Standing in front of a sculpture of an elderly couple holding eight blue, adorable puppies entitled “String of Puppies,” Gilden points out that Koons was sued in 1992 over this very sculpture. The artist had re-created a photograph taken by photographer Art Rogers and, juxtaposing it with other sculptures in his series, was trying to comment on the banality of the images we are bombarded with in daily life. Rogers sued, alleging that Koons’ sculpture amounted to stealing.
Koons lost.
9 comments:
This is a very interesting idea which I have faced before when I took AP Art as well as being an artist in general. A good book which faces this issue is Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon. It talks about how you can take ideas from other artists, but it must be changed to a certain percent in order to make it your own. It's hard to do that because people work off of other people's ideas. Because of how vague the line is between piracy and inspiration, it is hard to be an artist sometimes. My idea is to just take ideas from multiple places so that there is no clear one inspiration.
This is an incredibly tricky situation to navigate. The fact is that artistic works can't just be shoved into the context of copyright law as simply as something like works of literature, or writing in general. With writing, we have cross-examining between certain sentence structures, word use, etc. Not to mention, several books can be written on the same topic with similar perspectives without a cause for alarm. However, with artistic mediums like sculpture, it's much harder to define the components that draw directly on and or copy directly from the original work (such as the photograph in Koons' case).
I am so conflicted by this article! First off, it may help un-blur the line if there was a clear definition of what constitutes "transformative work." Also, these days, ideas for new things rarely ever just pop out of thin air. What I really don't like is that the culture has become one that as soon as someone comes out with something new, the first instinct is to find a way to make money off of it in a way that completely pulls the rug out from underneath the artist. Either sell it for profit to pay yourself for promoting it and not the designer for creating it, or sueing the designer and taking money from them in a way that says "You can't have this idea because someone richer than you had it first", like the rich bully taking lunch money from the poor kid because his PBJ looked too similar to his own. I think that the greatest sadness that comes from a culture like this is that it makes being a successful artist also makes you a member of an elite and exclusionary club that discourages people from producing art in fear that the elite club will just take their money as soon as they come up with something. A community of artists should not look like or operate like that.
Copyright laws have been and can be very hard to navigate. Especially because a lot of their establishment has to do with artist envy. If a piece that is transformed off another becomes more popular than the original its to assume that the original artist is not going to be to happy. Aside form that however the whole idea of creating art based off other things is very basic. Very little is truly original, art is influenced by the world around whether physical or non-physical. Getting upset that someone based their art off a photo you took is like getting mad that someone painted a tree you grew in your backyard. As long as its not direct piracy there should be little to no issue. Artist need to learn to be collaborative as art isn't about being the best or greatest, its about (mostly healthy) expression.
This article is very debatable. But I think art is supposed to be DARING. Art is also a form of expression. These seem to be the idea that this artist is grasping on. And art now a days is always inspired and never original. This is just a very literal form of that idea. I think a lot of artists struggle with this. These are so many different kinds or art pieces out there that I wouldn't be surprised if 20 artists have the same exact idea for an installation or artwork. So the judgments on this piece are understandable but unnecessary. As long as the artist gives some comment that this piece is not an inspired by.... whoever.... then I think that expressing your talent through other art, but manipulating it in your own way, is allowed.
This article raises numerous questions on the topics of originality, copyright, creative license, and more. It also addresses the larger question at hand, what is art? Most of us tend to see art as a cultural commodity with very little boundaries. But yet, most of us would also agree with the idea that it is important to respect the original work and artist. Where do we draw the line and decide what is more important: the means or the end? Part of me wants to compare this situation to Warhol and the Campbell's soup can. He drew inspiration from a product that most likely was copyrighted but made it his own. I think this article is definitely one to keep in mind while creating art.
There is a clear line between inspiration and piracy. It when the artist is aware of their infringement of anthers work. Jeff Koons was actively aware that his sculpture "String of Puppies" was modeled after Art Roger's photograph "Puppies," but he still decided that it was ok. All art comes from our past and everything that we have seen in life. Nothing is a new idea, its just a new combination or arrangement of old information that we had seen at some point in our life. I have a small vinyl toy made by the brand Kidrobot that did a Balloon Animal series that look miniature versions of Jeff Koons ballon sculpture. The idea had to have come from his work, but as long as the purpose is different enough, then I believe its completely ok to build off the ideas of others.
I have very little knowledge of copyright law and all of it’s out reaching effects. Recently I have found out that as long as you “art” is in a published or formal form it is copyrighted. What does published or formal form mean, that I cannot answer. Lets just define published or formal as posted on a person’s Internet page. They post a sculpture of a dog; next artist see that image on a Google image search gets an idea and makes his own sculpture of a dog. Does that make the second artist guilty? Guess that is what the overall question is? At a certain point, is there truly new art or is it version of the same. One hand the artist should get paid for their art and the other how picky will we be over the impact of people being inspired by there art. Also inspired or copied? A very fine line that is there and no one seems to know. This is a debate that will keep going for years to come.
This is a huge issue in art. As we say, there are no new ideas. If two people come up with the same idea, is it piracy? At the same time, an artists work is inundated with influences, from the grandest painting to things an artist might see as we walk down the street. Inspiration is found everywhere. I think the way we have to draw the line is by asking ourselves, is this work an imitation, or a new idea?
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