Artnet News: Deborah Roberts waited a long time for recognition. Six years ago, the 59-year-old artist was working in a shoe store when a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation allowed her to start focusing on her creative practice. Her collage-based portraits of Black children are now found in museum collections across the United States. Dealers also noticed her talent, and she signed onto the rosters of prominent galleries Susanne Vielmetter in Los Angeles and Stephen Friedman in London.
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When originally reading the beginning of this article, I thought that it was going to be about an artist nitpicking that another artist had a similar style and was making money off of it. If that were the case, I would have said that the lawsuit was stupid. I think that no matter if the styles are similar, artists should be able to create in similar ways. What I don’t agree with is copying art and selling it as your own. As you get further into the article, you start to realize that the latter is the case. A side by side image shows the person being sued by Roberts not only used a similar style but made almost the exact same piece out of the style. In this case, there’s no doubt that foul play is at hand, especially with Robert’s past experience with Edwards. I disagree with the claims from the other lawyers, the framing, shading, and almost all aspects of the piece are being copied.
To be completely honest, this article made me kind of sad. It’s sad that one artist would shamelessly reproduce another artist’s work, but what is even more sad to me is the capitalization of art as a whole. The fact that we can copyright an art style is so backwards and completely goes against the meaning of art and making art. I think art extends beyond systems of government and economics. However, unfortunately, if your art style makes you money, someone else will inevitably try to copy it so they can make money off your style as well. As to whether Edwards truly is copying Roberts, I can’t know for sure, but I am leaning towards yes. Though she claims to simply be inspired by the same cultural practices, the black white pictures she uses and shapes she creates are almost identical to some of Roberts’ work. This kind of stuff is almost possible to resolve because art is so much about inspiration and referencing.
2. I honestly find engaging in conversations about whether something is plagiarism or a copyright violation to be extremely difficult. In this situation, it sounds like Roberts turned down an opportunity, and another similar artist was hired instead. In this case, Roberts didn’t lose out on work. Even if Edwards had been hired without Roberts being offered the job, I just find it hard to say for sure that Roberts lost out on work and has a right to sue for plagiarism. I truly believe that no human being has a wholly unique thought and I find it silly to claim ownership over an idea. It is not like Roberts is the first person to do photocollage art, but at the same time I am supportive of artists owning their work. I just think it gets messy when you’re sueing someone over an idea rather than over actual physical work. Any artist that has their design stolen for some T-Shirt print obviously should win that lawsuit, but if a company designed their own shirt and it ended up being similar to some other artists work I think it’s a bit silly. They still did their own work. I think in that case you’d have to go to lengths to prove that they operated with the intent to copy your work. Maybe I’m crazy for thinking that though.
I think we see this argument across art disciplines; whether it be music, theatre, or visual art. I think in a lot of those worlds it is typically a more gray area but this is so blatant. There is a difference between artists with the same style working in the same field and using someone else’s hard work for monetary gain. I feel like you can tell its really bad when they mentioned people getting the two artists’ work confused for each other. And its really telling that they were selling in a lot of the same places. I don't feel this lawsuit is out of bounds at all, especially when you see the work side by side and can tell just how similar it is. Roberts herself even said she wants young artists to be successful, but I completely understand her suit in this case. Ill be interested to see how this turns out.
I think the line of homage and copying is such a blurry area. Deciding at what point something becomes plagiarism is also a tricky thing since there's only a limited amount of ways art can be created. Reading this article it does feel like copying and I think the moral difference in those situations is making a profit out of that copying. I think artist do need to be protected and lawsuits are definitely extremely expensive so unless the artist is entirely sure they are being copied they probably won't bring it to court. However I do think Robert's turning down an opportunity and then other artists that have similar styles being brought in is not a terrible thing. Ultimately the artist doesn't have a copyright on the style nor is Roberts the first person to do collage art so while comparing the two they do look similar, I can see a world where Roberts loses this lawsuit.
