Olafur Eliasson showing off one of his first Little Sun products that will provide solar-powered lanterns to the poor. (via DLD blog)

DAVOS, Switzerland — Does art change the world? The World Economic Forum would have you think so. The WEF is meant to bring important people together to create world change, but how can art participate in the cause? We are not doctors, scientists, politicians or deep-pocketed folks who can actually make real improvements for human kind. Art can add context, question norms, retell stories and speak out against political injustice — but change the world?

Claudy Jongstra (image from the artist's website)

At least three artists are trying. Dutch artist and designer Claudy Jongstra has spent the last 15 years raising sheep, tending a garden and employing local women to make her art. She is a textile artist producing large installations for public spaces and is hailed by starchitects and designers worldwide for her work.

Claudy (working alongside her business partner, Marleen Engbersen) developed a system for making felt and pressing it into other wool fibers or silk. She wanted a specific wool that only 17th century Drente Heath sheep, now almost extinct, can provide. Claudy continues to breed these sheep and her art brings attention to their dwindling numbers. They also use no harmful chemicals in the dying process, but grow the dyes naturally in a large garden which provides all the rich colors for the wool. Claudy employs eight women from the local village and teaches them traditional weaving skills and her own process to get the work made. She works with them each day, without modern technology to interrupt their concentration. They have all become master craftspeople.

Once the pieces are finished, they are transported and installed into museums, public spaces (like libraries or court houses) and corporate buildings. Knowing the process of Claudy’s work is half the art; it is truly sustainable. Her work has an impact on the land and her local village — not large, but it’s something.

Vik Muniz taking a photo of Tiao Santos as Marat for his "Pictures of Garbage" project. (via vikmuniz.net)

Using recycled garbage as materials is nothing new for many sculptors or installation artists, but Vik Muniz takes it to another level in his project “Pictures of Garbage” illustrated in the documentary “Wasteland.” Vik worked with the catadores (garbage pickers) and young people from the favelas to create portraits made from the garbage dumps. The project has raised over $250,000 with 100% of the proceeds benefiting the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho (ACAMJG) in Brazil. It has raised money to house the catadores, establish a business training program, a library and learning center.

Vik Muniz was included in a panel with artists JR, José Moreno Valle and Jürgen Griesbeck who have all worked with people on the street in various ways, helping to enrich communities and give them a larger voice.

One of the Little Sun lamps in use. (via olafureliasson.net) (click to enlarge)

Meanwhile, earlier in the week at the Münich conference DLD, Olafur Eliasson announced his new company, Little Sun. The goal is to bring cheap solar powered devices to areas of the world without electricity. His first product is a solar light designed as a yellow circle which can hang or be placed anywhere. This will bring inexpensive light to millions of people so they can lead more productive lives. On his drawing table are a few more solar products; a larger light, a cell phone charger, small battery and a radio. They are created with his own sense of art and design, but will be massively produced and cost a fraction of similar devices so they can be widely distributed. These are his plans, the outcome is yet unknown, but I suggest keeping your eye on Little Sun.

Jongstra, Muniz and Eliasson are financially successful and they have enough robust professional connections to build something real. For the 99% of the artists out there, creating change is a harder climb without an existing infrastructure. You need money, philanthropists, corporate sponsors, venture capitalists and your own strong brand to propel these ideas into motion.

Even though I will remain skeptical of how much good art can achieve in the world, these are three well-known artists playing a role in sustainability. The impact may be great or small, but it’s definitely better than nothing. And I suppose that is a place to start.

But instead of nodding our heads thoughtfully to demonstrate we were paying attention, we looked down — at our smartphones. We tweeted, Twitpic’d and hashtagged our way through the hallowed halls of the Whitney, all the while relaying our experience and chatting with our followers.

RT @cmonstah: #whibi In front of Pae White's smoke tapestry. Gary says it has cinematic quality. http://tweetphoto.com/15530317

March 23, 2010 2:09 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@artwhirled

Art Whirled

It was a strange idea at the time, but as Miranda wrote, it was certainly a “#success.” Nina Meledandri, an active Twitter user and artist based in Brooklyn, captured her tweets on #Whibi, a tumblelog of images and thoughts. Addressing the unique experience of touring a museum and writing about its art, she posted a few images and wrote:

“hopefully this gives a sense of how people interact with the art from a spatial perspective … though on an average day people would presumably be looking not tweeting”

The #Whibi Twitter Tour group listens and live tweets curator Gary Carrion-Murayari's talk at the Whitney Biennial. Images by Nina Meledandri.

It was different, to be sure, but I loved it. I loved being able to tweet my experience of the art and engage my followers in conversation. This latter was the best part, and it continued for a while afterward. As Miranda wrote:

“A dizzying hour and a half later, our team streamed dozens of #WhiBhi tweets and pics that followers retweeted to their followers, who retweeted to their followers … and wow, we’re still reading through the comments, jokes and questions.”

