André Gunthert

André Gunthert is professor at the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciennces Sociales – Paris), Director of the Laboratory of Contemporary Visual History (LHIVIC), founder of the platform Visual Culture (http://culturevisuelle.org). He is one of the leading French actors of movement of 'visual studies'. He was coeditor with Michel Poivert of the book 'The Art of Photography from its origins up to now "(Citadel / Mazenod, 2007). His recent research can be found on his blog 'The Workshop of the icons' (http://icones.vc).

Procope, June 9, 2010, 8:30 – pleasant place, but early timing to start with the subject of the image in the era of the Internet.

When you're an art gallery online, the interest is in the title. Our business lies on this edge: propose images on physical media on one side, and trade them on an "intangible" marketplace on the other side. We develop our business together with this new way of communication and exchange. We live in a real revolution in relation to the image, which should be better understood. From a practical standpoint, how do we do our job as promoter of artists in this new framework, taking account of copyright and its evolution? Finally, how does the new generation relates with images : is there a place for the "material" and original image,?

Better than a short black coffee, André Gunthert rapidly jumps into the subject. He presents himself as a witness of the moving relationship between popular culture and images. (NB: this is what he proposes with the platform "culturevisuelle.org", a project he leads and which is conducted in collaboration with the INHA, EHESS and LHIVIC). The eye is burning, and the political dimension is exposed in the words, without ever becoming the main topic.

I. To give perspective to current changes, André Gunthert starts by looking at the elements Walter Benjamin puts to the debate. In his essay of 1936, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," which evokes the coming of the film industry, Walter Benjamin described the passage of “bourgeois” culture into the cultural industries.

In this work, he characterizes the specificity of the work of art: unique, tied to a specific location and fitting in history. He combines to the artwork the concept of aura, which he defines as "the unique way to appreciate distant appearances, regardless of their proximity." Both near and far? We can find the resolution of this paradox on the side of cult images, symbolizing the divine. They are both physically close but essentially distant, designating something "of a different order." And if the original artwork (in this case religious) is unique, photo allows reprinting, and movies are even designed to be reproducible ...

The technical reproducibility results in the loss of the aura, the copy acquires autonomy versus the original. It also becomes possible to change the point of view, to color, add, or withdraw ... The work becomes available in new situations and comes out of any historical and spatial context.

For elandarts.com, as a specialist of art prints (lithographies, engravings…), the issue of reproducibility is a key one. The rise of the print and the ability it offers to "multiply" the work within a strict framework, has made images available beyond the private collection or the museum,. It was a first historical "turn" for the work of art. Modern techniques of printing now bring a "new reproducibility", which may constitute a second major turn (the theme was previously discussed on elandarts.com - see conversation with Daniel Crégut). And today, the availability of the image on the web, online, is certainly another step.

Indeed, through the net, we reach a new paradigm, that of participatory culture, characterized by the fluidity and the appropriability of content.

And indeed the new generation has understood the opportunity.

André Gunthert chose two examples to clarify his remarks. First Michel Gondry, who in his film "Be kind, rewind" showcases the possibilities of appropriating cult film scenes. Many internet users actually take up and interpret works of art, modify and copy them  online.

Then the "mème". The term “meme” was first proposed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976). It combines "gene" and "mimesis" (Greek for "imitation"), with a nod to the French word "même" (same). The "mème" were presented by Dawkins as replicators, comparable in this respect to genes, but responsible for the evolution of certain behaviors of animals and human cultures. Gunthert offers us the example of the internet community using Nicolas Sarkozy image, staged in famous artworks, part of the historical and artistic heritage (for example: JL David “Coronation of Napoleon”, photo by Joe Rosenthal during the Battle of Iwo Jima ...) *. These creations mix images (work of art, representation of the president), and  melt them in a unique creation. There is "appropriation" of images for a new one ... or is it rather spoiling images which were historically less accessible?

