IMG MGMT: Stock Photography Watermarks As The Presence of God

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Guest post by: KEVIN BEWERSDORF

[Editors note: IMG MGMT is an artist essay series highlighting the diversity of curatorial processes within the art making practice. Today's invited artist Kevin Bewersdorf will show at V&A this fall in New York, and maintains the website maximumsorrow.com].

Disagreements on the ownership of intellectual property are issues of personal belief, and are therefore spiritual issues. Stock photography corporations have their own rigid dogma on the ownership of information, and they hold their beliefs to be truth. Like shepherds guarding a flock, these corporations brand their property in order to protect themselves and their patrons (the photographers) from unlicensed misuse or "evil" on the lawless web. In this collection of photos I have limited myself to an investigation of the protective watermarks of one such stock photography website, 123RF.com, and the search term "prayer."


Paddy from Art Fag City launched the series IMG MGMT this week. She invited a really wonderful selection of artists to contribute their found images to this ongoing project. Here's an interesting post from artist (and Spirit Surfer) Kevin Bewersdorf.

Originally posted on Art Fag City by Rhizome