Agenda

Do you have work in the Polaroid Collection?

By contribuor A. D. Coleman

The world-famous Polaroid Collection, which has existed in an under-the-radar state of crisis since sometime in 2001, has entered its eleventh hour. As things now stand, by the end of June 2010 the collection as developed over the second half of the 20th century may have ceased to exist. However, a pending challenge to the dissolution by sale of the collection might yet change all that.

The bankruptcies of two separate corporate entities that owned the collection led to the current situation, in which, absent any intervention, the cream of the collection as identified by Sotheby's will go on the block at that auction house's New York venue on June 21-22. This includes works by Ansel Adams, Chuck Close, David Levinthal, Bill Owens, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Deborah Turbeville, Andy Warhol, Carrie Mae Weems, and dozens of others. Sotheby's estimates that the sale will bring in between $7-11 million USD.

Assuming the auction takes place as planned, after those 1260 pieces get dispersed among the bidders some 14,676 more — including images by such figures as Toto Frima, Beatrice Helg, Barbara Kasten, Mark Klett, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, and Neal Slavin — will remain in the hands of John R. Stoebner, the trustee appointed by the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court. Stoebner still has the task of selling the rest of this collection on the open market in order to benefit the creditors of Petters Group Worldwide, one of the corporations created by the disgraced and now-incarcerated Ponzi schemer Tom Petters. Stoebner can dispose of the bulk of the collection as he sees fit, with sale to a single buyer his most likely preferred choice. Reportedly he hopes to raise $2-3 million USD from that process, but to date has failed to find a buyer.

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Since July 2009 I've reported on and documented much of the backstory leading up to this point at my blog, Photocritic International (www.photocritic.com). In brief, the bankruptcy hearings of the original Polaroid Corporation (2001-02) resulted in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court declaring the collection an unencumbered asset that could get freely sold to settle debts. The eventual buyers, part of the conglomerate Petters Group Worldwide (PGW), acquired the entirety of the original Polaroid Corporation's holdings — equipment, patents, land and buildings, plus the collection — for pennies on the dollar.

But PGW in turn collapsed in 2008. PGW's bankruptcy in Minnesota (2008) led to the acquisition, at fire-sale prices, of most of the remaining assets of the original Polaroid Corporation by yet another entity, PLR IP Holdings, LLC, current owners of the Polaroid brand and marketers of new items — both digital and analog — under that brand name. (They're the ones who hired Lady Gaga as a Creative Director.) However, for unspecified reasons PLR IP Holdings, LLC chose not to acquire the Polaroid Collection, leaving it in the hands of the creditors of PGW. Hence the present state of affairs.

On August 27, 2009 the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court approved the auction of the designated slice of the collection that Sotheby's had selected, endorsing at the same time the trustee's selling off of the leftovers. The 1260 items for the auction have since gone to Sotheby's for cataloguing, preparatory to the June auction. The rest sit in storage in Somerville, MA, including some 1500 items placed on permanent loan at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris, in the early '90s, around the time the original Polaroid Corporation closed down its European division. That loan was cancelled and these works recalled to the U.S. circa 2004. (Another group of 4600 works from the collection are still on loan to the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne; its fate remains unclear.)

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The question on which the anticipated challenge to the sale of the collection rests concerns the current creditors' claim to ownership of the majority of the works in the collection — and thus the claim to outright ownership submitted by the original Polaroid Corporation in the 2001-02 bankruptcy proceeding. Roughly two-thirds of the works listed for the auction, approximately 800 of them, were almost certainly acquired by the original Polaroid Corporation either as outright purchases or else as work made for hire, the latter produced under contract with Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, Carl Chiarenza, and others who served as designated testers of Polaroid cameras and materials during the company's early years. In all likelihood these items (plus several hundred others not included in the auction group) were owned legally by the original Polaroid Corporation, and that ownership would have passed appropriately to the subsequent purchasers of Polaroid's assets.

However, as the Polaroid Collection evolved, starting in the late 1960s, the company acquired work for the collection on the basis of an unusual and perhaps unique barter arrangement made with (eventually) some 1500 photographers. Under this plan, Polaroid exchanged cameras, film, and studio time with the 20x24 and 40x80 Polaroid cameras for prints. Sometimes this was confirmed with a standard letter of agreement drafted by the Polaroid Corporation; in other cases, it appears to have been a handshake deal. One way or another, the terms were consistent:

Polaroid received "worldwide non-exclusive rights for exhibition and editorial (non-commercial) publication purposes of the following images in perpetuity."

