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Post by oldfartatplay on Feb 5, 2009 7:40:17 GMT -8
I wonder how much money Shepard actually made off of the sale of the prints from his web store. Probably about $50K. I believe (maybe wrong though) that he donated that money to the Obama campaign or charity (ACLU for example). So he didn't profit off of the image.
What about Moveon.org and The Obama store and the Inaugural Store, they all sold prints with that image on them and the proceeds went to the campaign also. The AP lawyers going to go after them too?
Does AP actually think that this photo of theirs could have made money on it's own???
Some might say that this now iconic image helped get Obama elected.
Do you think AP might want to call for a re-election, hey it would make a great news story and might sell!!
This is just plain ridiculous.
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Post by evilchoy on Feb 5, 2009 8:05:45 GMT -8
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Post by sleepboy on Feb 5, 2009 9:46:13 GMT -8
Come on, it's a stretch to call that photo "art". Dude was doing his job, taking pics. Not trying to create art. So the pics I took of Will.i.am at the Worlds on Fire opening is suddenly "art" now? There was nothing "artsy" about these two situations at all. You do have a point about that thread pointing to a website where you can alter art for your own use... However, again, that's taking OG's or actual "artsy" photos. What Shepard did was take some random photo, he could have used anything. Also what about artists that use photos as photo references. Some of those paintings are pretty damn close to what they used. |
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Post by highbrow on Feb 5, 2009 9:51:45 GMT -8
Maybe the AP is upset they got shut out of the release
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Post by comiconart on Feb 5, 2009 9:57:38 GMT -8
Maybe the AP is upset they got shut out of the release Now THAT is FUNNY! :-) Just offer them an AP Hope print and an AP Progress print and that will make them happy. A pair of AP's for the AP in charge. :-D |
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Post by greenhorn1 on Feb 5, 2009 13:03:14 GMT -8
Come on, it's a stretch to call that photo "art". I can see that point. However, I could also argue against shep's version being called art. He was just doing his job, making propaganda. A possible "what if" question we'll never know the answer to. If the obama campaign had taken the original photo and plastered HOPE or PROGRESS beneath it and merchandised the hell out of it and made it the iconic image of their campaign, instead of shep's version of the image.....do you think it would have still captured the public's attention in the same way? I don't know what I think on that one. I DO think shep added something to it to make it more iconic, he's very good at that. But on the other hand, I have a feeling a lot of the images popularity has to do with the marketing and excessive bombardment of the singular image over time....in which case the photo would have served just as well as shep's version. And even if that's true, i'm not sure if that makes a case for the photo being considered art or shep's version not being art. |
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Post by evilchoy on Feb 5, 2009 13:41:43 GMT -8
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Post by sleepboy on Feb 7, 2009 8:10:06 GMT -8
Arrested again.Shepard Fairey, the controversial street artist riding a roller coaster of publicity with his red, white, and blue posters of President Barack Obama, was arrested last night on his way to DJ an event kicking off his exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Fairey, a 38-year-old known for his countercultural style, was arrested on two outstanding warrants and was being held at a police station, according to a police official with knowledge of the arrest who requested anonymity. Police could not describe the nature of the outstanding warrants last night, but said they were based in Massachusetts. Fairey has been arrested at least 14 times, he has told the Globe. The artist was arrested at about 9:15 p.m. as he was about to enter a sold-out dance event at the Institute of Contemporary Art on Northern Avenue, known as "Experiment Night." The event is geared toward a younger-age crowd, with techno-style music, and more than 750 people were waiting for him, some of whom had bought tickets for the event on Craigslist for as much as $500. Fairey was supposed to appear as a guest DJ for the kickoff of his exhibit, Supply and Demand, which will run through Aug. 16. He was scheduled to go on stage at about 10:30 p.m., and an hour later organizers reported to the crowd that he was arrested. "We're very disappointed," said Paul Bessire, deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Art. "Shepard Fairey is a wonderful artist who created some positive work and we were very pleased to present his work here and around the city. We feel he is an influential artist." Fairey, a street artist, graphic designer, and political activist, is best known for his "Obey Giant" campaign of stickers, stencils, and posters in the early 1990s. Most recently, he has achieved fame with the red, white, and blue posters of Obama, emblazoned with the words "Hope," "Progress," and "Change." The president used the posters during his campaign, and one of the displays in Fairey's exhibit includes a typed letter from Obama that read: "I am privileged to be a part of your art work and proud to have your support." Fairey was recently seen with Mayor Thomas M. Menino in an event to promote his show, and banners raised at City Hall also announce the exhibit. At the same time, however, anti-graffiti activists complained that a street artist was going to be the subject of a museum show. But Bessire said, "We feel he is an influential artist. We were just very pleased and felt fortunate to show his work." The arrest of Fairey -- who cites linguistic theorist Noam Chomsky with a poster that reads, "I lived with the system and took no offence/until Chomsky lent me the necessary sense" -- helped maintain his counterculture reputation. "I wouldn't say it's cool he was arrested, but I think it shows he has integrity," said Bill Galligan, a graphic designer. Some in the crowd last night speculated the incident may have been a publicity stunt. Ginny Delany, a 27-year-old graduate student from Cambridge, said, "It makes him even more of a hero to me. "The fact that he is arrested for his art shows that it is meaningful to him and he cares about what he is doing." David Rosen, a 19-year-old from Allston, said last night that he was disappointed with the arrest, but "I understand that his art requires him to take risks."