II. Underlying the artistic appropriation, there is indeed the question of ownership of the works. Internet opens the availability of images, and the computer allows them to modify and adapt them (cf. the “meme”concept ). Keeping in mind that there is a thriving economy that benefits from this availability of images, how to manage, in terms of copyright, the huge "wave" of new images?

For the time being, André Gunthert proposes two main possibilities, which are used in France: the famous Hadopi Act on one hand, protecting copyrights, and "Creative commons" that are born of a specific organization , in the USA.

As a reminder, the Hadopi (or law creation and internet) is a French law that aims to put an end to peer to peer file sharing when theses sharings are in breach of copyrights. This law has two components: the graduated response and the improvement of the legal offer. This law creates a "High Authority for the dissemination of works and protection of the rights on the Internet" (Hadopi), an independent French regulation (Article 19 of the Act).

The Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to provide a legal alternative for those not wishing to protect their works using the intellectual property rights standards in their countries, when they are considered too restrictive. The organization has created several licenses, known as the license "Creative Commons". These licenses, depending on one’s choice, restrict only certain rights (or none) of the work, copyright (especially in the Commonwealth and the United States) being more restrictive.

Without going into too technical considerations, the debate shows the difficulty: Internet paves the way, and sometimes stimulates, the growth of social networking, then to copy / paste, and finally to put online and therefore deliver contents that do not meet systematically (understatement!) copyright bindings. The wave seems very big, however, and protections in place may not be high enough ...

André Gunthert indicates that beyond this debate, they are real cultural shocks that occur with such defenders of an "Open source" approach, where internet allows new relationships, and where everyone has a minute, not necessarily of fame, but at least of "creativity", and on the other side, the advocates of the protection of intellectual property, which is after all the livelihood of the artists.

We are in midstream and things are happening: we are stakeholders, without knowing how this issue will be resolved, in the future ...

III. Yet this new "appropriability of the image" also offers the artist a new area and there are many artists who now play with the public recognition of images.

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For example, the work of Ernest Pignon Ernest (presented on elandarts.com), is particularly rich in this area, and the artist began to play with the special link with some images, well before the Internet. Examples include the use of the photo of the poet Rimbaud by Carjat (1871), adapted by Pignon-Ernest, and  reproduced on the walls of Paris in a work done in 1978/79. First “appropriation”. Then photo shots are made of the work in situation, and after, prints, not as photos, but with the technique of engraving, signed and numbered. The picture by Carjat becomes work of art by Ernest Pignon, at the crossroads of different times, technology and social contexts. This “metissage” is reminiscent of a brilliant precedent: "Las Meninas" by Velazquez, and their invitation to bring together the time of the artist and the time of the amateur, in contemplation ...

Those who try the adventure of recovering images online are not always as attentive as an artist like Ernest Pignon on compliance with copyright. They may simply use the creation of another artist, and enjoy his better visibility - the dark side of the concept of “appropriation” raised by André Gunthert.

Compared with this real tidal wave of image readily available, and easy to appropriate, art galleries online play therefore a special role. They enhance the visual creations beyond the internet, making them available to the user when "offline", and to discover the difference between the image of the work on the screen, and its " materialized" version.

The experience “in real” of the work can become an "event", to express and communicate with loved ones, on one’s preferred network ... Even if internet opens the door on a virtual world, we also live beyond the network so that we have to tell and share.

Finally, a look back on history provides the appropriate conclusion: with the signing of the artists who had not fully emerged, the Middle Ages spoke of another age, that of collective ownership in arts.

Today, will internet and its social networks build a new cathedral of the XXIst century?

Pascal RONFARD

Associate www.elandarts.com

This article is based on  the lecture on 09/06/2011: "The work of art in the era of the digital appropriability" – it is not a report, but rather a subjective transcript, written by an actor involved in the presence of artistic images on the internet. This article has been reviewed by André Gunthert.


* see a few examples on www.flickr.com