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.

The artist Mr. Begos refers to is Jeff Koons. He hired an artist to craft a scultpure that "copied" the image in a photograph, a group of puppies. The sculpture is a "faithful" reproduction of the original work. Koon's argument in court, as I recall, was that his work satirized the original photograph, and therefore added to and modified the original work. The court found otherwize.

Andrew Lakritz
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Western Hemisphere Fulbright Programs
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