NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Tremé's Everyman: Wendell Pierce Back in NOLA

Photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters. The Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

via NYTimes: Television

Home to His Acting and His Activism
By STUART MILLER
Published: March 25, 2009

NEW ORLEANS has always been home for Wendell Pierce. But recently it’s become more than that, so much that he sometimes needs to be in two parts of the city at once.

On March 20 Mr. Pierce, acclaimed as Bunk Moreland on “The Wire,” was scheduled for a 12-hour day shooting the HBO pilot for “Treme,” an exploration of post-Katrina New Orleans by the “Wire” creator David Simon. He was also scheduled to be at the ceremonial groundbreaking for the revitalization of the hurricane-battered Pontchartrain Park, one of the city’s historically black neighborhoods. In both places Mr. Pierce was essential.

In “Treme” he plays the trombonist Antoine Batiste, struggling to find work while coping with a scattered family. “The show follows the lives of a disparate group of people during the rebuilding,” he said. It features a range of characters, like a chef and a civil rights lawyer, and an ensemble that includes Steve Zahn, Khandi Alexander, the Oscar nominee Melissa Leo and the “Wire” actor Clarke Peters. “My character,” Mr. Pierce said, “is an everyman.”

But in Pontchartrain Park he is no everyman; he is the leader, the president of the Community Development Corporation who spent eight months planning and negotiating with government and insurance officials to build affordable and environmentally friendly homes that will preserve the community’s character.

But the city doesn’t run as smoothly as a television series. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority changed the groundbreaking’s location twice and start time thrice, leaving Mr. Pierce unable to sneak away from his day job.

“My whole frustration in dealing with the redevelopment, I’ve used that for my character,” he said. “I’m enjoying the fact that art is imitating life.”

In August 2005 he arrived at his parents’ house in Pontchartrain Park for a family gathering just in time to flee the storm. He moved his octogenarian parents to Baton Rouge, then worked to restore their home; they returned two years ago.

Still Mr. Pierce wanted to do more.

Photo: Cheryl Gerber for The New York Times

Wendell Pierce is a New Orleans native who stars as a trombonist in a pilot (from David Simon of “The Wire”) named for the area.

His first step was, naturally, artistic. He acted in an independent movie about the renowned cornet player Buddy Bolden. He starred in a “Waiting for Godot” with the hurricane as central metaphor; in 2006 it was staged in New York, then in 2007 on the streets of New Orleans. And he turned down another TV role to shoot the pilot of “Treme,” though HBO has not committed to the series (but given its track record with Mr. Simon, that seems likely).

Mr. Simon said Mr. Pierce was integral to his show because “he totally understands that in New Orleans, the nuances have nuances.”

“To do this without him would be fraudulent,” he added.

[read on...]

Closings (Soho) 4

Closings (Soho) 4, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

Found Art (Bowery): Unmonumental 141

Found Art (Bowery): Unmonumental 141, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

Found Art (UES): Unmonumental 140

Found Art (UES): Unmonumental 140, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

Blood & Guts in Highschool (a la Laura Parnes)

Laura Parnes
Stephanie Vella in Blood and Guts in High School (still)
2004-07
Participant Inc.

via NYTimes: ART IN REVIEW

‘Janie 1978-1982, a.k.a. Blood and Guts in High School’

Participant Inc.

253 East Houston Street,

Lower East Side

Through Sunday

For several years Laura Parnes has been working on a video adaptation of Kathy Acker’s 1984 novel, “Blood and Guts in High School,” presenting segments as they were done. The piece is now finished and being shown at Participant Inc.

Acker, who died at 53 in 1997, was one of the most dynamic American fiction writers of her time, her work a violent, pornographic, punk-feminist version of Gertrude Stein with lifts from William S. Burroughs, Marguerite Duras, Jean Genet and her own life. Her prose has the pile-driver beat of a garage-band drummer, its anarchic tone a perfect counteroffensive to the recycled folksiness of the Reagan years.

