The Bureaucracy of Death

When Vivian Maier died in 2009, she left behind over 100,000 negatives, hundreds of undeveloped rolls of film—and no will. Her belongings were sold off in storage auctions, her photographs scattered, and the county of Cook suddenly found itself the legal guardian of a genius no one knew existed.

In this episode, host Teresa Porter unpacks what happens when art becomes evidence, when creativity is reduced to paperwork, and when a system built to handle bank accounts and sofas tries to process something as intangible as legacy.

From the rules of copyright to the economics of discovery, Teresa explores the moment Vivian’s unseen work transformed from forgotten boxes into a multimillion-dollar estate—and the moral questions that transformation still raises.

Who owns art after the artist is gone?
 Who profits from the invisible?
 And how do you put a price on genius no one saw in time?