It was a novel idea then but in the two years since that time I haven’t heard of many other Twitter tours like it. A tour like this gave the broader public a way to interact with an exhibition that they may not be able to visit (if not in New York). But it also gave them a way to interface directly with the curator, a rare and unique experience even for those based in the city.

The guy got really happy and excited and started waving me over. It took a sec for me to realize he thought I was Deitch! (3of3) #nerdinDoha

December 3, 2011 10:50 pm via UberSocial for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite

@museumnerd

Museum Nerd

#NerdinDoha: A Round Trip Twicket to Qatar

Recently, I noticed that Museum Nerd, the popular anonymous Twitter feed with over 80,000 followers, was flying to Doha, the capital of Qatar. The person behind the feed had been flown out by the Qatar Museums Authority to participate in the events around Saraab, Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang’s entree into the West Asian art world.

Noting that the Qatar Museums Authority wants to be “as progressive as what Al Jazeera has done for news with social media,” Osman Ahmed, who heads up social media for the Authority, noted that he faced little resistance when he suggested the idea of bringing Museum Nerd out from New York for the show.

“For real time engagement I believe Twitter is currently the best way for museums to have dialogue with the public who use Twitter as a source of information, news and point of contact with museums they follow. It strips away the formalities of an email and gets straight to the point with it’s 140 character limit. As with all communications in real time it happens fast and museums have to be reactive to the needs of the Twitter using public.”

Indeed, with the majority of the English-speaking world based in the UK and the US, the move seemed right from a PR perspective.  Museum Nerd, who used the hashtag #NerdinDoha, was able to make an event about a Chinese artist showing in the Middle East come to life outside the region for those who chose to follow.

It’s an interesting idea, and it’s following a larger trend across organizations. The Pulitzer has opened the possibility of awarding journalists for their live coverage by social media. Naturally, the museum world is starting to understand the role of live tweeting as a form of audience engagement, just like any other publicity or, at its best, journalistic activity.

1959 or 2012? “Movin’ on up” is especially hard for children born poor and black, or poor and female.” http://t.co/aThbMAUl #wherewelive

January 27, 2012 1:36 am via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@CTGLA

Center Theatre Group

Group Interaction: Why It Matters

But while Museum Nerd proved to be effective, cases like #Whibi suggest to me that group interaction on Twitter proves to offer more lively conversation. Despite being accessible, tweeting with Museum Nerd is a very different experience from tweeting with a colleague or casual friend whom you follow on Twitter, especially with there are multiple tweeting and conversing from an event.

No, they're not reading tweets, but the audience was. Clockwise from the left: Brandon David Brown, Deidrie Henry and Kim Staunton in the Ebony Repertory Theatre production of “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre. Image courtesy the Center Theatre Group.

Recently, I was invited to attend a staging of Clybourne Park and A Raisin in the Sun, two plays that examine issues around race, class and mobility.  Performed by LA’s Center Theatre Group, the themes and stories of the two different plays intersect in thrilling ways. It made a perfect venue for Tweet Seats, the Group’s Twitter-cum-theater productions.

“For me, what’s more important is the notion that theater is a communal experience,” noted Jim Halloran, who concoted the Tweet Seats idea for the Group. “It’s great to have experts, but we also want people who are experimenting with technology on a cursory level. It’s all about personal communication with friends and neighbors.”

Other organizations have used tweet seats as a feature for members, but the recent event was the first time Twitter was used to unite geographically separate audiences watching different plays.  Using the hashtag #Wherewelive, audiences at a simultaneous staging of the two plays (Clybourne in the Mark Taper Forum downtown and Raising in the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City) were able to tweet with each other and organizational feeds like @ctgla and @MusicLA.

Seated so our glowing screens wouldn’t distract the non-Twitterati amongst us, we live tweeted the show and chatted during intermission. Some even tweeted with understudies and an actor who were engaging off stage. While I wondered about the possibility of being distracted, someone not at the show began tweeting with me. That’s when I realized why it mattered.

“In compiling the transcript of tweets,” Halloran explained, “we had more people that were tweeting in from home. We’ve never had that before.”  Indeed, the #Wherewelive hashtag was filled with interesting historical facts about the plays, comments from the audience and comments from others not in attendance. It was truly a community, as #Whibi had been.

#wherewelive @anxiaostudio - More than promotion: it can be like having an insider commentary. You can dissect the play beat by beat.

January 27, 2012 12:43 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@corwinevans

Corwin Evans

The use of live tweeting in the arts has been surprisingly slow to come to life, but I think these three organizations have hit on something right. In addition to simply providing a hashtag and a marquee to collect tweets, it helps to create a built-in community and invite a few art-minded Twitterati to stir things up. Then the conversation flows, both in the moment and later on.

“At what point does technology enhance the experience rather than become a barrier?” asked Halloran. “Just like tech in the 21st century is a way to form community, we’re realizing that community is a part of how we want to interact with art.”