Ms. Parnes makes this historical context clear by prefacing each section of her video with news clips of the mass suicide in Jonestown in 1978, the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Israeli attack on Beirut in 1982 and the conservative ascendancy in national politics. Against this backdrop Acker’s protagonist, Janey (as spelled in the book, and well played by Stephanie Vella), moves, changing clothes and hairdo but not her sullen, affectless demeanor from scene to scene.

In place of Acker’s motormouth prose, however, Ms. Parnes has written a script of short, emphatic lines and long silences, with actors moving in slow motion when they move at all; often cut-and-paste editing does their moving for them. Ms. Parnes has cooled Acker’s frenetic world down to the stately pace of a Greek tragedy, retaining the hilarity but increasing the menace of Janey’s episodic abandonments, imprisonments and punishments.

Filmed on bare-bones sets put together in gallery spaces, the video is a model of how to bring off an ambitions project with scant resources, and also of how to respect source material while transforming it. And where Acker’s novels have a quick-hit crash-and-burn intensity, Ms. Parnes’s video floats like a shark, forever hovering, but always watching and moving. -- HOLLAND COTTER

via Artnet:

GOTHAM ART & THEATER
by Elisabeth Kley

[...]

Laura Parnes at Participant
Evidence of our current shell-shocked state can be found on Houston Street on the Lower East Side at Participant, which is screening Laura Parnes’ new film, Janie 1978-1982 a.k.a. Blood and Guts in High School, a 50-minute-long version of Kathy Acker’s 1984. The show commemorates Participant Press’s publication of Blood and Guts in Hollywood: Two Screenplays by Laura Parnes, a wonderfully structured book that gives a comprehensive account of two of Parnes’ films.

In contrast to Acker’s gritty, violent novel, filled with poverty, incest and rats, Parnes’s film is banal and antiseptic, like a low-budget production for community access cable TV. A group of interchangeably youthful actors seem to play out their frustrations for each other, so cut off from reality that they can’t even experience their own oppression.

The capitalists in Acker’s novel use Janey as a name for "perverts, transsexuals, criminals and women." Parnes has transformed Janey into Janie, a clean-cut young woman who bounces from one distressing situation to the next, dressed in various clichéd youthful costumes -- pink and blue wigs, torn stockings and jeans, neck collars, leggings, miniskirts. As helpless as a character from a Kafka novel or a Beckett play (not to mention The Perils of Pauline), Janie is flummoxed by the senselessness of every institution she confronts.

At her job selling cookies, a co-worker berates her for her fake smiles and then tells her she is rude when she stops smiling. A sleazy young preacher in a cheesy chapel with a neon sign that says "good news" ignores her plea for help and tells her she will burn in hell. At school, she is told to communicate like an adult and then beaten up by a gang of club-wielding young men.

Episodes from Janie’s life are bracketed by archival footage of human rights disasters that took place at the time Acker wrote her book. Horrific scenes of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Jim Jones massacre and the invasion of Afghanistan make Janie’s travails seem even more unreal.

The archival footage cuts to action in which Janie takes part in each disaster, such as hiding in a bomb shelter after a nuclear reactor explosion, and lip-synching Jim Jones’s pre-massacre speech in male drag. The film ends on an optimistic note when Janie escapes down a country road, leaving her nightmares behind. The exhibition also includes a set of eight life-sized archival ink-jet portraits of Stephanie Vella (the actress who plays Janie) dressed in her various costumes. Printed in an edition of ten, the photographs are priced at $3,000 each. [...]

Motherwell: Developing Saga

Photo: Jeanne Strongin. Robert Motherwell and the curator Joan Banach in 1984.

via NYTimes:

A Tug of War Over Robert Motherwell
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: March 27, 2009

Dueling legal complaints filed on the same day in different New York courts present strikingly contradictory portrayals of Joan Banach, who for 10 years was a personal curator and cataloger for the Abstract Expressionist artist Robert Motherwell.

