Expecting Rain

I saw a terrific show by Tuymans years ago and still have the catalog from it. It includes the Patrice Lumumba portrait, as well as many others. None of the portraits painted from photographs have photgraphers credits. Luc Tuymans, a Belgian artist born in 1958, could only have painted the portrait from a photgraph as Lumumba was assassinated in the Republic of Congo in 1961. Tuymans is a superb artist and I'm not aware of any controversy whatsoever regarding whether he uses photographs as references for some of his paintings.


It's true that crying "plagarism" when it comes to borrowing images in art is virtually pointless. Everything that can be painted already exists somewhere as a photograph. Having a photograph of something does not necessarily mean you can use it to make a good painting.

Saw the exhibit today! It was pretty great ... I would like to comment that Bob's paintings were indeed great and on good size canvases.

http://nyti.ms/qzUJXK
Artists copying without acknowledgment is, of course, an old story. The problem with “The Asia Series,” though, is that not even whispers of potential ethical impropriety can make these paintings interesting to look at, which — unless there’s some Duchampian gesture afoot here — is what Mr. Dylan presumably means them to be. The color is muddy, the brushwork scratchily dutiful, the images static and postcard-ish. The work is dead on the wall.

An article on today's Expecting rain just reminded me of a glaring rip off of Bob Dylan's work by college professors and other so called learned people. They have the nerve to write books and give college courses on the meaning of Bob's writings and songs, body of work and LIFE!!! Did any of these people check with him about this? Did they ask his permission? Are they sharing the proceeds with him. I don't think so.
It is one thing for these people to analyse the work of someone who wrote literature a long time ago and is no longer around to consult. but to pretend to be an expert just because they saw a movie a dozen times,or read a poem or lyrics of a song over and over again. or go on line and become extremely long winded on the subject of the deeper meaning and portents of his so called melancholy writings, is to me a hell of a lot of nerve and the height of plagiaerisim.
The act of taking some old photographs and turning them into something much more interesting is something he is being vilified about when every day he gets ripped of. we all experience happiness and sadness in our lives. some of us do it under the glaring spotlight. Some of us do it in seclusion and quiet. Some of us are much more gifted at expressing that experience. Can we just appreciate that gift and treasure it and not try to analyse it so much?

Love you Bob
Angel

OMG.... so there is a Life Magazine Series? Who did you write to to get this info??

I went too... the Life canvas is not on display and it is by private showing. It cost 200,000 and the one we all saw is not for sale anymore. The paintings are 350,000.

There was a flier showing where each piece was in the gallery. It didn't say anything about the paintings nor the price. You had to ask to speak to the representative for any info. the info given was the price, what was still available and which were the most popular. He never even mentioned the Life cover to me. So I wrote to him the other day and asked if the Vietnam cover was for sale and how I could see it. He sent me photos of 2 other different covers that were presently for sale.

Twilight did you ask to see the Life cover? They only do a private showing. Did you happen to see Uganda or Lyndon Johnson? I like the Vietnam one the best out of those 3.

More Life cover pictures as well as further paintings (dating from this year) do exist and are sold from Gagosian, but apparently they promote them in exclusive circles so that the actual images don't easily leak out.

On display there are 18 paintings, but in the catalog there are more.

rather distasteful, huh... well it's all rather distasteful isn't it... it hasn't stopped you... after a while I just roll my eyes

milkcow, what are the two pictures, idi amin and johnson?, and is there extra text with those. i would wait around for someone else to ask you this, but it seems like that might mean waiting a long time, if you don't want to talk about it though... such is life. if you don't want to say, it's fine with me, i am not writing a book, or anything- just find the life thing pretty interesting

On display there are 18 paintings, but in the catalog there are more.

Well, I know for a fact that there are some paintings that Gagosian are selling that do not have the Asian theme, so those are obviously not in the catalogue. They are both paintings of musicians.