Erik den Breejen walking in front one of the paintings in question, "Smile II" (2011), at his Freight + Volume opening last month. (photos by Kees den Breejen, courtesy the artist)

It’s a cruel world that makes a thief out of an adoring fan. Artist Erik den Breejen is a keen Beach Boys fan and one who knows, now, what the back of a beloved hand feels like.

Eager to greet the release of the long-buried 1966 album, Smile, Erik produced a series of word collages which incorporate blocks of the lyrics into wave and beach-themed constructions. His paintings made a tiny splash back in December when they debuted at Freight + Volume.

Reviewed by Charlie Finch for artnet.com, they were deemed “pretty darn cute” (take that as you will) and the proud artist enlisted Finch’s and Freight + Volume’s help in contacting Beach Boy lyricist Van Dyke Parks. His hero responded swiftly with a cease and desist letter.

“They seemed prepared to fight,” Freight + Volume owner, Nick Lawrence is quoted as telling artnet. “Van Dyke was personally offended … he seemed upset that he wasn’t consulted ahead of time about the show, which is a valid point. But in terms of fair use, I think it’s a bit of a stretch.”

Sadly it’s not. Sure it’s mean. But copyright law is ruthless and does not suffer homage gladly.

Look at it this way, according to Charlie Finch F+V gallery manager Philip Dmochowski, “said that the most expensive and largest den Breejen goes for $12,500 and that Brian Wilson devotees have already bought a few for their rec rooms.” Most of us will notice two things: 1) den Breejen is selling at emerging artist prices, and 2) people are buying these because they are “Brian Wilson devotees.”

Number one is why this story is sad. den Breejen is just breaking into the market; his enthusiastic pastels are not likely to usurp the Beach Boy’s market for their lyric sheets. But then there’s number 2.

Number 2 is why Parks or his lawyers felt they had to sue: they don’t want any one selling anything under the Beach Boys umbrella (pardon, please, the pun).

Lawrence estimates that Parks’ lyrics are in a little over half of the series. They are in snippets and not straight text. Says den Breejen:

“I don’t even know if people read the words in my paintings that much, since they function on a visual level. However, it is important to me that they are there, both as an initial inspiration and a cultural reference point. But it is just that — a reference point.”

It is perhaps telling that den Breejen is not ignorant of copyright law, and has, in fact, given his case some thought.

“I feel like I am very clearly in the transformative fair use area, however, the people who protect copyrighted music are fierce. The author claims piracy and exploitation, which is kind of a stretch. Most of the appropriation art cases I know of involve the (re)use of copyrighted images. I’m not aware of any precedents for turning copyrighted words into images, which makes it potentially interesting from a legal point of view … ”

I must say, the very fact that den Breejen speaks so clearly about “turning copyrighted words into images,” says a lot about how he could conquer with a fair use defense if it came to that. Distinguishing the “purpose and use” of your derivative work from that of the original is key.

But a wise lawyer would tell him to steer clear of any statement that would suggest his work is advertising the original work. Copyright owners HATE it when you take on their advertising for them: that would be proof of market confusion.

In any case, den Breejen and Freight + Volume are looking to settle the matter in out-of-court discussions with Parks.

“I’m pretty wary of a legal battle, especially with one of my heroes,” says den Breejen.

"Going Down With the Building" literally, Michael Alan's Living Installation at ABC No Rio (photo by Worm Carnevale)

Sitting in a cold performance space in the gritty, graffiti-ed punk art institution, ABC No Rio, for possibly the final time before the building is demolished for renovations in March, watching the last Michael Alan’s Living Installation performance, I became profoundly worried that I was witnessing the last gasps of a long history of free-wheeling, punk, D-I-Y art.

After the performance with Alan’s mom coming onstage proclaiming the show should win a grant and Alan interacting with every audience member with a megaphone, which turned the performance into a celebration, I left feeling more optimistic about the strength and the direction of both Alan’s public performances and the future of ABC No Rio.

ABC No Rio entrance (via papermag.com) (click to enlarge)

Even though the city has threatened to close them down about a year now, ABC No Rio will be tearing down their building at 156 Rivington Street, which has stood nearly untouched for 30 plus years. ABC No Rio plans to construct a new $3.4 million arts center, partially financed by the city. Taking a look at ABC No Rio’s plans, its hard to imagine the punk art institution inhabiting a clean, white-walled gallery space with a “planted facade.” While there is no denying that the building which has no hot water and is collapsing, needs repair, the building has a Downtown punk feel that has been lost in the Starbucks and Duane Reade-ification of New York.

Similarly, the Living Installation performance “Going Down With the Building” was its final show both at ABC No Rio and in general. A staple in my art viewership for almost two years and on the New York art scene for about 7 years, the Living Installation, a performance in which artist Michael Alan turns performers into living, moving sculptures, has been plagued by difficulties.

