Lawyers can fight for practically the rights, justice (ideally) of almost any issue, from pharmaceuticals, corporate, criminal, divorce and even my favorite art. It is always a question of appropriation, what belongs to whom. In the case of art, this is going to go unnoticed by anyone because no one has a clear definition of art (this changes all the time) and then there is the question of who owns the art.
Is he the creator? Does the artist really own the art since he doesn’t really have anything appropriate for the artwork once he has left the studio? In terms of appropriation, there is something like artist’s resale rights (or droit de suite in French, the origin of the term) where the artist can claim royalties, a percentage of the final sale price when a public transaction has taken place. However, artist resale rights only exist in certain countries (not the US for the most part), so whether or not the art belongs to the original creator could depend on their nationality. It seems a bit manipulative.
Then there is the artist-gallery relationship. The artist produces the work, but the gallery representing the artist has some ownership rights in the work; They typically get a generous 50% off the final sale price for all the work they do to make the artwork stand out. But then, if ownership changes through transactions if the art is purchased, then does the buyer own the art? Is it an object with tradable rights dependent on that monetary exchange? Some people might even argue that art should belong to the people, this view of the proletariat seems the easiest to defend, but private viewing minimizes belonging to the person with the deepest pocket.
Let’s say that art belongs to everyone, to the world, art is the child of the world and therefore it belongs to everyone.
They also say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is sometimes argued that art only exists to serve when there is a viewer at hand (which means that art for art’s sake belongs to itself). This cliché statement raises many problems, for example, not all art is beautiful, aesthetics does not imply beauty. If art is so subjective that belonging changes depending on the viewer, then the appropriation of art is practically impossible, so why fight and create laws for it?
So why is it that whenever there is a conversation between works of art, if too much of a work is ‘borrowed’, a copyright lawsuit arises?
Examples are Shephard Fairey and the Associated Press on the Obama Hope posters. The Associated Press is suing Fairey for copyright infringement, among other things, because he mass-produced an image originally owned by AP without permission (with his artist’s rendering, of course, not the exact photograph). The truth is that his posters made no such statement and if some small scale artist had done the same thing without as much exposure, conversation, money… it probably would have gone unnoticed and treated as a compliment. Jealousy is a dangerous and vicious creature.
Then there’s someone like Richard Prince, where the work is mostly a collage of branded ad photos and recognizable figures for these brands. He has been sued by many of the original ‘producers’ of these ad creatives. Usually, he uses these photographs outside of his original intent and context to create his own collages without, of course, demanding the right to use them. But did these originals belong to someone at the beginning?
It’s true that a lot of upfront work goes into creating these photographs, especially if a photographer has worked 10 years earning the trust of Rastafarians in the mountains to produce a body of work with a specific intent. But does it end there? Art is not a conversation between already existing works of art, it would be limiting if appropriation ended any potential discourse. Perhaps credit should be given to the influence and inspiration and perhaps explaining a bit rather than claiming an entire work as completely original in every possible way.
Then there is what the commission can do for appropriation. If a work is commissioned, does the artwork then belong to the decisions of the paperback owner? Richard Serra found this out the hard way when he filed a $30 million lawsuit against the General Services Administration (GSA) over a sculpture he had created called “Tilted Arch” at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan and it had significant meaning. very specific. the creation of the piece was adapted and relied heavily on its physical location. It wouldn’t make sense if it had been transferred unlike a painting from one gallery to another. The GSA that had commissioned the work was adamant about changing the location and unfortunately got away with it.
Art Law is a growing segment to represent art rights in many ways. But the question is even more complicated than before because if you give art a main headline, its meaning (already intertwined and convoluted) can be affected simply by giving it an owner.