I think this could shape up to be a very interesting case about what it means for an artist to have a copyright over their own style. Especially, as AI based art has exploded in popularity recently with things like Dall-E 2. AI art really shifts the narrative over who can own the art. Is it the user who inputted the prompt, the programmer who created the AI and fed it the information, or should it be distributed amongst the copyright owners of all the pieces of art that went into the neural network to create the AI in the first place. I mean that could potentially open up a can of worms of whether copyrighted art can be used in AI training. Regardless in situations where art is created to purposely resemble an artist’s signature style whether by an AI or another artist hired by a gallery when the original artists turned the work down, it feels like stealing to me. The gallery seems to have a clear desire to want pieces in Roberts’ style and when she said no, they found someone who could pass for her work. That sounds like plagiarism to me.
As is often the case, the line between an homage and a copy can be very blurred, especially as it pertains to the style of an artist. Influence, inspiration, whether or not art was created independently of other art, and dozens upon dozens of other factors feed into the issue. This sort of reminds me of the debate surrounding art created by artificially intelligent software like Wombo. Both issues can stem from an artist taking inspiration from the style of another artist and creating/curating art based on that art style. One begs the question "is it really art?" while both posit the possibility of plagiarism. I will say, I do not like the taste of the gallery desiring Roberts' work, then finding someone with a similar style when Roberts declined to work together. Whether Edwards is a plagiarist or not remains to be seen, but it is a distasteful situation.
Like Angie, I went into the article thinking that this would be some nit-picky claim by an artist who feels like they invented a genre. However, the images of the artwork side-by-side is suspicious, at best. It could be that some pieces were unintentionally similar, but it could also be that Edwards was commissioned to replicate specific pieces of Roberts' work that the gallery was initially interested in. Still... is it plagiarism? They aren't exact copies and each artist has their own unique style. Jackson (above) expressed how unfortunate it is that capitalism plays such a prominent role in every aspect of our society and how backwards it feels that anyone can claim ownership over artistic styles. Artists have been inspired by other artists since the beginning of time; hell, in most art classes, everyone creates work off of the same model. The intrigue is in the unique creative expression of each artist.
Of course, we live in a society where it's very, very difficult to make a viable career as an artist, so I understand anyone feeling protective of what they feel make their work unique. This is certainly a case that could influence how we perceive the concept of intellectual property. I'm also interested in the outcome.
The first thing that immediately stood out to me is the title that says she's suing a "fellow" artist. The use of the word "fellow" is sort of an oxymoron, and it sets a somewhat distressing tone, since Roberts seems to be using her power to shut down a growing artist. Then again, the pictures do seem to show evidence that Edwards' work is very very similar to Roberts'. And then comes the argument at the end of the article that says that this style of art has "deep roots in the work of Black artists" and Roberts did not invent nor does she own the rights to this style of art. I'll be very interested to hear the outcome of this case. I feel like a fair argument can be made by either side, but I find myself rooting more for Edwards. In my opinion, Edwards' art is different enough from Roberts' to not be considered plagiarism, but I suppose it's all subjective.
Cases like these are so difficult to manage because how do you show the line between actually copying or plagiarizing someone’s idea, vs. just having a similar style? Personally looking at the circumstances and the side-by-side comparisons, I think these two art forms are suspiciously similar, even following the same poses, and it’s clear that this is an unfair replication of Roberts’ art. It’s really important to protect artists’ intellectual property and ideas, even though it’s so difficult to regulate. Every piece an artist creates is so uniquely individual and important to them, often with an emotional and sentimental connection that it would be cruel to disrespect by copying their hard work. Although young artists need to be heard and shouldn’t be squashed for their inspirations, this is clearly not the case in this instance. However, it’s important to be careful because sometimes artists do take inspiration from other art and the replication isn’t even conscious. I wouldn’t want to see another artist get torn down from this.
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