The problems range from unreliable performers, which lead Alan to hilariously and deftly replace a performer who didn’t show up to rehearsal with a sculpture, to unforgiving venues, that won’t  provide the paint, clay, collage-encrusted performers with a bathroom, to the loss of ABC No Rio, the space that has been the most receptive to their messy performances.  In addition, there are bigger issues at work such as the lack of public funding for artists, unlike the era of ABC No Rio’s founding, when the show costs about $2000 and up to make, no gallery representation or well-deserved invitations from Performa, and no permanent space to hold the shows (artist Kenny Scharf has been the only real major backer).  With only help from his friends and doing most of the work himself, Alan decided to end this incarnation of the project and switch gears.

In the show on Friday night, Michael Alan’s Living Installation merged both its own personal history and the history of ABC No Rio, giving me room to think about their legacies and what the future holds.

Passerby at 125 Delancey Street, site of the Real Estate Show (photo by Anne Messner; via 98bowery.com)

Born out of artist collaborations, accessibility, irreverence and anti-commercialism, ABC No Rio’s founding was completely unexpected. Organized by the artist group Collaborative Projects, or Colab, a group of artists who incorporated in the late 1970s to take advantage of the public funds that were available to artists, the Real Estate Show, which opened in 123 Delancey Street in a city-owned but vacant storefront on January 1, 1980. Taken over “guerilla style” by the artists after struggling to find a space for their show, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development padlocked the doors on January 2 and the city was eventually forced to give the Colab artists a permanent building at 156 Rivington Street, where ABC No Rio stands today.

Since then, and like many alternative spaces of that era, including Exit Art (which announced recently that it will also be closing) and Group Material, ABC No Rio held many theme exhibitions such as Animals Living In Cities to The Murder, Suicide and Junk Show.

In addition to art shows, ABC No Rio has hosted punk bands such as Japanther, Yuppicide, the Krays and others.

The sculpture/performer in "Going Down With the Building," (photo by Worm Carnevale)

With a splash of paint, sculpture and a soundtrack, Michael Alan’s Living Installation‘s “Going Down With The Building” gave ABC No Rio and its own show an appropriately loud and visually stunning goodbye. I understand its theatrical, messy nature, which admittedly isn’t for everyone, but I’ve always seen the Living Installation to be the inheritor of the Downtown punk art scene, which is why their stint at ABC No Rio has made so much sense. With a sculpture standing in the center of the room that became unquestionably the main and most captivating performer, the show literally was a celebration and a performance of art-making whether Alan, moving quickly, constructed on a sculpture or a living person.

The most interesting part of the performance was the three-hour soundtrack of Alan’s own music that ranged from  a unique mix of punk and rap to all out The Germs-like punk to songs that featured his mom. In addition to his own solo music, Alan collaborated with bands that had either played at ABC No Rio in the past or felt enough of a connection to the space or the show to give Alan a track, such as Renaldo from Renaldo and the Loaf, Williamsburg’s own Japanther, WLWL, Geneva Jacuzzi (Ariel Pink’s girlfriend/collaborator), The Krays, Yuppicide and Tim “Love” Lee. Digitally exchanging songs between the musicians and the artist reminded me of the collaborative spirit from which ABC No Rio was born.

While “Going Down With the Building” was billed as the last Living Installation, the next morning Alan discovered that he won a Brooklyn Arts Council Regrant for a performance, which means that some incarnation of his public performances will continue. As he told me, he is planning on focusing much more on sculptures and other inanimate objects, his music and his own sometimes humorous role in the performances, glimmers of this evolution could be seen in “Going Down With The Building.” “It could be anything, which is relaxing for me. I’m eliminating the format. That to me is freedom,” he explains.

Michael Alan, "History Pushes Through" (2011), ink on paper

Entitled “History Pushes Through” (2011), one of the many prints of Alan’s work covering the walls at ABC No Rio made me reconsider my sadness for the end of grimy ABC No Rio and the Living Installation. With the history of punk art spaces and performances behind them, both ABC and Alan’s public performances will push forward even if they change forms. At the heart of it, the strength of the Living Installation has always been about change from watching the performers change into sculptures to the changing materials to the changing themes of the shows. ABC No Rio has also changed during its 30 years even if it was just another layer of graffiti tags. Thinking back, I always thought there were too many performers in the Living Installation and was afraid to ever use the bathroom at ABC No Rio.

The real question I should have asked last Friday night is: if everything “goes down with the building,” what can be raised?

If you haven’t went to ABC No Rio, go check out the building before it closes at 156 Rivington Street. To learn more about its history read ABC No Rio Dinero on 98 Bowery.

Liza Eliano on her last day at Hyperallergic. (Click thru for a pic of her first day)

Dear Hyperallergic peeps,

Today is my last day at Hyperallergic, and as much as I hate saying goodbyes, I can’t leave without reflecting on the amazing journey this has been. Next week I will start as a publicity assistant at Random House, but Hyperallergic will always remain on my mind and close to my heart.

