Pictures, Letters, and Case Files of Martin Luther King Assassin Shown in Online Museum

James Earl Ray is being transported in Memphis, Tennessee this 1968 photo released by the Shelby County Register's office on March 31, 2011. A Memphis county official has opened an online museum of case files, personal correspondence and little-seen black-and-white images chronicling the jail time of James Earl Ray, who killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. 43 years ago this Monday. REUTERS/Shelby County Register of Deeds.





By: Tim Ghianni
Via artdaily.org


NASHVILLE, TN (REUTERS).- A Memphis county official has opened an online museum of case files, personal correspondence and little-seen black-and-white images chronicling the jail time of James Earl Ray, who killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. 43 years ago this Monday.

"This is not just an incredible part of Shelby County history and Tennessee history, but national and world history," said Tom Leatherwood, 54, Shelby County register of deeds.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down by Ray at the city's Lorraine Motel, sparking unrest across the country and an international manhunt for the killer.

The "museum" can be visited at register.shelby.tn.us. Scroll down below the "archives" section to find the "Martin Luther King Assassination Investigation" link, highlighted in small yellow print.

Making these mostly unseen images and documents available to the public is part of Leatherwood's effort to get the city's historical and genealogical records online and accessible.

One section of the site contains a mammoth batch of documents of the killer's legal proceedings Leatherwood found in 2007.

"I was walking through with a county archivist to try to organize and identify material. We saw this package and we turned it over and we saw 'James E. Ray,'" Leatherwood recalled. "That was a pretty exciting moment for someone who likes history and archives."

He says it took this long to make the records accessible because he needed to get permission from the public defender's office to post files detailing efforts by Ray's attorneys.

Memphis photographer Gil Michael, 77, was caught off-guard when he saw that the site contained photos of Ray that he took on the night he was booked.

Michael, then director of photography for the University of Memphis, was asked by the sheriff's office to volunteer his time and take pictures to be distributed to news outlets. "It wasn't feasible to have tons of media in there," said Michael, who Ray tried to kick as he was shooting a picture.

Michael has asked about the photos and the negatives over the years and was told no one could find them. Now that some are on display, he wonders if he has any legal claim to ownership and if the negatives are anywhere to be found. Michael said he is mainly interested in being credited for his work.

Leatherwood was in grade school at the time of the assassination, and remembers the turmoil.

"I remember the National Guard had been called out. There were soldiers with rifles and soldiers going around in Army trucks... " Leatherwood said. "It was a very tumultuous time."

Ray pleaded guilty, though he recanted and unsuccessfully fought to clear his name. He died in prison in 1998.

(Writing and reporting by Tim Ghianni; editing by Mary Wisniewski and Greg McCune)

OPENING DAY, 2011

Stephen Wilkes: Field of Dreams

Opening Day Schedule

The Baseball Hall of Fame

MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY - LOS ANGELES: APRIL 1 - 30, 2011

About


In April 2009, the inaugural Month of Photography Los Angeles (MOPLA) showcased the enormous photography community, inclusive of commercial, fine art and photojournalism. As the second largest photography community in the United States, Los Angeles provides a distinctive backdrop to the celebration of the photographic image.

MOPLA was established and exists to advance the celebration of Photography through a variety of events and programs designed to inspire and invigorate the photography professional, enthusiast, emerging professional and collector.

MOPLA's two-fold mission is to advance dynamic programming designed to engage and stimulate the photography community, as well as to present a comprehensive resource of exhibitions and events in April.

2011 THEME
MOPLA 2011’s theme, Adaptations and Reverberations, embodies the fluidity and versatility of the photographic medium. While technology allows the art of photography to change and grow, classic approaches reverberate throughout. Utilizing old and new techniques, photographers represent a variety of subjects, including music, another art form that embraces new techniques, while incorporating and reinventing those that have come before. MOPLA 2011 celebrates music and photography in Los Angeles – a city whose own history reflects reverberations and adaptations of its own art and culture.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE: Exhibitions, Discussions, Projections, Events

Website here.

International Pillow Fight Day

Harry Benson: Beatles Pillow Fight, Hotel George V, Paris, 1964

Via the Los Angeles Times

Offbeat Traveler: International Pillow Fight Day

If you have the urge to hit someone, show up at Pershing Square on April 2 with a pillow for International Pillow Fight Day. When the air horn sounds at 2 p.m., watch the feathers fly, not just in Los Angeles but in almost 100 cities worldwide.


