Harpers is one of my favorite magazines and a couple of months back I had the good fortune to run into some writing that resonated with the way I approach ideas for my paintings. The case concerns artist Joy Garnett of the ‘Molotov Man‘ fame. She is an artist who uses ‘found’ online imagery in the creation of her art and knowingly subverts photographs and images found on the web to suit the message that she would like to propound in her paintings. In her own words..
“I searched the web for images of figures in extreme emotional or physical states. I saved the most promising images in folders on my computer desktop, and I let them sit for a while so I could forget where I found them. I wanted my choices to be based more on aesthetic criteria than on my emotional attachment to their narratives. Eventually I would look through the folders again to see what struck me…”
To make a long story short, she was initially told by a lawyer representing the author of an image she used (Susan Meiselas shot one of the iconic images that Joy Garnett later painted) to secure permission before using the image. Naturally, Joy did not think it necessary to go through these motions as she had created ‘original’ artwork using the image as a springboard… and posted her predicament to Rhizome.org. The bloggers on Rhizome ran with it and produced hundreds of subversions of the original image challenging the lawyer to prosecute all of them.. The lawyers withdrew on seeing the shaky nature of their case in prosecuting Joy Garnett. You can read multiple points of view in two essays from Harpers hyperlinked at the bottom of this post…
Susan Meiselas “untitled” 1979 Color photograph
Joy Garnett “Molotov” 2003 Oil on canvas 70 x 60 inches
My technique is to paint from photographs. Every once in a while when I explore an idea, I tend to go to the web and download compelling images from the web to act as a spark that will lead to the creation of a painting. In my view I am engaging in a dialogue with art that already exists out there and in the eventual subversion of the original image in my painting, I am merely enriching existing art. I sometimes acknowledge the source and sometimes bother not to (especially if I do not find it on the web – I do not go crazy trying to find the source)… I do not regard this as plagiarism, but some people do…
How many times have you directly used images from the web in the creation of your art? How many times have you used web based images indirectly (as a spark generator and incubator) for an idea that you then use to create your art? If the former case is dubbed plagiarism by some people, then the latter case also should be… What are your views?
Like someone said, the cross pollination and extension of existing ideas is critical to human creativity, be it art science or commerce.
References:
On the rights of the Molotov Man – article by Joy G. and Susan M. in Harpers
The ecstasy of influence – an invigorating essay by Jonathan Lethem
I don’t have much time for a comment now, but I think the debate about what constitutes plagiarism is a very healthy one. My sympathies tend to be with the artist accused of plagiarism, but where do you draw the line? The complaint against Garnett seems weak, but suppose she had only cropped the original photo? I’d call that plagiarism if she presented it as her own. Cropped and altered contrast? These lines are always blurry and judgments will depend on factors outside the artwork itself, like intention.
fascinating topic. I don’t have time to fully repond at the moment either, but what about Louise Lawler?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Lawler
Sunil,
For a very long time I did all of my internet browsing with “image loading” turned off. The reason was that I was afraid of being influenced by the vast number of images that come one’s way from online. This then is not an example of getting an influence from online, but of trying to avoid doing that. Nonetheless, I think it supports your contention that the internet is visually very influential.
Once I started art blogging it became impractical to avoid looking at images. I try to be more relaxed about seeing things, but sometimes I turn image loading off again when I feel like I am trying to develop something of my own that I don’t want to be influenced by other things.
In the old days before the camera, artists copied and borrowed from each other all the time. It wasn’t considered plagiarism, but normal practice. However, Cenninio Cennini (14th century) warned not to copy from a lot of different sources at the same time, but to try to study one artist at a time, so that the influences did not become garbled.
My opinion is that S. Meiselas should feel flattered that J.Garnett used her photograph for the painting of Molotov man
Karl and Sunil,
You both have very thoughtful approaches to this dratted question. I suspect it’s one that artists have mulled over, even obsessed over, for milenia. I rather like Cennini’s notion of one artist at a time, but can’t bring myself to accept it.