During my seven months at Hyperallergic, I have been challenged and inspired every day. As the editorial assistant I found my stride writing news and opinion posts on some of the stories, big and small, to break this year in art. I had the great opportunity to cover the art that sprang out of Occupy Wall Street and immerse myself in the movement, for better and for worse. I also covered the ongoing labor dispute between Sotheby’s and their art handlers, as well as issues in arts funding and education, which sparked some heated debates on the blog. These issues often get put on the back burner in the art world, but Hyperallergic always thinks outside the box, providing a space where voices from every corner of life can be heard. I feel so honored and proud to have been a part of that mission.

What I will also miss most about my time here is getting to work closely with our group of immensely talented writers. You are what make this blog so diverse and interesting to read. It was such a pleasure to help develop your posts and I look forward to reading more of your fantastic work.

Finally, I want to thank Hrag and Veken for this incredible opportunity and for teaching me more than I ever thought possible. Hyperallergic is very much about serious discontent, but I’ve learned from Hrag to also have fun, love what you are doing and seek out jello shots when necessary. I so admire the passion and commitment that Hrag and Veken have for this labor of love.

I hope to continue to contribute when I can and keep the conversation going (you can follow me on Twitter). This has been a big year for Hyperallergic in many ways, with more readers coming in every day and the launch of the Weekend Edition. I know the blog has no where to go but up and I am so excited to watch it grow. Please continue to support the critical dialogue at Hyperallergic and never stop being discontent.

Much Love,

Liza

Editor’s note: This is the final in a three-part series on the impact of the Patrick Cariou v Richard Prince case. The first post was published on Friday, January 13, 2012 and the second on January 17, 2012.

‘Transformative use’ is just mucking things up. That’s what I think.

Providing a pivot for the Cariou v Prince case and the only real point of interest no matter what the pundits say, transformative use, instead of the fog-clearing test that it was supposed to be, has become the main particulate in a legal fog of war that has lasted three years now.

Thus far, the dueling Cariou v Prince briefs have added new certainty to my theory that transformative use is a singularly unhelpful notion.

What is Transformative Use?

Set out in a 1990 Harvard Law Review article by judge Pierre N. Leval, the test for transformative use was supposed to add clarity to evaluations of fair use defense claims with a set of simple questions:

“Is the work transformative? Does it add value to the original? Does it use the quoted work as raw material, and transform it in the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings?”

I asked Virginia Rutledge, who co-authored the Andy Warhol Foundation’s amicus brief, what she thought.

“I think you’re probably right about transformation,” she said, “It’s obviously been the basis of a lot of internal debate and scholarship about what exactly it means.”

So why, I asked, do we keep wrestling with transformation? Why not just ask one question, “Does this usurp the original artist’s market?” and be done with it?

“Exactly,” she says. “To me, with appropriation art — even the purest appropriation art — the question answers itself.”

I point out that many of these cases wouldn’t even go to court, then, if we focused solely on the market, and she seems willing to consider that too:

“A lot of people who work between fine arts and copyright think exactly that. They think it’s absurd to say, ‘I’m buying it because it’s Sherry Levine and not Walker Evans.’ I hate to say it’s a no brainer, but it is a no brainer.There’s no art collector in the world that would buy one over the other because it’s a substitute.”

And yet, it is the deeply ironic case that both the legal teams of Richard Prince & Gagosian and Patrick Cariou, see the big T as a key player on their own side. In fact, everyone is eager to quote Campbell v Acuff-Rose, hoping that the 1994 Supreme Court’s understanding and application of the tests of transformative use will provide final word.

The Artist’s Intent

Quick Review: The case is named for Luther Campbell, of 2 Live Crew who’s rap parody of Roy Orbison’s rock ballad “Oh, Pretty Woman” caused Acuff-Rose Music (owners of copyright) to sue them for infringement. Campbell, et al pled fair use, stating the song was a parody. Acuff-Rose stated that the commercial nature of the record precluded the fair use defense.

When the Supreme Court wrote its decision on the Campbell v Acuff-Rose case, it held that, “The more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use.” Thus a commercial parody could qualify as fair use.

Though the case was remanded and settled in appeal, the Supreme Court’s guidelines offered much optimism to fair use advocates. It also put transformative use front and center as a balance against commercial use. In a way, these two factors, transformative use and commercial use are now pitted against each other.

And that provides a good grid to examine the Prince v Cariou case.

The Prince side claims that the Canal Zone works are clearly transformative of the original Yes, Rasta portraiture. What is more, since Campbell states that “The threshold question when fair use is raised in defense of parody is whether a parodic character may reasonably be perceived,” fair use advocates are now holding that Prince’s transformative use of Carious‘ photos as “raw material” is so head-wackingly obvious, that surely it can be reasonably perceived by any viewer. 

