The Show Must Go On: Edgar Martins at Kopeikin Gallery, LA
by Todd ~ July 21st, 2009. Filed under: Los Angeles, Photographers, california.As J. Wesley Brown has already pointed out, Edgar Martins is testing the “no bad publicity” theory with his new show at Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angles which opened over the weekend. Despite Martins’ much discussed issues with suspected digital manipulations in the NY Times Magazine over his assertions to the contrary, the show is going on as if nothing had happened. The artist’s bio still contains the language “yet he does not manipulate or stage any of his photographs.”
Certainly, for me, this whole fiasco has put Martins on my radar as I’d never heard of him prior to his appearance in the Magazine. After poking around a bit, it seems he’d gotten a fair amount of attention on the Web for his “Topologies” work, and almost all of it the result of his denials of Photoshop postproduction, ie mainly as a technical virtuoso. In looking at his work now, his strongest stuff is actually the non-geometric images, though they probably aren’t as distinctive, and thus profitable, as the more contrived work he’s gotten attention for.
In any case, now many people in Southern California will have the opportunity to investigate Martins’ Photoshop skills up close, though I have yet to see anyone report any “gotchas” on the Web. If you go, take a gander at the wood grain patterns in this number:
Edgar Martins, The Accidental Theorist
Kopeikin Gallery on Google Maps
8810 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA
(310) 385-5894
July 21st, 2009 at 11:33 am
And …. thats a ’shop. A poor one, too. Not only does the grain reflect perfectly, so do the shadows.
One would think that if you were going to run about town claiming you dont photoshop your images, but in reality you did, you’d make sure you were damn good at it.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Hmm, I may have to go back for another look before it closes. Seeing as the sky’s manipulated, why not that bit too? In other words, I didn’t think to look that closely because I was already conscience of the manipulation.
Ah – free desktop here (carless, careless): http://jackpresents.com/05_5ATheorist_Edgar_Martins.jpeg
July 29th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Yes Wesley, you’re right, it’s a 68Kb free desktop wallpaper.
And we plan to deliver a lot more as soon as we start to put all of the slideshows we have been presenting at the /gallery in full screen.
/gallery
http://jackpresents.com/gallery
exactly the way we are doing with the current one at
http://jackpresents.com/gallery/Jackpresents_Jul09.html
Had you not call it careless and we wouldn’t bother to argue, but the thing is that we call it generosity™ towards the people that cannot afford to buy a real Edgar’s print.
And maybe one day, the ones starting now to put it in theirs computer desktops, would come to us to finally buy one.
See what i mean ?
Keep up the good work,
j.
August 4th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Or now that you know the trick, you can try to produce your own Edgar Martins like desktop images.
Maybe even improve it!
This is so funny!
August 7th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
@Jack – Hey, I’m not complaining! It’s on my computer as we speak. Trademarking generosity? Now, that’s genius (and the opposite of carelessness).