Appropriation in the arts - the adventure continues

From here: Damien Hirst's work has been being 'ripped off' by a group of artists who want to make a point about the multimillionaire's stringent use of copyright law. Their action follows Hirst's decision to threaten to sue a 16-year-old designer who used an image of the skull in a collage to sell on the internet.

'For the Love of Disruptive Strategies and Utopian Visions in Contemporary Art and Culture No.2'. An exact copy of Cartrain's collage, painstakingly recreated and improved by James Cauty from random pixels found on the interweb. 30.5cm x 42cm giclee (inkjet) print on enhanced matt art paper. Numbered Edition of 13. Signed with a very poor imitation of Cartrain's signature in silver ink on the front and by the real artist on the back. To see all of the works offered for sale go here.

Also of note is the recent news of Shepard Fairey, a street artist famous for his red, white and blue "Hope" posters of President Obama being arrested last week on warrants accusing him of tagging property with graffiti.

A lot of my works involve appropriation from existing photographs to create paintings. It is interesting to see how the case against Shepard Fairey and the action taken by the artists against Damien Hirst will unravel.

The essay "The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism" by Jonathan Lethem is a classic in this realm as are works by Joy Garnett.

More on appropriation in the arts in this blog can be found here and here.

Secretary of the Arts (petition)

Link to an online petition that urges President Obama to consider appointing a Secretary of the Arts. Here is a Times article that talkes more about the idea.
Of course, Republicans think any effort spent on the arts amounts to efforts wasted...

Comment by a petitioner:

The arts are very important and often overlooked in our country as little more than occasional entertainment and not seen for what they really are: the second most important way that people can express themselves, after language. We communicate thru art, we learn about ourselves and others thru art and we find release and freedom of expression in art. We need to stop the diminution of the importance of the arts in our schools, and our communities on the whole. And there needs to be someone who will work to ensure this. Someone whose goals will be focused on the betterment of the arts and will not be distracted by other issues. We need someone whose job this would be. We need a Secretary of the Arts.