I guess my question is whether we will actually ever resolve the issue of if we will continue to muddle through, ducking and threatening and cajoling and bulling on ahead, regardless. Maybe I’m just in a muddling along mood this morning.
I feel lucky in that a) I don’t use the web for images for my work and b) my memory is so bad that if I do, I can’t remember it so I can’t chide myself for it. I find “appropriation” an interesting exercise, and some images are so iconic that they instantly are part of the culture, whether Disney likes it or not (Disney is, of course, conflicted about that, but has turned the conflict into ruthless pursuit of children who draw humanoid creatures with mouse ears).
The questions posed are interesting, but I’m not sure there are answers that will satisfy for more than an instant.
This is a difficult topic with very little explored so far. Joy has been trying to initiate a dialogue around some of these very concepts. I think issues like this will come to the fore as we wade every more deeply into the digital world and the growing diffusiveness of its boundaries with traditional image making. The day would not be too far off when someone will invent a printer that uses linseed based oil paints to ‘paint’ images on canvas derived from manipulated images…
If I were to go on the Internet, grab lines of poetry and excerpts from books and such and then make my own poems from them and seek publication, it would be plagarism. Why is this any different?
Tree,
Please read the oft-quoted http://waitaki.otago.ac.nz/~martin/Documents/EcstasyOfInfluence.pdf in regard to your question above. I am really not sure if the answer is as black and white as you make it out to be.
The following site begs the question as to who were the original authors of the photos these famous painters made their paintings from?
http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2006/11/famous-painters-copied-photopraphs_06.html
Dale,
Appropriation is one of the most common ways by which progress has been made through the centuries.
The other is pure genius and flashes of brilliance – but that’s what they are: just flashes in the pan…
I think it was Edison who said ‘if I see further it was because I stood on the on the shoulders of giants’ – or some thing like that…
Thanks for the site. Interesting link and taught me some.
Dale,
Fascinating, thanks for the link!
Sunil:
The trick is to climb the giant where from to see.
Yes, Though I have only understood a small part of the climb, an important aspect involves in the individual not falling off too.. I am slowly learning. Not too sure if and when I might fall… But like some famous King (and Halle Berre said whilst trying to get pregnant) said…. – ‘If At First You Don’t Succeed–Try, Try Again’… (I got that last part online)
Suil:
You ever cease to amaze me. The sayings of Halle Berry? Maybe the king was Hailie Selassie.
Now that we’re slightly off-topic, I would like your opinion concerning the relationship between the Advaita Vedanta and the Unified Field Theory.
I do not have the stomach
to emancipate the GUT*,
they say that reading Vedanta
clarifies myths that abut,
fiction, fact, truth, justice
and cheesy aspects of smut.
A smattering of the above mix
and some science would mould,
Believers into becoming soon
the geniuses for us to uphold.
Of course, these matters are for the seers to seek
through dreadful penances dire,
of their coveted (low-hanging) fruits I pick
and thus stand on shoulders of sire(s).
*GUT stands for Grand Unified Theory – an avatar of current physics research that is taking pot shots at a planned unification of the stated theory and advaita philosophy.
Sunil:
Indeed a Rolls Royce answer to a Yugo question. I know you’re going to answer with a pun – and I think I know what it will be.
But one thing is still not clear to me…will it still be considered plagiarism if we make a painting from a photgraph? i was browsing through gettyimages and came across some fabuluos pictures that i would like to paint but how far can we go we?
ankita,
Most of the commentary I’ve seen says that if you copy an entire photograph (or other art work) closely enough that the copying is evident, then you should not present it as your own work for sale or exhibition. Quoting or referencing a part of a photograph as part of a larger work is less likely to be a problem. My personal attitude with one of my own photographs would be much more liberal. If you have permission from the photographer and acknowledge them, then I think you could have no legal problem.