Head No. 13, 2000, by Philip-Lorca diCorcia. For this series, diCorcia set up flashes hidden in some construction scaffolding on a New York street, and photographed passersby from a distance, without their knowledge. This head belongs to Erno Nussenzweig, a retired diamond trader who sued diCorcia for selling a picture of him without his consent. The court ruled that the photograph, although sold for money, was a means of artistic expression, and thus protected as free speech, and that Nussenzweig was not entitled to any money from diCorcia. The photo is probably the most well-publicized of all the pictures from diCorcia’s Heads series, and seems like a perfect example of the Streisand effect: the harder you try to make a picture go away, the more publicity it gets.
Sep 19, 2011