According to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by Ms. Banach in State Supreme Court in Manhattan against the Dedalus Foundation — formerly known as the Motherwell Foundation — she was fired from the organization, where she was a board member and held various positions, because of authentication disputes about the artist’s work.

But according to a lawsuit the foundation filed on Wednesday in Federal District Court for the Southern District against Ms. Banach, she abused her access to Motherwell’s studio, stealing his work, some of which she sold for her own benefit in a breach of fiduciary duty.

While conflicts over authenticity involving Warhols and Pollocks have become public in recent years, it is rare for disputes to arise within an organization charged with protecting an artist’s legacy.

Interviewed beside her lawyer on Wednesday, Ms. Banach said she was amazed it had come to this, given her long history with Motherwell. “He trusted me with his work,” she said. “I’m devastated by what’s happened.”

The lawyer, Jonathan S. Abady, who along with Lee F. Bantle is representing Ms. Banach, called the foundation’s treatment of her “a broader disservice to the artistic community.”

Perry M. Amsellem, a lawyer for the Dedalus Foundation, declined to comment.

Motherwell, who died in 1991 at 76, explored literary and philosophical concerns through work that ranged from brooding abstract paintings to elegantly playful collages. His long and prolific career earned him a permanent Motherwell Gallery at the Bavarian State Museum of Modern Art in Munich, established in 1982, and the National Medal of Arts at the White House, awarded in 1989.

Ms. Banach was hired by Motherwell in 1981 “to care for, consign and otherwise manage his artwork,” her lawsuit says. Over the next decade she worked closely with him at his studio in Greenwich, Conn., and occasionally at his summer residence in Provincetown, Mass.

Ms. Banach was an author or editor of two books on him, including a catalogue raisonné, or definitive listing, of his prints; assisted other writers with their Motherwell publications; and helped prepare major museum shows for him.

An artist herself, Ms. Banach has examples of her work in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, and in 2000 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for painting.

In 1991 Ms. Banach became secretary at the foundation, established in 1981, and remained a board member until she was removed in August 2008. She was also employed by the foundation as a curator, then as director and finally as vice president.

Ms. Banach contends in her lawsuit that the foundation carried out “a malicious campaign” to remove her. In particular, the complaint states that from December 2007 to August 2008, Jack Flam, the foundation’s president and chief executive, “flouted established procedure and made a series of mistakes and misjudgments about the authenticity of Motherwell works.”

Because Ms. Banach challenged those judgments, the lawsuit says, Mr. Flam sought to discredit her and terminate her employment.

The court papers describe Mr. Flam as “a man with overstated expertise in Motherwell’s work, a temper against any who would challenge him, and a desire to promote himself without regard for the legacy of the artist.”

Mr. Flam, through his lawyer, declined to comment.

Dedalus asserts that Ms. Banach violated foundation policy by failing to disclose that she owned or sold any Motherwell works, even after being asked about such potential conflicts of interest, which the lawsuit calls a breach of fiduciary duty. In addition, the foundation accuses Ms. Banach of taking Motherwell’s work, including his Metropolitan Museum of Art sketchbook, home without authorization.

“She was observed surreptitiously returning these materials to Dedalus,” the foundation says in its suit.

The complaint adds that Ms. Banach, despite her role in cataloging the artworks, was “caught secretly trying to sell undocumented, unrecorded Motherwell works that have no studio inventory numbers and for which Dedalus has no records.”

Ms. Banach describes consigning two Motherwell sketches to Christie’s auction house in July 2008 that had been given to her by the artist in early 1991. Mr. Flam, who did not realize that they belonged to Ms. Banach, told Christie’s that the sketches were not authentic, according to her lawsuit. He subsequently agreed to reverse his opinion, Ms. Banach’s complaint says, and to assure the auction house that the works were genuine.

Asked why she decided to sell Motherwell works, Ms. Banach said in an interview, “I needed the money.”