The basic rules for this free event include using only soft pillows, swinging them lightly and not swinging at someone who doesn't have a pillow. There is no set end time for the event, but participants are asked to help with cleanup once the pillow fight has concluded.

International Pillow Fight Day

( Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times )
Los Angeles
2 p.m.
Pershing Square
pillowfightlosangeles.com

Full list of city websites and slide show here.

Swann Auction: Yesterday's top selling photograph was Alfred Eisenstaedt's Children at Puppet Theater, 1963

The Spring auction season has started. First up yesterday, Swann (via Swann blog)


FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2011
Yesterday's Top Lots: Fine Photographs

Adam Clark Vroman, Arizona and New Mexico, Volume II, album with more than 165 platinum prints, 1897. Sold for $62,400 on March 24, 2011.


Two rare photographic albums were the top lots in yesterday's Fine Photographs auction at Swann. Adam Clark Vroman's Arizona and New Mexico, Volume II, 1897, which featured more than 165 platinum prints of Native Americans, their dwellings, the famous Snake Dance and more, brought $62,400, a record price for both Vroman and the album. Linnaeus Tripe's album, Photographs of the Elliot Marbles, which can be read about here, brought $57,600.

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Children at Puppet Theatre, Paris, silver print, 1963, printed 1991. Copyright Time Inc. Sold for $48,000.


The day's top selling photograph was Alfred Eisenstaedt's Children at Puppet Theater, 1963, which sold for $48,000.
 
Also, via Swann's Twitter: "Bert Stern's unique contact sheet of Marilyn Monroe sold yesterday at Swann's Fine Photographs auction for a record $22,800"
 
Related: Born December 6: Alfred Eisenstaedt

The World Photography Festival and Sony World Photography Awards are coming to London

The World Photography Festival and Sony World Photography Awards are coming to London!
April 26 - May 1



Share your work, meet other photographers, learn new skills and get involved! Find inspiration and get your creative juices flowing during our week-long programme of events at Somerset House, and get ready to be dazzled by the vast photographic talent presented at the Sony World Photography Awards 2011 Gala Ceremony.

Whatever your photographic taste, the World Photography Festival, along with our partners including Sony, iStockphoto and blurb, will be sure to cater to it through a wide range of exhibitions, workshops, screenings and much more. If you're looking to grow as a photographer, improve your skills or maybe you're seeking a new photographic direction; register for Portfolio Reviews, peer-to-peer sessions, or drop by to visit our resident critic for some constructive advice.

At the centre of this activity, you will find the Photographers Lounge, where you can network and socialise with fellow photographers and industry folk. Ongoing Carousel Slide Slam sessions will be the highlight of the lounge whilst coffee, snacks, cold wine and beer, is served at Tom’s café and bar.

Ticket information here.

The World Photography Organisation (WPO) proudly supports professional, amateur and student photography, lending a global platform for the photographic industry to communicate, network and showcase current trends in Photojournalism, Fine Art and Commercial Photography.

APPROPRIATION: PHOTOGRAPHY, ART, AND "STEALING"

Patrick Cariou photographs of Jamaican rastafarians altered and exhibited without consent by Richard Prince. Photograph: Canal Zone

Yesterday the Guardian newspaper had an extensive article about the recent US Federal Judge's ruling against Gagosian gallery and artist Richard Prince for unfair use of 'appropriated' Patrick Cariou rastafarian images. "A New York federal court has ruled that Prince and his gallery infringed Cariou's copyright when he produced a series of works in a 2008 show using 35 pictures from the book Yes, Rasta, published by Cariou in 2000, "in their entirety, or nearly so". The ruling, which may lead to an appeal, stands to cost Prince and the Gagosian, one of the world's leading contemporary galleries, with outlets in London and New York, potentially huge sums. Eight of the works from the exhibition, which was entitled Canal Zone, have together sold for more than $10m (£6m). Seven others have been exchanged for other works of art for between $6m and $8m."
 
Prince's "Cowboy" became the most expensive photograph ever to sell at auction when New York dealer Stellan Holm bought it at Christie’s in November 2005 for $1,248,000. Later, “Marlboro Man" (Untitled, Cowboy), set a record for a photograph when it sold for $3,401,000 at Sotheby’s in New York in 2007.

