Stealing Art Yukihiro Fujita
Stealing Art
Stealing Art Yukihiro Fujita
Rutgers University Press, University Ave, Newark 07102 Published in the United States by Rutgers University Press, New Jersey © Yukihiro Fujita, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by may of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a smilar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Fujita, Yukihiro ISBN 4-2654-2347-3 (English ed.: acid-free paper). (Art Ed. : acid-free paper) Nd553.T7H39 2013 759.4-dc2179-3739
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Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from Department of Arts, Media, and Culture of Rutgers State University of Newark. Printed and bound by Blurb Printing
Table of Contents The Issue
Barbara Kruger Supreme Copy and Influence Fairey Conflict
Resolution
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Issue
New York City, one of the world’s largest metropolises, is known for its glamour, luxury and fashion. As a tourist walking in the city, my senses experience the city’s culture and diversity; it becomes a different world when entering upon the city. There is no other city like this one; the different languages coming from every direction, the smell of different foods through the air, and the diverse ethnicities walking together as I walk the streets. Walking through the city, I’ve come to notice the stores I’ve been walking
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past are all European, Asian and American designer clothing stores. Walking north from Canal Street, on to Lafayette, down the road and to the left, is a clothing store, located in Soho; the fashion hub of New York City. As I venture into Soho, I notice a logo that I have seen before. The logo uses a white, bold, Futura standard extrabold italicized typeface, on a solid red background. I recognized the text almost instantly. It was the almost exact work style from Barbara Kruger.
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger is a feminist artist, who works primarily in multi media. She expresses her radical beliefs through collages of photos. These photographs have white on red captions that use the Futura standard extrabold italicized typeface. Supreme’s logo is an exact replica of Kruger’s white on red caption’s, but with the word Supreme instead. In my mind, there were questioning if this was plagiarism. It is difficult to tell where the line determines the difference between plagiarism and being inspired by; but there is certainly a difference between the two. It is especially difficult when one is trying to create a new with temptations of copying. Supreme’s and Kruger’s works created a basic example that will drawthe line between the extent of directly copying and the limit of using inspiration. One would usually look at the timeline of which came first.
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Barbara Kruger, “Love for Sale”, 1996
Barbara Kruger; “Untitled (your body is a battleground)”, 1989
Kruger’s work emerged during the 1980’s and slowly gaining popularity with her impacts on society. Her conceptual work involved merging photographs and ironic statements on existing sources based on popular media. She uses brief and aggressive text that connects the viewer in the struggle of control and power of their selves. Her slogan, “I shop therefore I am” and “Your body is a battleground,” were all created using her trademarked white letters with a slash of red background. Her popularity stems from the controversy behind her text that questions the viewers about feminism, consumerism, and desire. She was able to raise awareness among viewers, making them question themselves about what they consume. Supreme was founded after her rise to fame.
Barbara Kruger, “Untitled (We Don’t Need Another Hero)”, 1987
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Supreme is a clothing brand founded in New York on 1994 by James Jebbia as a skateboard company. Supreme has grown in much popularity within the past 10 years; having a strong influence on the hip-hop, skate, and hipster world by collaborating with designers, artists, and musicians. Besides focusing on quality, the company has used different tactics to advertise to people. It had been known to be a high-end brand using erotic pictures; most of their campaign ads depict women half or fully naked; typically a marketing tactic towards men. Supreme has collaborated with artists such as Larry Clark, Terry Richardson, Kaws, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, and Lady Gaga. Within their products there is a white futura ‘Supreme’ on red text box. This logo is the exact style of Kruger.Jebbia doesmention Kruger in a book published by Supreme. It stated that Kruger had influenced Jebbia to create the Supreme logo. Jebbia usesit to create irony by taking Kruger’s anti-consumerism message and using it on a business. The ‘influence’ that Jebbia mentions is very controversial because of the difference between definitions distinctions of ‘copy’ and ‘influence.
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Kermit the Frong’s photoshoot with Supreme
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Nothing is Original
There has always been the never-ending controversy: who was influenced and who copied? A new invention cannot be created from nothing. It has to be influenced by another object or a combination of found objects. For example, Ford put three objects together creating the standard mobile car. The creation of something new comes from this template: copy, transform, and combine. Without these elements we wouldn’t be where we are today. The definition of ‘copy’ and ‘influence’ are The definition of ‘copy’ and ‘influence’ does get overlay each other. The exact definition of copy is ‘an imitation, transcript, or reproduction of an original work, in other words it describes a duplicate.’ In legal terms, this is known as plagiarism, using another person’s work. The definition of influence is ‘to affect or alter by indirect or intangible means.’ Overall copying is using the exact
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style and idea for your own purposes. In comparison to influence, influence is either using the same idea or message in one’s own style, or using the same style to incorporate a different idea. There are still many difficulties determining which are copies or are influenced. Similar issues occurred between Apple and Xerox. Apple copied exactly what Xerox was dong, but combined it with home appliance icons making it more user friendly. Apple always admitted that Xerox had an influence on their products. It is not illegal for competing companies to be inspired by each other, but copyrighting has become a growing issue. New copyright laws have been passed to protect ideas. No one likes being copied but don’t give a second thought about copying others. In 2010, Steve Jobs mentioned how android had copied the iPhone, and he was ready to go thermonuclear, despite admitting to copying ideas from Xerox. Modern day patent laws have restricted what we can copy. If you decide to impede on these laws, then you can expect a lawsuit. Lawsuits are most likely to occur when appropriation comes into play. In the art world, to appropriate means to suitably borrow, recycle, or sample
of a man-made object from popular culture. Some examples would be the ‘Madonna and child’ paintings, this object or idea was popular in the early centuries used by different painters; another example would be the portrait of Mao Zedong, originally painted by Zhang Zhenshi but the image was used over again by such artists as Any Warhol. To artists, appropriation in other words means to borrow elements to create new work; but to others appropriation could be known as influence. There are artists who were known to be ‘appropriation artists,’ who used found objects asa reference: one of those artists is Barbara Kruger. Kruger used photographs from magazines and newspapers in her works. With these photographs she was able to make the viewer refer back to the found object that was in popular culture at the time; with her ironic statements on top of the found objects, she created unique questions of popular culture. This form of art was known to be appropriation art, using popular culture as a reference and bringing up a question about that popular culture. As she continued her work as an appropriation artist, the controversy began if it was copy and influence.