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Post by comiconart on Feb 7, 2009 11:37:45 GMT -8
Unfortunately, this DOES sound like a publicity stunt...on the part of the Police Department.
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Post by solar77 on Feb 7, 2009 13:12:38 GMT -8
How many artists have been arrested at their museum opening party? Shep is the man.
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Post by cocollect on Feb 7, 2009 17:22:18 GMT -8
still, it's pretty sad that they would tarnish such a monumental event in his career. leave it to the police to try to spoil what should be a celebration of a very important figure in this era of art history. i suppose it it somewhat fitting though...
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Post by sleepboy on Feb 8, 2009 8:53:48 GMT -8
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Post by juggernut3 on Feb 8, 2009 10:04:59 GMT -8
wtf... is that a joke? I'm not sure to praise it or mock it...
for now I'm liking it...
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Post by untilshewokeme on Feb 8, 2009 18:31:41 GMT -8
haha, i hope that is really, and i hope it gets made into a print because the misses would LOVE that.
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Post by StephenW on Feb 9, 2009 3:43:25 GMT -8
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Post by svenman on Feb 9, 2009 4:52:06 GMT -8
haha, i hope that is really, and i hope it gets made into a print because the misses would LOVE that. that would be funny... imagine the testosterone fest that is trying to buy an obey print (young men being the 'market', as such) and the image is for hello kitty! ha ;D |
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Post by sleepboy on Feb 9, 2009 10:24:20 GMT -8
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Post by juggernut3 on Feb 9, 2009 17:45:03 GMT -8
I'm buying that print ... I wonder if Sanrio would take Shep to court...
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Post by commandax on Feb 9, 2009 23:20:23 GMT -8
"In art, there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists. And in the end, doesn't the revolutionary's work become official, once the State takes it over?" – Paul Gauguin, 1895
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Post by oldfartatplay on Feb 10, 2009 6:53:47 GMT -8
I'm buying that print ... I wonder if Sanrio would take Shep to court... Where can you buy one? |
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Post by meatbag on Feb 10, 2009 17:10:29 GMT -8
still, it's pretty sad that they would tarnish such a monumental event in his career. leave it to the police to try to spoil what should be a celebration of a very important figure in this era of art history. i suppose it it somewhat fitting though... I don't think this tarnishes his reputation and is certainly nothing new to Shep. With success comes scrutiny. Shep has an incredible ability to turn anything negative into a positive, and I'm sure all this will end up in his next book helping him sell more copies then ever before.. LOL |
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Post by cocollect on Feb 10, 2009 21:35:45 GMT -8
i don't feel it tarnishes his rep at all...just kinda sucks he had to deal with this during such a celebratory event. your right though, it does continue to add to his mystique.
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Post by devours on Feb 10, 2009 23:07:14 GMT -8
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Post by sleepboy on Feb 11, 2009 8:38:57 GMT -8
In case you haven't read this. Sounds like AP is a bully... Also sounds pretty confident that Shepard wouldn't lose in court but jury is unpredictable. A few days ago, the Associated Press announced that Obama's famous HOPE poster amounts to copyright infringement. The artist behind the poster, Shepard Fairey, has never hidden the fact that he based his iconic creation on a photograph he found through Google. The AP thinks it owns the copyright to that photograph, since Mannie Garcia was freelancing for the AP when he shot it. With posters sold out, a special edition in the National Portrait Gallery, and major exhibitions in New York and Boston, the AP wants in on the windfall. But the AP would very likely lose this case if it ever ended up in court. That's because, under copyright law, Fairey's work almost certainly qualifies as "fair use" of Garcia's photograph. The term "fair use" gets batted around a lot, often incorrectly, and so deserves some explanation. At the most general level, copyright law prohibits you from copying another person's original creative work. That means you're typically not allowed to create work using someone else's original unless you pay that person. "Fair use" is an exception to this rule: it says that sometimes you don't have to pay someone to use his or her original work. Whether you do--that is, whether your new work qualifies as "fair use"--depends on what, exactly, the original work is, how much of it you're using, how you transform it, and whether your new work hurts the commercial market for the original. (Note that the issue has nothing to do with whether anyone thinks your use is "fair.") By far the most important factor is how you transform the original work--but, contrary to popular belief, the transformation that really matters is the conceptual one, not the physical one. Take, for example, an influential 2006 decision vindicating Jeff Koons. A fashion photographer named Andrea Blanch sued Koons for using a picture of hers in one of his paintings without paying her. Koons had scanned her photograph, which she had taken for a Gucci ad, and cut and pasted it into a digital composition he then painted. The federal appeals court said that Koons