And this, they contend, is the only relevant test.

Judge Deborah A. Batts didn’t think so. She ruled against Richard Prince because he stated outright that he meant nothing by using the specific Cariou photos that went into the Canal Zone series. Batts took that statement to be a clear-cut confession that he’d intended to add no meaning at all to the images he’d lifted from Cariou.

How, I asked Rutledge, will the appeal overcome that?

“Very easily,” came the quick reply, “Because the test is not the intent of the artist; the test is the reasonable perception of the viewer.”

On the other hand, Dan Brooks thinks it’s pretty clear that the Richard Prince team is trying to leverage this one sound bite, “reasonably perceived” into a full fledged claim to transformative use. And he’s not buying it. In the brief filed yesterday by the Cariou team, Brooks lays out this argument:

“In every case relied upon by appellants, the defendant claimed — sometimes pre-litigation, but always in the trial court — that he or she subjectively intended to create a satire or parody; only then do courts analyze whether the claimed parody or satire is reasonably perceivable. In none of those cases did a court examine whether a comment was reasonably perceivable when the defendant expressly disavowed any intent to comment, as Prince did here.”

Brooks also pushes from the other end; he thinks it’s pretty clear that the commercial nature of Prince’s Canal Series far outweighs any hint of transformation in the relevant legal sense. I quote again from the Cariou brief:

“It would be difficult to imagine a starker example of ‘commercial exploitation’ than the marketing of Prince’s Paintings through advertisements in seven different newspapers, five depicting Cariou’s Rastafarian images; the prominent use of Cariou’s images on 7,500 announcement cards and the Gagosian Gallery website; and an exhibition catalogue, claiming copyright ownership of Cariou’s images and containing James Frey’s name on its title page in order to elicit Google hits, all targeted at an audience of celebrities and billionaires having ‘proof’ that they would ‘BUY’ works of art hastily thrown together by Prince without much thought, resulting in proceeds of over $11 million plus additional bartered art and the sale of the leftover announcement cards to a poster company, likely inducing further infringement of Cariou’s copyright.”

Next?

An image of Richard Prince by Patrick McMullen remixed a la Prince with one of Patrick Cariou's "Yes Rasta" series.

As my readers know, I have had my doubts about how truly pivotal or even interesting this case is. To me there is only one truly colorful issue in this case, Prince’s statement that he meant nothing by using Cariou’s particular images — which I agree with Dan Brooks, really threw a wrench into his fair use defense.

It has also caused the Prince legal team to draw up some very avant guard arguments, one of which is that the artist’s intention doesn’t matter when assessing the “use and purpose” of a work; what matters is the added meaning that can be reasonably perceived.

As stated in the Richard Prince brief:

“There is no sound policy reason why fair use should be limited solely to comment or criticism. In Campbell, the Supreme Court emphasized that what makes a work transformative is that it ‘adds something new, with a different purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning or message.’”

But, because Prince claimed he meant nothing, the argument made here seems to boil down to a claim that intent or not, there IS a new message in the Canal Zone works just and solely because we perceive one.

It’s the “anyone can see” argument, and it’s not pure hogwash: in a footnote to Campbell, the supreme court added, “We note in passing that 2 Live Crew need not label their whole album, or even this song, a parody in order to claim fair use protection, nor should 2 Live Crew be penalized for this being its first parodic essay. Parody serves its goals whether labeled or not, and there is no reason to require parody to state the obvious (or even the reasonably perceived).” Hmm … take out the word “parody” and replace with “added meaning.”

If the Prince team manages to convince the court that Prince’s sworn testimony means little or nothing, but that, rather, the “reasonable perception” of meaning — as measured in their brief largely (and with oblivious irony ) by the works’ commercial results, THEN things really will get interesting.

Maybe the court will, finally, throw up it’s hands and say, “Right, who bloody NEEDS to blather on about meaning? Let’s just talk money.” That’s what I’m rooting for. Meaning? Meaning either comes with the baby or gets tossed out with the bathwater. It’s there or it isn’t.

The only other interesting factor in this case is the draconian remedies which Judge Batts rained down on Prince and Gagosian — and those, surely, will be revised in the continuing court process.

Barbara Rosenthal, Manhattan, New York (bio)

This photo of a corner of my studio was taken on May 16, 2011, when I was setting up for a studio visit. I’m halfway between testing out projections and cleaning up the pile of workbooks, scrapbooks and references that accompany production.

You can see a part of one of the many neons here, and part of my 7,000 book library, and the door to my darkroom. In the center is my main electronic media pod, constructed from mismatched file cabinets and hollow-core-door counter tops all found on the street or bought cheap. There’s my old MOOG synthesizer and a natural light lamp and a video projector.

On the short wall is a pull-down screen running the DVD “Push Me.” On the long wall are five prints from the suite Conceptual Photographs, 2011. Out of camera range, but visible to me, are six more filing cabinets, a 10-drawer print file, two clear white work counters, one small desk and chair, six 20″x30″ framed photo-print collages and large windows overlooking the Hudson River at the point the sun and moon set every day.