In its legal papers the foundation acknowledged the incident but said it made Dedalus and Mr. Flam “appear unprofessional and incompetent, inasmuch as Dedalus and its president did not even know of the existence of Motherwell works consigned by one of its own longtime board members.”

The board says in its complaint that it was surprised to learn that Ms. Banach “suddenly claims to own” as many as 10 Motherwell works for which there is no record.

Ms. Banach is further described in the foundation’s complaint as “notorious for doing very little work, despite her hefty salary” of more than $100,000 a year.

Ms. Banach was part of a committee, formed in 2002 and directed by Mr. Flam, charged with assembling a catalogue raisonné (still in progress) and authenticating Motherwell’s artwork. But in December 2007, her complaint says, Mr. Flam made conflicting determinations about two of Motherwell’s “Elegies to the Spanish Republic” paintings without consulting the committee. Initially, Ms. Banach asserts, Mr. Flam said both paintings were authentic but later reversed his decision, declaring the works to be forgeries.

Asked later by Mr. Flam and Morgan Spangle, the foundation’s treasurer, to review the paintings, Ms. Banach found them to be authentic.

Over dinner in January 2008 Mr. Flam confided to Ms. Banach “that he was distraught regarding his misidentification of the paintings,” her lawsuit says. The foundation board, she adds, subsequently took out a $2 million insurance policy “to cover the costs of a potential lawsuit that might arise as a result of Flam’s misauthentication.”

In another instance, Ms. Banach said that Motherwell himself had in the 1980s determined that a work on paper that purported to be his was actually fake, but that Mr. Flam later said this work was authentic.

The foundation is seeking damages of $5 million, along with the return of Motherwell’s works in her possession.

Ms. Banach is seeking damages to be determined at trial and reinstatement at the foundation. “I don’t feel like I’ve been given any option,” she said.

The Salander Equation

Jonah Salander, the gallerist’s son, lunging at a news photographer. 
(Photo: Chip East/Bloomberg News/Landov)

via NYTimes:

Art Dealer Is Charged With Stealing $88 Million
By JAMES BARRON
Published: March 26, 2009

A once-prominent art dealer was arrested on Thursday on an indictment charging that he stole $88 million from investors, collectors and artists who had consigned paintings and sculpture to his Upper East Side gallery, the authorities said.

The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said the dealer, Lawrence B. Salander, sometimes sold the same painting to more than one buyer. Aides to Mr. Morgenthau said Mr. Salander sold one painting to three people, promising each a 50 percent share.

“Why sell it once when you can sell it three times?” Mr. Morgenthau said at a news conference called to announce a 100-count indictment accusing Mr. Salander of grand larceny, falsifying business records, scheming to defraud investors, forging documents and perjury.

Mr. Morgenthau said the charges covered transactions with 26 victims going back to 1994, among them the tennis star John McEnroe. Mr. Morgenthau said the investigation was continuing, raising the possibility that the extent of the theft could climb. One official with direct knowledge of the investigation said the authorities believed that Mr. Salander’s take actually exceeded $100 million.

[read on...]

Prop styling by Naila Ruechel. 
(Photo: Hans Gissinger)

via NYMag:

An Old Master in Ruins
Why is an El Greco worth less than a Koons? Gallerist Larry Salander called it a moral travesty, and decided, catastrophically, to do something about it.
By James Panero
Published Mar 24, 2008

The art dealer Larry Salander is ready to erupt. He puffs up, expanding his chest like a bellows. He presses his mouth shut. He squeezes his tongue against his palate and engorges his cheeks, his upper lip already damp with perspiration and a few molecules of lunch. Finally, with nostrils flared, he explodes.

“Our society now values a Warhol for three times as much money as a great Rembrandt,” he thunders, referring to the latest auction reports. “That tells me that we’re fucked. It’s as if people would rather fuck than make love.”

He says the last sentence slowly, emphasizing each word.

“That’s the difference between the Warhol and the Rembrandt,” Salander continues. “Being with Rembrandt is like making love. And being with Warhol is like fucking.”