didn't need to pay Blanch to do what he did, because of how thoroughly Koons had transformed the photograph. The court explained that a "transformative" work adds something new to the original work, alters its message or meaning, takes on a different character or furthers a different purpose. It treats the original work as raw material in the creation of new expression, new aesthetics or new insights. Koons's painting was "transformative" because it made a new statement altogether different from Blanch's. Whereas Blanch said she was interested in creating an "erotic sense," Koons explained that he wanted his audience to reassess its experience with commercial products and to consider how mass-marketed images "affect our lives." The other "fair use" factors matter too, and courts have to assess all of them. Taking from a published work is more likely to constitute "fair use" than taking from an unpublished one. The less you use of an original work, and the less your work harms the commercial value of the original, the more likely your work will fall under "fair use." But these factors pale in comparison to the issue of transformation. (This, by the way, is why it is never a question of what "percentage" you use of an original work--a pervasive misunderstanding in the art world. The question is how significant to the original was the part you used, and how much did you transform that part to create your new work?) Fairey's HOPE poster is clearly a "transformative" work. Just compare the purposes behind the photograph and the poster. Garcia told me that when he shoots for a wire service, as he did the day he took his famous photograph of Obama, his goal is "to show the who, what, where, when and why." This makes sense, as the function of a news photograph is to convey news. It is supposed to be descriptive, accurate. "There's an expression [on Obama's face] that gives it some kind of essence," Garcia said. He also strives to make the location evident in his photos ("If there's a rally in DC, you want to put a monument in the picture"), which is why, even for this "clean headshot," Garcia wanted one of the flags lining the National Press Club room to appear in the background. Fairey, on the other hand, set out to make an image for a political campaign: something that would inspire people to support a presidential candidate and symbolize their hope. He was creating something aspirational, not descriptive; his message was subjective opinion, not objective fact. To accomplish this goal, as Fairey explained to the Washington Post last year, he simplified the original image, straightening lines to make Obama look "strong"; distilled the color scheme into a modified flag motif; added a hybrid Fairey/campaign logo; and slapped on a large PROGRESS banner. (The campaign later asked Fairey change the banner to HOPE.) Taken together, these artistic choices--and others, such as positioning Obama above the banner, rather than below it, suggesting a leader gazing into the distance instead of a man looking up at a speaker--altered the meaning of Garcia's photograph in service of a significantly different purpose. In short, they rendered Fairey'swork "transformative." And the other "fair use" factors? Well, Fairey didn't harm the commercial value of Garcia's photograph--he vastly increased it. Danziger Projects, a contemporary gallery in New York City, is selling a limited edition of the original picture, signed by Garcia, for $1200 each. (The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston has already bought one for its permanent collection.) The original photograph was published, of course, another factor in favor of a "fair use" finding (though a relatively minor one). In fact, the only factor that probably weighs against a "fair use" finding is that Fairey took the most important part of the original photograph--Obama's face and shoulders--but that factor alone cannot possibly overcome all the others. It's also worth noting that there's a real question as to whether the AP owns the copyright to Garcia's photograph in the first place. Under copyright law, you own the copyright to whatever you create unless you grant it to someone else in writing. Garcia told me that none of the documents he signed granted the AP the copyright to any of his photographs. He said he was "caught completely off guard" when, according to Garcia, the AP told him in January that they owned the copyright. And he was shocked when he found out the AP was going after Fairey. "I told the AP I don't want to be a part of it," said Garcia. "I don't want to sue anybody." So why is the AP acting like it has a case? Because juries are unpredictable, copyright law is confusing and defending a copyright lawsuit is extremely expensive. So powerful companies like the AP don't necessarily care whether they would win. They know that most artists cannot afford to hire lawyers, and that even the ones who can will probably prefer to settle out of court than get dragged through three years of litigation. (This kind of attitude isn't really surprising for a news organization that tries to charge the public by the word to quote from its articles.) Fortunately, Fairey is represented by Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project (founded by Lawrence Lessig, the copyright guru behind Creative Commons, and directed by Tony Falzone). You almost want the case end up in court, since a win for Fairey would protect artistic freedom and discourage those who seek to stifle it. |
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Post by parklife on Feb 11, 2009 12:08:59 GMT -8
Everyone do yourself a favor and read this interesting perspective on Fairey
It's worth it.
I'd like to hear arguments against this guys views.
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