This live/work space is eMediaLoft in the Westbeth Artists Complex, so I occasionally develop projects with or for other artists, but mostly I’m by myself working on several things simultaneously in an unusual time-pattern. I almost always watch the dawn and sunset, and a 24-hr period does not divide into “day” and “night,” but usually has two wake-sleep cycles. Work-times and sleep-times alternate without regard to hour. And I assign all “out-of-studio” things to the same day (and as infrequently as possible). This pattern allows me long, unbroken periods of many days or even weeks without leaving here, just a zen-like work-sleep-work-sleep-work routine, usually silent.

Michelle Muldrow, Cleveland, Ohio (site)

My studio is in an old Elevator Factory building in Cleveland. I love it. It has enormous windows, one facing the elevated train tracks that run through town, the other facing the many red brick buildings surrounding the area. Oddly,I am just a few blocks from Lake Erie, but you would never know, since it is mostly industrial along the lakefront.

I always bring my little Chihuahua mutt Little Bit to my studio. She is 12 years old and sits with me while I paint. My floors are always trashed because I paint on the floor, usually only using my easel to prop up nearly finished works for decision making.

Because Cleveland can be very grey in the winter, you can see my heater and my lights that I paint by: a big tungsten light for warmth of lighting, which works as a nice heater, and a large fluorescent bulb. My antique architect table is from an estate sale. I bought it very cheaply and the large cabinet in the corner is from another estate sale. It was found in the garage and it’s perfect for storing paints. The vibe of this studio is amazing.

John Tomlinson, New York State (site)

My studio is 100 miles northwest of New York City in the Upper Delaware River Valley of New York State. I share the studio with my wife Daria Dorosh. It’s adjacent to our stone house and is on five acres of beautiful hilly land. I have spent half my week there for the last 14 years. It’s a huge contrast to our city life and work where I am director of the New York Studio Residency Program, but I can’t imagine a more perfect place to make my art. I get a lot done here. My materials — graphite powder, 9B graphite sticks, pencil, mineral spirits, Bristol paper or polyester drafting film — are the focal point of my studio and my work: drawings, always drawings.

Julia Schwartz, Santa Monica, California (site)

Several years ago, we converted our garage into a studio. On painting days, after the house clears out and I’ve checked email, I’ll head outside and see what is awaiting me from the previous session.

The radio is usually tuned to NPR or an iPod is queued to my mood or the series I’m working on. I usually work on several paintings at a time, moving from one to the next, maybe experimenting with works on paper in between. I have a large glass palette (which I had cut to size locally) which I clean only rarely, so the history of many weeks and months of paintings is a constant companion on the palette, in the dirty oil and dirty brushes (just out of sight in this photo).

Meghann Snow, New York City (video channel)

My studio is only 8 feet by 24 feett. So it’s kinda narrow and long. This is what the studio looks like when I am working on a Dance Drawing. I don’t work on an easel, but I consider my floor my easel.

My daily routine is: come to my studio and make ballet shoes out of bubble wrap and tape; work on some dance drawings, or other drawings, or on video of documentation. Lately, I have been traveling with my work, and creating dance drawings in Paris and in Stockholm. I am currently getting ready for a couple of shows which I will perform in their spaces.

The Casually Pepper Spraying Everything Cop takes a walk through Georges Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte"

In a recent essay for the AFC art blog, Will Brand lambasted the recent dot work of Damien Hirst with a memorable line:

These spots reflect nothing about how we live, see, or think, they’re just some weird meme for the impossibly rich that nobody knows how to stop.

The idea of an art meme feels counterintuitive: art is supposed to reflect deep issues about society and self, or at least be technically complex, while memes are quick hacks about cats, shit people say and dancing Obamas.

But this past year, the internet has been seeing a ton of new memes that involve the arts.

Most recently, after the now famous Lt. Pike pepper sprayed a line of students at UC Davis, his image began appearing in the annals of art history, from Seurat to Banksy. The absurdity of the “casually pepper spraying everything cop” meandering through classical paintings reflected the absurdity of the pepper spraying itself, and it launched a meme that played a major role in launching a reported five investigations at the northern California school.

The pepper spraying cop meme is largely political, with a bizarrely artistic twist.  But what about other memes that are just about art?   Consider the following:

Ugly Renaissance Babies

Andrea Mantegna's "Presentation at the Temple" (ca. 1460) comes with the caption: "Oh fuck oh fuck, thank god you’re here, Angry Santa! I don’t want to be a mummy!"

When I wandered the halls of the Metropolitan Museum and the National Gallery of Art, I always marveled at how, well, awkward the babies were. They were often inhumanly large, or at least adult-like.  It must have been hard in those days to get a baby to pose for you for very long.