As we reported on our blog after the Fall auctions, Prince’s “Cowboy” series consisted of old Marlboro cigarette print ads that he re-photographed. And the Marlboro man was based on a LIFE magazine cover of a photograph by Leonard McCombe of a real cowboy.


Similarly, the $63.36 million realized at Phillips, de Pury by Andy Warhol's “Men in Her Life?” was done in silk-screen technique: the dark black and white picture endlessly repeats a photographic image published in LIFE magazine on April 13, 1962.

In the context of the broader art market, Photography's impact, relevance, influence, and relationship to the broader fine art field is still in its infancy. Generally, the prices for the "masters" of photography are a fraction of the prices for the masters of art. But what to think when "art" sells for millions of dollars that is directly "appropriated" from photographs? We have assembled a few relevant posts, and welcome your comments.

Renowned photojournalist Bill Eppridge: When artists appropriate the work of others


"From European collagists in the early 1900s to contemporary installation artists who cull elements from the garbage bin and the Internet, the recycling of materials and ideas has been a fertile practice in modern and contemporary art. Cubist collage, montage, Pop Art, Assemblage, and Appropriation fractured pictorial conventions and led to the upheaval of aesthetic systems of order. Photography has played a catalytic role in this revolution." -- Henry Art Gallery

Jonathon Delacour: Appropriation Art and Walker Evans: Appropriation Art  appears to be the topic du jour


Peta Pixel: Photo Theft Versus Conceptual Art

Richard Prince’s Views on Copyright



Riddle time…who is the artist that produced this image? Appropriation in Photography: II. Whose Is It, Anyway?






 
Related: Thoughts on the Record Fall Auctions

Steve Schapiro, Hollywood's child

©Steve Schapiro "Brando with the cat"

Via La Lettre de la Photographie

 

A selection of Steve Schapiro’s pictures taken behind the scenes during filming of “The Godfather” and “Taxi Driver” will be on display at the A. Gallery in Paris until May 14, 2011.


In 1971, when Francis Ford Coppola began working on “The Godfather”, Steve Schapiro was a young photographer, 37 years old, known for his work published in Life, Look, Newsweek, and on movie sets. It is for this reason that Paramount offered him exclusive coverage of the making of “The Godfather”. This unique status provided him access to an exceptional “cast”, capturing the private moments with Brando that would become the film’s iconic images. His reputation would certainly contribute, four years later, to his being named official set photographer for Martin Scorcese’s new movie, “Taxi Driver”. There too, Steve Schapiro’s pictures would become icons. Robert de Niro (Travis Bickle) pointing his gun in front of a mirror, or Jodie Foster (Iris) waiting in front of a hotel entrance.

©Steve Schapiro "The Whisper"

These 35 enlargements (40 × 50cm or 75 × 100cm) are the renowned pictures hanging on the walls of the A. Gallery. Slide show here.

Pictures from the sets of “Midnight Cowboy” and “Chinatown” will also be on display at the A. Gallery. Several recent and to be published books are also featuring his photographs. “Schapiro’s Heros”, 2007, Powerhouse Books, and “The Godfather Family Album”, a collection of set pictures from the “Godfather” saga, published by Taschen. “Taxi Driver” also published by Taschen and “Chinatown” soon to be released by the same editor.



Bernard Perrine

Correspondant for The Institut of France

Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Steve Schapiro “You talkin’ to me ?”
Until May 14

A. galerie
Rue Léonce Reynaud, 12
75116 Paris

Links
http://www.a-galerie.fr/exhibitions.php


Related: Steve Schapiro: American Edge and review in ARTnews

McLeans Canada: Scenes from the AIPAD photography show in NYC

Via MCLEANS

Every year, the world’s best galleries and photographers come together to pitch their wares under the same roof at the AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) Photography Show New York, held in the Park Avenue Armory. For photographers, dealers, and art-lovers, this is the Big One.

The AIPAD Photography Show New York

Portraits of some of the prominent gallery owners showing at The AIPAD Photography Show New York: (clockwise) Robert Mann of Robert Mann Gallery in New York City, Kim Bourus of Higher Pictures in New York City, Deborah Bell of Deborah Bell Photographs in New York City, and Sidney S. Monroe of Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, NM. Photo by Zoran Milich

Full slide show here 

ELIZABETH TAYLOR: February 27 1932 - March 22, 2011

Sid Avery: Elizabeth Taylor Sunning Herself on the Marfa, Texas Set of "Giant"

New York Times Obituary here

LIFE: Unpublished Elizabeth Taylor Photographs