Salander and I are just finishing a lunch of pasta fresca in the eat-in kitchen of his Upper East Side home. Now on the market for $25 million, the townhouse—almost a palace— is decorated with paint imported from Venice and fifteenth-century Sienese tiles. It reflects Salander’s eclectic taste, with African sculpture and American tonalist landscapes mixed in among the Canalettos. In the next room, Salander has inlaid a marble floor with the phases of the moon.

An aesthete with no formal art education (nor even a college degree), Salander built his art empire, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, on native artistic empathy and an intensity of will. “He is a very unusual combination of street vitality and aesthetic refinement,” says Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic and a close friend of Salander’s who wrote catalogue essays for the gallery. “He’s a street kid who’s read Ruskin. I don’t know anybody else who so naturally recognizes the brutality of the world but lives in such a fine way.”

Artists, actors, critics, and buyers responded to his gravitational pull. When I visited Salander in Venice during the opening of the Biennale last June, he was a character in need of a Balzac, a prophet and a gambler who seemed to walk across the water of the Venetian lagoon. He spoke about Titian and Tintoretto as if they were close friends and skipped the contemporary art of the Biennale altogether. As we returned from the island of Burano, where we’d had dinner with his friend Robert De Niro, Salander said to me, “Art is the human attempt to make one plus one equal more than two.”

But Salander made a critical miscalculation. Over the last few years, he had been trying to apply his passion and alchemy to correcting what he saw to be a dangerous inversion of the art market. To Salander, many contemporary art collectors are philistines. But if he could use his gallery to create a new market for old-master and Renaissance art, perhaps he could shift the paradigms of the international art trade.

It was an intriguing idea, but it left him in ruin. On the opening evening of a show he hoped would electrify the market, angry investors closed down his multimillion-dollar gallery. A restraining order prevented Salander from entering the gallery or selling art anywhere in the world. He now faces a criminal investigation and lawsuits from investors who say they were abused, collectors who say they didn’t get what they paid for, and artists who say they never got paid. He could be upwards of $100 million in debt. As our lunch filled the afternoon, Salander spoke for the first time about his plan to rescue the art world from bad taste, and how it ultimately destroyed him.

[read on...]

Toward a New WPA: Roundtable @ NYFA

via NYFA Current:

Envisioning a 21st-Century WPA: A Roundtable

From left: Suzan Sherman, NYFA Current Editor; Sacha Yanow, Program Director, Art Matters; Chris Martin, Painter; Carol Becker, Dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts; Phong Bui, Brooklyn Rail Editor; and Irving Sandler, Author and Historian

When the Federal Art Project component of the Works Progress Administration was launched in 1935, it was seen primarily as a relief organization: a way to get unemployed artists working for the public good. But its projects—from public murals to paintings to photographic documentation of the American social landscape—have come to be seen as important works of art and scholarship in their own right.

Today, our economic situation is not as dire as the Great Depression. And yet, with no cohesive federal plan or funding systems in place, the arts remain in a precarious position. For a sector that contributes immeasurably to America’s cultural development and significantly to its economic health (as much as $166.2 billion, according to a 2005 study), it might be time to rethink the present structure. With the economy continuing to weaken, and the fresh slate of a Democratic administration, it seemed a fitting time to ask: how can we ensure long-term funding structures for the arts? What former federal programs might be informative for today, from Depression-era relief efforts to the individual artists’ grants of the early NEA? And how can the arts community sell these ideas to the American public at large?

Carol Becker, Phong Bui, Chris Martin, Irving Sandler, and Sacha Yanow met in NYFA’s offices on February 23, 2009 to discuss these issues. What follows is an edited transcript, or watch part one and part two of the full-length podcast.

Suzan Sherman: My first question goes to Irving, who suggested that we change the name of the panel, which I’d been calling “Envisioning a 21st-century WPA.” I’m assuming that you’re not concerned about the associations the WPA has with laissez-faire conservatism…

Irving Sandler: Oh, yes—absolutely, because we have to rethink the whole notion of the Republicans as the bad guys. They sit on the boards of our museums, and they’ve been some of the most active advocates for the arts. I don’t want to use terminology that’s going to get their hackles up.