The photographer "retain[ed] access to his/her images for exhibition and publication purposes."

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Variants on this agreement governed the Polaroid Collection's acquisition of the vast majority of its total holdings (the full inventory lists 15,934 works) and one-third of the works cherry-picked by Sotheby's for the June auction. Based on what he sees as the "restrictive language" of these agreements, Federal Magistrate Judge Sam Joyner of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has issued a call for photographers with work in the collection, and especially in the auction, to come forward as plaintiffs in a Motion for Rehearing. That would force the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court to examine the letters of agreement documenting the entry of works into the collection, and the legal implications of the language the Polaroid Corporation elected to use for those purposes. No court to date has scrutinized those contracts and considered their consequences.

Joyner's call to action was announced in a March 2010 story by Charlotte Burns in The Art Newspaper (London/New York). According to Burns, "Joyner believes that both the Delaware Bankruptcy Court that awarded transfer of the Polaroid Collection in 2002 and the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court that approved the Sotheby’s sale in 2009 'acted without full knowledge of the restrictive language in the many and varied licence agreements.'" An unnamed spokesperson for Sotheby’s is quoted as insisting that the two bankruptcy proceedings fully cleared the collection for unencumbered sale.

A follow-up article by Burns in the April issue of the same publication identifies Chuck Close as one the anticipated plaintiff photographers, quoting the New York-based artist as asserting that his opposition to the sale is "absolute." Burns adds, "'These were not Polaroid’s works to sell,' said Close. 'I gave my best work to the collection because it was made clear that it was going to stay together and be given to a museum.'"

According to Joyner, 56 photographers with some 1650 works in the collection have indicated that they will become plaintiffs; 5 of them have a total of 203 prints in the auction. The decision regarding the filing of the Motion for Rehearing will be made within the next 30 days. Photographers with work in the collection can contact him at [email protected].

Copyright 2010 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. By permission of the author and Image/World Syndication Services, imageworld[at]nearbycafe.com.

For further information and updates, visit the author’s website by clicking here.

Peter Goldfield obituary online

At last The Guardian has got round to printing Eamonn McCabe’s obituary for Peter Goldfield, who died on 9 February -- it’s in today’s issue. It’s arguably a little matter-of-fact but, to be fair, it does occupy ¾ of a page, so fair dos. Better late than never. You can read it online by clicking here.

Terry O'Neill Award - A Reader Writes

From the Ag postbag:
The shortlist for the first Terry O'Neill Award has been published. Being open minded I never thought I would do this; that is, criticize the work of others in competition, but enough is enough.
Before anyone asks, no, I didn't enter and yes, I understand how subjective photography can be; each to his own and so on.
This award carries the name of Terry O'Neill for whom my respect and admiration knows no bounds and yet, viewing the images, why does the word Schweppes spring immediately to mind? Mr O'Neill is quoted as saying 'Photography in the UK is going through a hugely innovative and exciting period' and I'd like to think that's true. It's just that I'm personally not seeing it in these awards; just more of the same.
Most, but not all, of the images carry the characteristics of what I would consider to be 'art' photography. This has been going on for some time now and I've been waiting patiently for someone to move this strand of photography forward but it just doesn't seem to be happening.
I've always had a problem with the need of the photographer to 'explain' their work. For example; there is a technically accomplished image of a young woman with a crow on her head, that purports to deal with 'women and their image in the eyes of men and society'. Here we go again. The male gaze. Stereotyping. Haven't Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman et al already been there and done that?
I'm mindful of the fact that the single images published may not represent a whole project. Projects always work best when seen in full, or at least in groups of photographs. But if, as it appears, this competition is based on single entries then I'll continue. Here are some other examples: An image of clothing on a stick apparently 'signifies the absent body while evoking more abstract ideas relating to loss or memory'. Well, I'm sorry, but no it didn't, even after I'd read the text.
Another asks: ' What is home and what is homelessness?' and yet I did not get an answer from this rather bland image especially as so much good work has already been done on this subject, even as far back as the nineteenth century with Thomas Annan and Jacob Riis. What's new?
I believe that often the problem lies in the colleges and art departments where there seems to be a lack of promotion of the originality of thought. It's as if students are offered a list; this is how to do it today and that images broadly in the 'Schweppes style' are the only way forward.
Fortunately it isn't all bad news. Zak Waters 'Birdman' is in the true spirit of documentary; James Tye's boxer (although reminiscent of Rinike Dijkstra's bullfighters) and Ahmet Unver's Stockholm landscape did not have, at least in the text provided, or require any explanation and both are excellent. Which brings me to Indre Serpytyte's 'State of Silence'. Indre does explain that the image (part of a project which) 'conjures a powerful atmosphere of intrigue and is inspired by the death of her father, a Lithuanian government official in an apparent car accident'. I looked at this deceptively simple image and immediately formed my own opinion that it indeed suggested a faceless bureaucracy that generated it's own pointless work, as represented by the blank paper, and I don't mean in Lithuania. This should win but probably won't.
I wonder if, in the pages of Ag, David Lee will have an opinion. What am I saying? Of course he will.
Geoff Maxted