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Example of original photo of Mao and variations
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Fairey’s Controversy
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There is no law that measures the amount of influence that is allowed, that is an issue the court system deals with. Using someone else’s work in one’s own projects can be dangerous. ShepardFairey is suffering from a lawsuit because of his Obama posters. The Obama poster was created to help support Barack Obama’s 2008 candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. The poster has a stenciled Obama looking upwards with the colors of blue, cream and red; on the bottom of the poster is a text that says ‘Hope’. Originally, Fairey had claimed his HOPE poster was based on a 2006 copyrighted photo of then Senator Barack Obama seated next to actor George Clooney, that was taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia on assignment for the AP. Garcia wanted credit and compensation for the work. Fairey said his use of the photograph within the legal definition of fair use. “Fair use” is defined by how the amount of new changes from the original work; this basically means using an original work as influence but changing it enough so it wouldn’t fall into plagiarism of copying. Fairey went through a series of troubles over the years
about his usage of fight against AP. At first Fairey claimed he used the photo of Clooney and Obama and isolated the image. In February 2009, Fairey filed a federal lawsuit against the Associated Press, seeking a declaratory judgment that his use of the AP photograph was protected by the fair use doctrine and did not break any laws. In October 2009 Shepard Fairey admitted he had tried to deceive the Court by destroying evidence that he had instead used the photograph alleged by the AP. Fairey admitted he
This is the accused photograph that was believed to be ‘stolen’ by Shepard Fairey. The highlighted section of Obama’s face was thought to be the section of Fairey’s Obey Posters.
had used a close-up shot of Obama, also taken by Mannie Garcia, as the AP had suspected. After that incident, Fairey’s lawyers have resigned from representing him. On February 24 2012 Fairey pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of court for “destroying documents and manufacturing evidence and could face jail time; the decision will occur in July 2012. The reason why Fairey may be facing jail time is not because proved guilty of
copying a image, but pleading guilty in destroying evidence to the court that might have helped AP’s losing case: where Fairey gaining rights in using the photograph in fair use. Fairey tried to hide the evidence of the original imagery because he used a copyrighted imagery without permission. In the first court with Fairey, the reason Fairy claimed it was the use of the photograph of the actor Clooney and Obama is because it would be fair use. It would be considered fair
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The photograph that was copied 26
The Poster that Fairey made from the Photograph
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Poster on top of the photograph aligned perfectly. 28
use because the court would have seen it as altered imagery. But it turned out it was false evidence, and he used an original photograph In the end, this was basically stealing a copyrighted image. In this case, he tried to pass himself off as being inspired by instead of copying. People do not like being copied from especially without pay or permission but people do not mind copying for their own benefits. Shepard Fairey is another example of this situation. Fairey is a well-known street artist, also known for his failure in obtaining permission and sourcing where he copied from or sourcing where he was inspired by. Fairey does not seem to mind much when he
copies a work and puts it into his own works. There is graphic designer, Baxter Orr, who did a work based off of Shepard Fairey’s work. Orr’s work contains Fairey’s Andre the Giant design with a SARS mask called “Protect.” In April 2008, Orr received a message from Fairey and his attorneys, ordering him to stop selling his project in violation of copyright laws. Fairey was threatening to sue. Fairey called him a “parasite.” People do not mind copy unless they not the ones being copied. If a person does copy, the person who is being copied will be sued. This becomes a question for Supreme; did supreme copy Kruger?
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Resolution
Babara Kruger Compared to the issue with Fairey, Kruger should be able to sue Supreme for her style. There are several reasons why Kruger did not sue Supreme. One reason could be that Kruger herself took the font from somebody else, which other companies are doing to her. Another reason is that Kruger does not own the typeface Futura, and a red box is not something she can copyright. However, I believe the main reason is because she meant for her style to spread throughout the world and as her style spreads so does her message. Kruger does not have a copyright patent on her style. Today, her style has been used by many different people; Supreme is not the only company that uses Kruger’s style: Alife, ShortyPop,
and W Magazine. They have copied Kruger’s style. In the end, it becomes about money, copyright laws are there to make certain that if a person is being copied, that the person is also being paid to do so. It is not to okay to copy but it is okay to be influenced. But if the influence is has not changed the original idea or plays off the original idea, one needs to ask permission to do so or it is not considered influence. If permission is granted, it is okay when one is playing off the same idea with reference. Some people do get away with copying someone’s idea just because their marketing and production technique was better than the original. It is like cheating
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on an exam at college: you never want the same exact answer but manipulate it in a sort of way or you will get caught; getting caught will lead in punishment. Copy is in legal terms is plagiarism, and influence in legal terms is limited fair use. The line is drawn between copy and influence by the person who challenges it and questions the original with the suspected copied. In
the Obama poster case, AP has pushed questions against the “influenced” style of Fairey’s, and the case created the line between copying and influence. The challenger sets the line between copy and influence. Everything starts off as influence but becomes copy when the challenger pushes plagiarism into copy.
It’s All About Money 32
“Good artists copy, ” great artists steal.
Pablo Picasso 33
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