Saturday, February 14, 2009

Photo x Fine Art

AP photographer Mannie Garcia takes a photo of Obama on the campaign trail. Artist Shepard Fairey turns the image into a poster, and gets the pants sued off of him by AP. Then Garcia says he has the rights to the image, not AP, but that he's happy the photo was turned into the poster.

Writes Steven Heller (of the Daily Heller) on the Garcia/Fairey/AP thing:
...I do want to point out that this is not the first time photographs (and other artworks) have been the raw material for graphic works. In fact, the already murky area called "fair use," which Fairey's lawyers are invoking, has been applied before. [Here] are a few that have passed that very test. (Che by Alberto Korda and Paul Davis; Nixon official photo and Andy Warhol; Mao official portrait and Andy Warhol; News photo of Sacco and Vanzetti and Ben Shahn; Michelangelo's Isaiah and Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter.)

Source

5 comments:

Trill Cosby said...

...that's got to be a real pain in the ass for shepard fairey.

Jay_fever said...

That's some bullshit. These artists aren't taking these pics, putting their name on it, and selling them as is. These cats are straight up redrawing them!!! So technically these pics are just inspiration.

Bombchell said...

hmmm the above poster stated that these artists are just redrawing the photos, well that's not necessarily true in all cases especially with photoshop etc.

I feel bad for many various artists, fashion designers, poets, writers etc, who can't really prevent people reproducing their work.

It seems really murky in the art world, with what's inspiration vs whats theft. Either ways I try to stick to stuff within creative commons or advice people to get permission etc. especially if u plan to make money of the work

Trill Cosby said...

^ you're incredibly sexy

Anonymous said...

Making art of people who don't deserve recognition.. retarded! Dumb ass!