An Abomination
New York gallerist James Danziger recently displayed an Ai generated colourised version of Ansel Adams’Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) which for me is an abomination in every sense of the word. Why do it?…at the moment there are more questions than answers. Was it to legitimise Ai by association (no matter how tenuous) with a great photographer? Or was it for the same reason as for Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987) or Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019)…for notoriety? Could it be seen as just another iconoclastic version of Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. (1919), the Mona Lisa postcard emblazoned with a moustache? Perhaps it is commentary on Ai itself dismissing the skill from a master photographer while being a gigantic theft machine, stealing imagery from every image maker and regurgitating it into a banal aesthetic?
Ansel Adams. Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) (Above)
Colourised version of Ansel Adams. Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941), created by the gallerist James Danziger using Ai
(Below)
In an article written by Helen Stoilas in The Art Newspaper (Digital edition), Danziger was quoted “As the image is in the public domain, I had every right to create a new and transformative work,” and “My interest in doing this was based on my love of the iconic image, my interest in seeing how AI could be used as a tool for creativity and to create an imagining of what Adams saw in real life as he was driving along US Highway 84 that made him stop his Pontiac station wagon and scramble to set up his bulky 8x10-view camera as the sun was setting on the adobe church and cemetery crosses while the moon appeared through the clouds. From my perspective, this was done with great respect to the image and the artist.”
It is almost like that scene in Jurrasic Park (1993) where the cynical Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) comments "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.". In Jurassic Park, creatures were created for good but shortsighted intentions. Eventually, when loose, these monsters became dangerous to humanity and had to be contained. I know it is a long bow to draw to attach that Jurassic Park analogy to an attempt to legitimise the use of Ai art…but I believe the threat to humanity could be just as dire. True, I don’t believe that Ai art will be biting humans in half but if allowed to proliferate, the livelihood of thousands of artists and other associated occupations could disappear…which would be catastrophic, catastrophic not only for arts workers but society as a whole. This could be a societal tipping point, handing over our artistic pursuits to the machines. While the artists are cannon fodder on the frontlines for this battle for cultural survival, the perceived captains and generals…the curators, the gallerists, the museum directors, et al, should be the ones looking out for their fellow humans, not capitulate to the enemy.
As for the colourised Moonrise…some will say ‘whats the big deal?’. Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is one of the greatest landscape photographs of the 20th century, and as yet, the 21st century hasn’t anything that comes close (so far). Seeing it is an experience akin to watching protestors throw paint onto a masterpiece in a gallery. You know that the work is substantially safe, but the act of violence is visceral. The colourised Moonrise is also an act of violence, perpetrated by Ai, displayed as a legitimate but gaudy spectacle for me is an abomination…an abomination I tell you.