he liked cars and machines. By the end of the course he was producing some really precise, great looking drawings of vehicles and engines.

If you define 'an artist' as someone who's able to move the state of the art, create bold new visions -- well, not everyone may be capable of that. But I think that's an unnecessarily narrow conception of art.

jonsen2• 16 years ago

It reminds me of the sculptor who said that he wasn't making the sculpture. "It's already in there. I'm just removing excess material."

Sometimes I feel that our brains are like that. That some of our abilities are inherent. They just have to be set free.

kirubakaran• 16 years ago

Problem is, search space is too big

http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html [Section: 'Problems']

( embarrassed to admit I probably have a complete cross reference of his essays in my brain :) )

harbinjer• 16 years ago

Sounds like a Michaelangelo quote.

jolhoeft• 16 years ago

I sculpt in stone as a hobby. I'd heard that quote, or variations of it, before I started, and just regarded it as a clever quip artists make. Not really a reflection of the process of carving, which would be much more detailed and painstaking. I was surprised to discover just how true, for me anyway, that quote is.

potatolicious3• 16 years ago

> "That some of our abilities are inherent. They just have to be set free."

Heavily disagreed. I'm a street photographer myself (self-trained), and Maier's work has been inspiring both from an artistic and motivational perspective.

These abilities aren't "inherent". They take years and years of practice to hone, and a constant criticism of your own work (from yourself or otherwise).

I don't think any photographer ever picked up a camera, figured out how to work it, and then just started taking good work. Bear in mind also that I don't know a single street photographer who's able to shoot anything close to >5% keepers, much less show-ers.

When you view art like this, keep in mind that not only is it a highly selected slice of the artist's entire body of work, but also you are looking at what is most likely their top work at the prime of their abilities. What you don't see are the years of producing forgettable, boring, and downright bad work to get there.

jberryman• 16 years ago

I think the two are orthogonal. People who are driven to create art will keep doing it, growing, learning from other artists they come across; they might seek out more formal training as part of their journey or not.

mkramlich• 16 years ago

my own take has been:

talent > training

talent + training > (talent || training)

wglb• 16 years ago

This brings to mind the wonderful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger who is one of the more well-known examples of outsider artist.

alexophile2• 16 years ago

An interesting addendum: John Maloof, who 'dicovered' her work, as it were, decided to try and locate her after some time. His search turned up her obituary. It had been posted the previous day.

Tycho7• 16 years ago

What's the point of photographs like this though?

(philosophical question)

pavlov• 16 years ago

What's the point of philosophy?

(photographical question)

Tycho7• 16 years ago

I just said 'philosphical question' so I wouldn't get downvoted for sounding cynical.

Are you saying it is impossible to verbalize the 'point' of photography?

Regardless, sometimes photographs capture remarkable events or spectacular scenes, in which cases the point could be easily understood as 'seeing things you would have liked to have seen but didn't get the chance'

Now in this here collection, almost all the photos are just of strangers on the street. Something you can see everyday with your own eyes. So what is the point?

dimatura• 16 years ago

What good is a baby?

jonsen2• 16 years ago

You forgot: (childish question)

Tycho7• 16 years ago

You're saying this collection is going to change into something more useful/poignant in about 15 years?

erikpukinskis• 16 years ago

Have you ever said "hey, look at this!" to someone?

(socratic question)

Tycho7• 16 years ago

Yes but not to things like in these particular photos.

potatolicious3• 16 years ago

I love street photography - know many others who do also. Everyone has a different reason for being in this hobby, but FWIW I'll try to articulate my reasons:

- The capture of the preciousness of everyday life. So many of us wake up, trudge to work, trudge home, go get our groceries, etc etc all without ever noticing the little things in life. Part of why I do street photography is to catch and expose the fact that there are amazing things happening in the most mundane situations - that there are a million interactions and emotions crossing between people, even if, at the surface it's just a bunch of people on a subway train or a crowd walking down the street There are sparks of incredibly deep interaction, ephemeral and fleeting as they may be, all around us every minute. I like to capture and bring them out.

- Documentation with thought. We all have point and shoot cameras, and the prevalence of drunken pictures on Facebook is testament to the human desire to document. Most pictures though, aren't very well composed, and only convey the technical details of the event, and not the emotion that is undoubtedly embodied within. Part of why I love street is that it doesn't have to be extraordinary - sometimes you fall back to a role strictly that of the documentarian, but you can do it with more skill and thought than what most people can do.

tmsh• 16 years ago

The right photograph can rapidly affect one's entire outlook about something, without asking for so much as a look. It's highly efficient that way.

Incidentally, was going to comment that the story reminded me of a great Swedish film from a couple of years ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everlasting_Moments

NIL8• 16 years ago

Neat story with many parallels to other areas of life (yes, even the hacker's life).

Side note: I enjoy the comments, but some remind me of Reddit. I think there may be some inbreeding going on here. I say this in good humor.

js2• 16 years ago

I submitted this last week but it didn't get any traction:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2095598

John Maloof, a 29-year-old eBay entrepreneur and real estate agent, is now principal cheerleader in the effort to find a niche for Ms. Maier at the pantheon of modern photography. He is only about one-tenth of the way into the task of scanning and archiving 100,000 negatives of hers in his possession, working with his friend Anthony Rydzon. And they have yet to develop several hundred rolls of black-and-white film and about 600 color rolls.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/new-street-photogra...

The photos are truly extraordinary.

Watch this terrific segment too - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEDOnBfDUI

And for those of you fortunate enough to reside in Chicago - http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_la...

neilk3• 16 years ago

It's kind of an interesting question -- usually importance in the art world is a combination of excellence and influence. So even if you hate Andy Warhol, you have to admit the guy was influential, so he deserves his place in art history.

Now we have a case of someone whose work was excellent, but for obvious reasons could not possibly have influenced anyone else. Where should she be in the history of art?

aristus• 16 years ago

The same place as Van Gogh and Emily Dickinson. She had little influence while she was alive, but will gain more as time goes on. Posthumous fame is a cliche in the arts.

ja27• 16 years ago

In other discussions I've seen people raise the copyright issues. Her estate owns the rights to these works, not John Maloof. But I don't think anyone except her heirs or other beneficiaries would have standing to sue him. They're either non-existent (she had no known children) or not interested. I'm afraid that won't stop people from causing problems for him once there's money involved.

InclinedPlane2• 16 years ago

I don't see how there could be much legal standing for that position. If Maloof bought the original negatives and especially if the Meier estate has not retained any copies of the work then he's got an enormously strong case to having bought not just a copy of the work but the work itself and the rights to distribute it.

dctoedt• 16 years ago

> If Maloof bought the original negatives and especially if the Meier estate has not retained any copies of the work then he's got an enormously strong case to having bought not just a copy of the work but the work itself and the rights to distribute it.

Copyright law doesn't work that way. This argument is expressly addressed in 17 USC 202: "Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied.

"Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object."

(Extra paragraphing added.)

joe_the_user• 16 years ago

The headline makes me think.

The article admits that we know virtually nothing about Vivian Maier. There is nothing that implies her life was "lost" in her eyes, nothing to prove that she lived differently than she would have liked to have lived. her work was nearly lost to the glare of publicity but would have been our loss, not hers.

msg• 16 years ago

It is ambiguous: "a lost (life's work)" is the intended interpretation.

"rediscovered" is more like it.

Of course you could talk about "a (rediscovered life)'s work" in an interesting way too...

Vivian Maier: A life's work seen for first time

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