Nick Waplington double act

Publisher Trolley announces the arrival next month of Nick Waplington's latest book You Love Life. They go on to mention that the author was born in 1974 on the Ivory Coast (or Cote D'Ivoire as they prefer). There are clearly two Waplingtons: the one I know was born in England in 1965; we met in 1990 when he was on the MA at the Royal College of Art - and 16 is a little youthful for postgraduate study. And 17 is remarkably precocious to have a book (Living Room) published with accompanying texts from Richard Avedon and John Berger. The coincidences don't end there: the two Waplingtons have published books with identical titles, the publishers indicate. One wonders if the older Waplington turning 40 this year has anything to do with this? You Love Life will be published 30 May, £24.95, in a limited edition of 1000, ISBN 1-904563-42-2.

Seemed like a good idea at the time

One of Nikon's UK distributors has been crossed off the company's Christmas card list after enthusing in an advert in Shooting Times that a Nikon rifle scope would prove a useful tool for shooting foxes after hunting with hounds is banned. While few of the magazine's readers will have batted an eyelid, anti-hunt campaigners failed to see the joke and a brief internet and email campaign saw the ad pulled. Nikon UK issued the requisite apology and customers are no longer encouraged to stay 'one step ahead of the game' as their distributors' ad had suggested.

Another snip from Leica

To mark 50 years of the Leica M-series rangefinder cameras the company has announced a limited edition titanium version of the M7. Very limited, in fact, with only 50 sets (body plus three lenses) available worldwide. For UK customers it is probably already too late as only one set has been allocated to our shores. So you'll have to go and spend your £13,550 elsewhere. Instead, why not have a bit of fun designing your own personalised M7 or MP at the Leica website - among the 4000 (yes, four thousand) options/combinations available is a choice of 12 different leather finishes, although highly fashionable leopardskin does not appear to be one of them. Trick missed there one feels.

Further signs of photo boom

Despite companies such as Kodak and Ilford making announcements which sound like photography is going down the pan, quite the opposite is true. Their bad news is the result of restructuring their businesses too late to align with changing markets, changes which, ironically, companies such as Kodak have been driving hard. Although photography as a hobby has been declining since the 1980s, thanks to the ubiquity of digital imaging analysts now expect the market to grow by almost a quarter over the next four years. One UK business that has clearly been on the ball is the specialist photo retailer Jessops. Bought from the founding family in a 1996 management buyout, the company has since increased turnover by almost 270 percent and profits by almost 300 percent. Jessops is now about to float on the UK Stock Exchange and is likely to achieve a market capitalisation of around £200million. Not bad for a chain of camera shops.

Kodak caught out?

Listening to news reports, it seems the consumer is to blame for Kodak's shedding of 250 jobs at its plant in Harrow in the UK. It's all the result of too many people opting for digital photography in place of film, a possibility that Kodak seems to have overlooked. Why can't companies talk straight sometimes? There is now a boom in photography as a popular hobby - the biggest since the 1960s and '70s; and that's thanks to companies (such as Kodak) investing millions in R&D and getting it right for once. But all the bad news, that's your fault, apparently.

Richard Avedon, 1923-2004

Richard Avedon, one of the original doyens of fashion photography, died aged 81 on 1 October. He had suffered a stroke while photographing in Texas in September. Among the many awards he won during his lifetime was the Hasselblad Prize, received in 1991; the protrait here (© Ling Li) was issued by Hasselblad to mark the event. Among the many lengthy obituaries to Avedon, check out those on The Guardian and Independent websites, by Amanda Hopkinson and Val Williams respectively.

Salgado is the greatest - official

The cover boasts: 'The world's greatest photographer joins Guardian Weekend' (11.09.04). I hope that Sebastião's toes curled. I look forward to sharing a pint with him of a lunchtime on Clerkenwell Green. Hang on, he's only an 'acclaimed photographer' according to the contents page. Then, few readers (of any paper) could even name a photographer - usual suspects aside. And SS ain't one of (either of) them.