Re: Fine Art Reproductions

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Patrick Begos <begos[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 31, 1999, Charles Mann <ccm[_at_]crocker.com> wrote:
> >
> > In a slightly different vein, I recently met the photographer Lauren
> > Greenfield, a professional photographer (National Geographic, NY Times,
> > etc.) whose work recently was "appropriated," as I believe the term is,
> > by a painter named Damien Loeb. Greenfield published a book of photos
> > of LA teens a few years ago. The cover was a picture of four kids
> > driving around. Loeb took this image -- or, rather, painted a
> > completely faithful copy -- onto a large canvas and juxtaposed it
> > against a background taken from another photograph, a gory picture of
> > a white South African cop shooting some prone black people. By the
> > juxtaposition, the kids in Greenfield's picture are made to seem to
> > be speeding by the killing, laughing at the scene. The copy of her
> > photograph occupies about 40% of the painting and is obviously the
> > subject. Loeb exhibited the picture and others like it in the
> > prestigious Mary Boone gallery in Manhattan in January, where it
> > apparently sold for about $15K. Moreover, Greenfield told me, the
> > painting has been reproduced in many places, including the magazine
> > Artforum -- it's apparently become a sort of signature image for the
> > painter. My question is whether there's a copyright-infringement
> > issue.
>
> There was a case a few years back in which a relatively famous artist
> made a sculpture out of someone else's photograph. I believe the
> artist was found to have violated the photographer's copyright, and
> there was a good bit of press about it at the time (I think even a
> 60 minutes or something) Unfortunately, right now I have a mental
> block about the name of the artist. If I remember I'll let you know.
> Does anyone remember this? Actually, now I think I remember that the
> artist was deKoonig. Sorry this is so vague, but if anyone can supply
> details I'd appreciate it.

Are you thinking of Jeff Koons? My understanding is that he appropriated a photograph of puppies from a card on which a copyright notice was included and "transformed" that image into his own work. It seems to me there wasn't much transformation, except perhaps a color change, and the court decided for the plaintiff I believe.

Willem DeKooning is primarily known for his paintings and I don't believe that he is the artist.

Sandra C. Walker, Visual Resources Specialist Department of Art, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville swalker5[_at_]utk.edu Received on Thu Apr 01 1999 - 14:47:17 GMT