SS: You didn’t find fault with my use of “WPA” because the artists who were supported under this policy were constrained in their art-making in certain respects?

IS: No. They were not really constrained. There were politics: they were always being attacked by neoconservatives. But they were free, at least on the easel division, to do whatever they wanted. They just had to turn in a work a month, I think. The Mural Project was more difficult, because you needed approval from the housing department, but there were very few constraints that I know of.

Carol Becker: Was it because of the political nature of the artists’ and writers’ work?

IS: It was also that. You’re having the same problem today with your entire Republican Party against “giveaways.” That was my objection.

CB: I agree with that. Although I’m a total fan of the WPA, it became associated with all of this anti-Communist, un-American activities. I don’t know if you saw the letter in the New York Times today, but it talks about this Congressman from Georgia who says he doesn’t to want to fund the NEA and give money to artists because he believes in the “working man.” So there’s still this stigma attached to artists, and a misconception of what they actually do.

IS: We also mustn’t believe that the Democrats are always the good guys. President Clinton—

CB: Did nothing.

IS: Clinton was one of my favorite presidents, but he did zip for the visual arts. Whereas President Nixon did a great deal. Hating it all the time, of course.

Philip Guston

Richard Nixon caricature from the book Guston's Poor Richard (1971)

Phong Bui: We can see that in Guston’s drawings of him. [laughter]

SS: But back to the idea of constraints. Weren’t artists supposed to stay away from work in abstraction, or anything that might be construed as edgy? Murals were upbeat, even idealized, images of people going to work, farming the fields, or maps of, say, the State of New Jersey; works that we still might see hanging on the walls of certain post offices, but that might not necessarily have been generated directly from the artist’s heart.

PB: It depends where the artists were. Those who happened to be in Oklahoma were probably likely to lean toward American regionalist painting. But there were high-minded painters in New York, like de Kooning and Gorky, who were recipients and doing abstract mural projects. Gorky did one for the Newark Airport. So it depends on what state and city they were in.

[read full transcript]

Shepard Fairey Has a Posse

Great statement from Shepard Fairey on art, appropriation and fair use that speaks truth to power. I hope the haters who shout "plagiarism" will read it and think twice. The comments are fun too!

via Huffington Post:

The AP, Obama, & Referencing
by Shepard Fairey
Posted March 26, 2009 | 12:18 PM (EST)

I'm sure a lot of people are wondering about my case with the AP over the Obama HOPE poster. I can't talk about every aspect of the case, but there are a few things I want to discuss and points I'd like to make. 

Most importantly, I am fighting the AP to protect the rights of all artists, especially those with a desire to make art with social commentary.  This is about artistic freedom and basic rights of free expression, which need to be available to all, whether they have money and lawyers or not.  I created the Obama image as a grassroots tool solely to help Obama get elected president. The image worked due to many complex variables. If I could do it all over again, I would not change anything about the process, because that could change the outcome. I am glad to endure legal headaches if that is the trade-off for Obama being president. 

No disrespect was intended to photographer Mannie Garcia, but I did not think (and do not think) I needed permission to make an art piece using a reference photo.  From the beginning, I openly acknowledged that my illustration of Obama was based on a reference photograph.  But the photograph is just a starting point.  The illustration transforms it aesthetically in its stylization and idealization, and the poster has an altogether different purpose than the photograph does.  The AP photo I used as a reference, which I found out much later was taken by Mannie Garcia, (which was actually this one, not the one being circulated in the press) was a news photo that showed George Clooney and Barack Obama attending a 2006 panel on the genocide in Darfur. My Obama poster variations of "HOPE" and "PROGRESS" were obviously not intended to report the news. I created them to generate support for Obama; the point was to capture and synthesize the qualities that made him a leader.  The point of the poster is to convince and inspire.  It's a political statement. My Obama poster does not compete with the intent of, or the market for the reference photo. In fact, the argument has been made that the reference photo would have faded into obscurity if it were not for my poster which became so culturally pervasive. The Garcia photo is now more famous and valuable than it ever would have been prior to the creation of my poster. With this factor in mind, it is not surprising, that a gallery in NYC is now selling the Garcia photo for $1,200 each. As I understand it, Garcia himself did not even realize the poster was created referencing his photo until it was pointed out to him a full year after the poster came into existence. Mannie Garcia has stated in the press that he is an Obama supporter pleased with the poster result.

