I was debating between this title and "This Fairey Steals Your Money", but that's what this dude gets for having two professions as his name.
Shepard Fairey's plagerism case, has been pissing me off a lot lately. I don't really care that he stole the image for the Barack Obama "Hope," poster from a (probably underpaid) member of the Associated Press, but Shepard is really getting on my nerves by turning around and suing the Associated Press because of the famous "he who hast smelt it, is the party that dealt it" law.
I suppose I shouldn't expect anything less, since Shepard has made his name by skirting vandalism laws, to draw attention, and give himself that bad boy image that gets you laid. However, what is really getting to me, is this Huffington post post which Fairey posted, and which I heard of through this Bostonist article (It turns out that HuffPost is the Kevin Bacon of Blogs). In his post, Fairey defends his idea-thievery in true "the kid with glasses and straight A's totally cheated off of me" fashion. His arguments range from legally prudent douche-baggery to the proclamation of an truly disturbing world-view.
"...I did not think (and do not think) I needed permission to make an art piece using a reference photo. From the beginning, I openly acknowledged that my illustration of Obama was based on a reference photograph... which I found out much later was taken by Mannie Garcia..." It is not a reference if you do not cite your source, which you clearly cannot do if you don't know who created the work.
Admittedly, it takes balls to do this and then complain that "...people try to demean my Obama poster as being 'stolen' or that because I used a photo I 'cheated'." This is like having a conversation with a cheating student &mdash What you don't seem to understand, Shepard, is that you aren't cheating because you used Wikipedia, you are cheating because you passed someone else's work off as your own. You say that many great painters worked from photos, but the difference here is that paintings are made in a studio, and your poster was made in photoshop.
Almost universally, the only thing interesting about Fairey's work is his use and contrast of colors, and the actual images are always taken from other sources. So while the pictures are evocative and exciting (until you realize that this Fairey is a one trick pony), a remix loses a considerable amount of depth if the original is not available.
Fairey claims that he went to Rhode Island School of Design, an impressive alma mater &mdash "At RISD I was taught to draw from life, to draw from photo references..." Well it's too bad this fancy school didn't teach you to reference your works. This is surprising, in academia people are only worth as much as their ideas. So when you steal someone's ideas, you steal their lively-hood. It is a big deal. I also find it interesting that for all his defense of working from photo references, Fairey sure doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of photography.
On this point, Fairey's post isn't all juvenile, there is plenty of room for the asinine. He argues that it was okay to use the image because he wasn't reporting news, but instead using the image to promote Obama. This actually makes matters worse. Shepard Fairey was using the photo to make "a political statement" that he had no idea that Mannie Garcia was even cool with. Even though Mannie did turn out to be an Obama supporter, Shepard admits that he didn't even know Mannie's name when the poster was created, so he obviously had no respect for the photographer's intent. I know I would hate if Shepard Fairey somehow managed to use my words here to steal money from the AP in this lawsuit.
My personal favorite argument from Fairey is that Garcia's work would have "faded into obscurity" without the Obama poster. What sort of arrogant asshole sells himself as a gritty street artist, then asserts that he can get away with copying someone else because he is more famous? Although Fairey claims that he is defending the artistic expression from excessive copyright laws, this is actually what copyright laws are meant to do. Even though in recent years it seems like copyright laws are there to protect large company trademarks and the canned crap which we hear on the radio, they are actually there to protect the small time artist from having his (or her) work stolen by larger more famous bullies. Despite his image, Shepard Fairey is the bully in this case, and he is using his fame to control lesser known work.
Of course there is nothing wrong with being a bully, it is nearly impossible to be successful without being at least a little bit of a bully. But don't try to shove some idealistic crap down my throat so that I think that you are freeing my mind when you are really just giving me a wedgie.
Shepard Fairey's plagerism case, has been pissing me off a lot lately. I don't really care that he stole the image for the Barack Obama "Hope," poster from a (probably underpaid) member of the Associated Press, but Shepard is really getting on my nerves by turning around and suing the Associated Press because of the famous "he who hast smelt it, is the party that dealt it" law.
I suppose I shouldn't expect anything less, since Shepard has made his name by skirting vandalism laws, to draw attention, and give himself that bad boy image that gets you laid. However, what is really getting to me, is this Huffington post post which Fairey posted, and which I heard of through this Bostonist article (It turns out that HuffPost is the Kevin Bacon of Blogs). In his post, Fairey defends his idea-thievery in true "the kid with glasses and straight A's totally cheated off of me" fashion. His arguments range from legally prudent douche-baggery to the proclamation of an truly disturbing world-view.
"...I did not think (and do not think) I needed permission to make an art piece using a reference photo. From the beginning, I openly acknowledged that my illustration of Obama was based on a reference photograph... which I found out much later was taken by Mannie Garcia..." It is not a reference if you do not cite your source, which you clearly cannot do if you don't know who created the work.
Admittedly, it takes balls to do this and then complain that "...people try to demean my Obama poster as being 'stolen' or that because I used a photo I 'cheated'." This is like having a conversation with a cheating student &mdash What you don't seem to understand, Shepard, is that you aren't cheating because you used Wikipedia, you are cheating because you passed someone else's work off as your own. You say that many great painters worked from photos, but the difference here is that paintings are made in a studio, and your poster was made in photoshop.
Almost universally, the only thing interesting about Fairey's work is his use and contrast of colors, and the actual images are always taken from other sources. So while the pictures are evocative and exciting (until you realize that this Fairey is a one trick pony), a remix loses a considerable amount of depth if the original is not available.
Fairey claims that he went to Rhode Island School of Design, an impressive alma mater &mdash "At RISD I was taught to draw from life, to draw from photo references..." Well it's too bad this fancy school didn't teach you to reference your works. This is surprising, in academia people are only worth as much as their ideas. So when you steal someone's ideas, you steal their lively-hood. It is a big deal. I also find it interesting that for all his defense of working from photo references, Fairey sure doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of photography.
On this point, Fairey's post isn't all juvenile, there is plenty of room for the asinine. He argues that it was okay to use the image because he wasn't reporting news, but instead using the image to promote Obama. This actually makes matters worse. Shepard Fairey was using the photo to make "a political statement" that he had no idea that Mannie Garcia was even cool with. Even though Mannie did turn out to be an Obama supporter, Shepard admits that he didn't even know Mannie's name when the poster was created, so he obviously had no respect for the photographer's intent. I know I would hate if Shepard Fairey somehow managed to use my words here to steal money from the AP in this lawsuit.
My personal favorite argument from Fairey is that Garcia's work would have "faded into obscurity" without the Obama poster. What sort of arrogant asshole sells himself as a gritty street artist, then asserts that he can get away with copying someone else because he is more famous? Although Fairey claims that he is defending the artistic expression from excessive copyright laws, this is actually what copyright laws are meant to do. Even though in recent years it seems like copyright laws are there to protect large company trademarks and the canned crap which we hear on the radio, they are actually there to protect the small time artist from having his (or her) work stolen by larger more famous bullies. Despite his image, Shepard Fairey is the bully in this case, and he is using his fame to control lesser known work.
Of course there is nothing wrong with being a bully, it is nearly impossible to be successful without being at least a little bit of a bully. But don't try to shove some idealistic crap down my throat so that I think that you are freeing my mind when you are really just giving me a wedgie.
