NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Found Art (East Village): Unmonumental 226

Found Art (East Village): Unmonumental 226, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

Found Art (LES): Unmonumental 225

Found Art (LES): Unmonumental 225, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

The Brooklyn Museum Commons: Trees (etc) Grow There

via that dreaded rag HuffPo (still good for some things):

The Brooklyn Museum's Copyright Project

by Jonathan Melber

When it comes to progressive, public-friendly copyright policies, few art museums can match The Brooklyn Museum. In 2004, it was the first art museum to adopt a Creative Commons license, allowing any non-commercial copying of any image in which the museum holds the copyright. In 2008, it was the third institution to join the Flickr Commons, making available high-resolution images of Public Domain artworks from its collection. Last week, the musuem published the detailed copyright status of every image in its online collection--that's over 12,000 artworks--and made this information available through its API so that anyone can easily cross-reference the data with their own copyright research. It also switched to a less restrictive Creative Commons license, allowing non-commercial remixing as well.

The museum deserves credit just for the effort required to determine the copyright status of 12,000 works--a complicated, painstaking process that took Chief of Technology Shelley Bernstein, Head of Digital Collections and Services Deborah Wythe and a team of interns over two years to complete. "Identifying what is actually under copyright was one of the most challenging parts of the project," said Wythe, who, for artworks that were under copyright, contacted every artist (or artist's heir) she and her team could locate to get permission to display full-size, high-resolution images of their work on the museum's site. Images that were no longer under copyright were listed as "no known copyright." (Example.)

More impressive than the amount of labor that went into the project is the fact that the Brooklyn Museum was willing to go down this road in the first place. It is easier and safer, from a liability perspective, to only display thumbnails of artworks and to put the onus of clearing copyrights in specific images on members of the public who seek to use them. But it is more consistent with a non-profit cultural institution's public mission to make its collection as accessible as possible, as transparently as possible.

"Participating in Flickr Commons, following the Public Domain conversations on Wikimedia, and generally being in touch with the huge community of people who want images made us realize that we could be better community members by being as honest and open as we can be about what we know about our images," said Wythe.

Likewise, despite the common (though questionable) view that it's more lucrative for museums to assert as much control over their "intellectual property" as copyright law allows, the Brooklyn Museum apparently understands that its mission is more effectively fulfilled, and the public better served, when the museum allows its collection to be reproduced, remixed and disseminated in as many (non-commercial) ways as possible.

"I've come to realize that there has to be a lot of give and take with a project like this," said Bernstein. "Copyright is complicated, so we have to figure out a way to do as much as we can and clarify as much as we can to the visitors of our website, while still erring on the side of caution. While that's not ideal and we'd love things to be much simpler and clear-cut, we hope it's a start and a step in the right direction."

It's also a step ahead of most.

Artist Flores McGarrell Dies in Haitian Earthquake

Flo McGarrell cooking, Jacmel, Haiti, 2009

via M|I|C/A:

Flores McGarrell '97 '98 Dies in Haitian Earthquake

1/15/10

Flores McGarrell '97 '98, an artist and director of a community arts center in Haiti, was killed in the earthquake that devastated the nation on Tuesday. McGarrell, 35, received a B.F.A. in fibers and an M.A. in digital arts at MICA and was a faculty member at the College in 2001 and 2002. He died when the Peace of Mind Hotel in Jacmel, his hometown in Haiti, crumbled during the earthquake.

According to reports, McGarrell had stopped briefly at the hotel in Jacmel on his way home from the airport in Port-au-Prince, having dropped off his godfather for a departing flight, when the earthquake struck.

McGarrell was director of FOSAJ (Foundation Sant D'A Jakmel), a nonprofit art center in Jacmel, a beach town about 20 miles south of Port-Au-Prince and the cultural center of Haiti. FOSAJ, where he had worked since 2008, is "dedicated to empowering the Haitian people through art and culture and not only works in conjunction with the European Union to support the 150 artisans of ADASE, but maintains outreach projects addressing issues including street children, literacy and the environment."

In an interview in August 2009 with Art21, McGarrell said that "Jacmel is a place where the senses awake--it is visually rich and energetic." (Here is an article McGarrell wrote talking about living in Jacmel.) He was living out his lifetime dream of working in Haiti (see first-person essay below).

[read on...]

See also:

McGarrell in an interview with Art21 ("Inside the Artist's Studio: Flo McGarrell" by Georgia Kotresos, Aug. 28, 2009).

Obituary in The Baltimore Sun

"Good Law is the Best Art" Limited Edition Posters: Proceeds Go to UNICEF Haiti

via Clancco:

"Good Law is the Best Art"

Help Haiti Children, Receive a Limited Edition Clancco Poster
January 19th, 2010

Clancco has printed 50 limited-edition posters, Good Law is the Best Art, based on Andy Warhol’s now-famous quote, “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

These limited-edition posters are for sale, with all profits after shipping costs going to UNICEF. UNICEF Promises that 100% of donated money will go to saving children’s lives in Haiti. Although the earthquake happened on January 12th, there is still much need for donations of all kinds to help Haiti rebuild. The AP reports:

The world still can’t get enough food and water to the hungry and thirsty one week after an earthquake shattered Haiti’s capital. The airport remains a bottleneck, the port is a shambles. The Haitian government is invisible, nobody has taken firm charge, and the police have largely given up.

We’re putting up the artwork; you help children in Haiti get food, water, medicine and clothing while getting a limited-edition Clancco poster.

Each poster is $20.00 (USD), and measure 19″ x 25″ on 110lb white paper. Clancco is also donating the cost of mailing tubes. If you’d like to buy a poster, please send a check to:

Sergio Munoz Sarmiento
1 East 53rd Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10022

Please include the following information:

1. Name / City / Country
2. Mailing address
3. Number of posters requested
4. If you would like your name included in our donation letter to UNICEF. With consent, all donor names will also be listed on Clancco.com. Those not wishing to have their names listed will be listed as “Anonymous.” These posters make great gifts, so you may also buy a poster in behalf of someone else. If so, please indicate name of recipient and mailing address.

If you’d like me to reserve one for you, e-mail me at [email protected]

Please feel free to forward to friends and colleagues, post on Twitter and Facebook.