I did not create the Obama poster for financial gain. The poster was created to promote Obama for president, and the revenue from poster sales was re-invested in more posters, flyers, stickers, etc.., and donated to charity, including the Obama campaign. A free download of the Obama image was available on my website, which should provide further evidence of the desire to disseminate the image, not to benefit financially. 

Lastly, I m very saddened to see many people try to demean my Obama poster as being "stolen" or that because I used a photo I "cheated".  As far as the idea of the image being "stolen", I would love to have the clout to command portrait sittings from world leaders, but for me and most artists out there, that is not an option. For lots of artists, even licensing an image is out of the question financially. Should artistic commentary featuring world leaders be stifled because of copyright of the reference images even when the final artistic product has new intent and meaning? Reference is critical to communication, and in my opinion, reference as a part of social commentary should not be stifled. 

A writer asked me why I "didn't just draw Obama from my imagination". My response was that I needed to make my image look like Obama, who is not an imaginary character. I know few people who could capture a convincing likeness of close friends or even their own family members from their imagination or memory. I use my own family members as models, taking my own photos of them to illustrate from -  VIVI LA REVOLUCION and COMMANDA.  Were Obama a member of my family I would have employed this technique. 

Another suggestion someone made was "why not splice two or three photos together and illustrate from that?"  Well, though a direct match would have been harder to find, with an image as popular as the HOPE poster, internet sleuths would probably have found the references and maybe I'd be facing two or three lawsuits. This leads to the next question: is illustrating from a photograph "cheating"? I studied art, illustration specifically, at one of the most prestigious art schools, The Rhode Island School of Design. At RISD I was taught to draw from life, to draw from photo references, and to appropriate and re-contextualize imagery. All of these techniques had historical precedents which I learned about. Here are some great examples of famous painters working from photo references, and not always their own photos. 

I have respect for, and have frequently collaborated with, photographers, but I do not think permission, or a collaboration is warranted in every case where an artist works from a photo reference. I collaborate with photographers because I WANT to, not because I believe I HAVE to. Usually, when I work directly with a photographer as a collaboration, I do so because I am building upon, rather than transforming their original intent. Of course, as with everything, the definition of transformation and fair use is somewhat subjective. I'm an artist, not a lawyer, so I'd prefer to see more latitude for creativity even though I do respect intellectual property. 

This case has raised many issues, including the use of references in art. Some of my earlier works have been attacked by some as "plagiarism". I think reference is an important part of communication and it has been common practice in the art world. When I flipped through the Christie's auction house catalog from November 2008 I found many pieces that are based on reference or appropriation. Most are selling for over $100,000. Some are more clever than others, but these are all works that are at auction being taken very seriously. Take a look.

If the AP wins their case, every Obama art (or any other politician) that was based on a photo reference that was not licensed would be rendered illegal. Here are just a few that were an important part of the political discourse during this election cycle. I also think art that is critical of leaders that neither the subject or the photographer approve of need to be a legal form of expression. I think this Bush image is a perfect example.

This is a blog post that speaks more to the legal issues in the case. Thanks for reading.

more info:

Hypocrisy And Bad Faith In The AP's Countersuit Against Shepard Fairey
by Jonathan Melber
Posted March 12, 2009 | 10:31 AM (EST)

Closings (Soho) 13

Closings (Soho) 13, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).