Why it took so long, I don’t know, but a meme has finally arisen. Ugly Renaissance Babies, a popular group Tumblr, follows in the great tradition of Awkward Family Photos, with user-submitted images of babies in classical paintings that don’t quite inspire our love of cute.

Consider the memetic response to Domenichino’s The Assumption  of Mary Magdalene into Heaven: “Oh my god, birds looked really weird during the Renaissance.”

But lest we think LOLBabies are a product of the 21st century, we need simply look back to this 1950s Lovers Lane collection of baby photos.

Shepard Fairy’s Obey and Hope

Google search results showing different variations on Shepard Fairey's iconic Obey and Hope posters.

Shepard Fairey’s iconic Obey graphic was plastered across Los Angeles and soon the rest of the United States.  The simple, ubiquitous image may not be the first street art meme, but it was certainly the most prominent.  Fairey himself riffed off the theme with Marilyn Monroe and Che Guevara variants, while artists have created Sloth, Oy Vey and Ballet versions.  Similarly, his famous Hope poster has spawned a host of memes and even a web site that lets you easily create an “Obamicon.”

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but Fairey, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to agree.  When Austin artist Baxter Orr remixed the image with a SARS mask, Fairey and his legal team sued.

Ai Weiwei and Marina Abramović

The Artist Is Present Video Game, an 8-bit adventure by artist Pippin Barr.

Ai and Abramovic, the two most recognizable names in the contemporary art world at the moment, have naturally become memes themselves. Witness the continuing response to Abramovic’s The Artist Is Present, with a recent video game by Pippin Barr, and a (now defunct) Twitter feed in the voice of her chair.  The Marina Abramovic Made Me Cry Tumblr may even be considered art in itself, for directly showing the unique power of her piece in a way that an official press release or video feed from MoMA never could.

On Sina Weibo and the Chinese-speaking Twittersphere, Ai Weiwei has of course become a meme. The sunflower seeds he sends regularly to fans pop up on Sina Weibo, whether as images or as part of a largely commentary, while his now-iconic face has been placed on a grass mud horse and in biting satirical comics.  Most recently, his fans stripped naked to show their support after he was investigated for distributing pornography.

TRUE FREEDOM IS FRIGHTFUL. LET ME BACK IN THE HOUSE

January 19, 2012 8:45 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@JennyHolzerCat

Jenny Holzer, Cat

Jenny Holzer’s Aphorisms

And where would we be without Jenny Holzer, whose pithy aphorisms are perfectly suited for Twitter?

It started with the 37,000-follower strong Jenny Holzer Twitter feed, which, in the early days before verified accounts, felt like they were coming directly from the artist until everyone figured out it was fake.  The feed meme soon evolved into Jenny Holzer Mom (“YOU SHOULD KEEP NEAR THE THINGS YOU LOVE BUT SITTING THAT CLOSE TO THE TV WILL RUIN YOUR EYES”) and, my favorite, Jenny Holzer Cat (“LISTEN WHEN YOUR BODY TALKS BUT DON’T MOVE AS I NAP ON YOUR CHEST FOR THE NEXT 6 HOURS”). This latter only shows that cats, art and memes are natural allies.

Ai Weiwei's head on the body of a Grass Mud Horse, a symbol of defiance against Internet censorship.

So what does it all mean when even the sacred world of art is transformed and meme-ified for the broader internet? To me, the art world meme reflects the inevitable collision of the high art world with, well, everybody else. In a world in which the average art appreciator can feel empowered to create, remix and revamp, the art world meme is the internet generation’s version of sketching at the museum.

In the future, Warhol predicted, we’ll all have our 15 minutes of fame. But now that everyone can become famous, we need new metrics for lasting fame and success. For the art world, becoming a meme might just be one of those metrics. After all, living on in people’s Photoshop queues and social media ensures that an artist’s name echoes throughout eternity… or at least the Twittersphere.

The home page of "You Are Listening to Los Angeles," with SoundCloud and Radio Reference embeds.

LOS ANGELES — Sublime’s “April 29, 1992,” a song about the Los Angeles riots, features it amidst a hip hop track. The Wire and Cops have made it famous. Police radio chatter is the stuff of media legend, a glimpse of urban turmoil in America’s most infamous neighborhoods, from Baltimore’s west side to Los Angeles’s south central.

Drawing inspiration from Robin Rimbaud and the lovely Mission Control site by soma.fm, artist Eric Eberhardt decided to turn them into a media landscape. Tapping intro radio streams and SoundCloud ambient radio, Eberhardt has created You Are Listening To, a web site that mixes hypnotic beats with the equally hypnotic chatter of police and fire forces.

“I first got the idea about a year and a half ago after the Giants won the world series,” he told me in an email interview. “There were crazy street parties going on all over the city that night & when I got home I noticed some people on Twitter were posting links to a site (soma.fm) where you you could listen to the SFPD radio in real time. After listening for awhile I started playing some music in the background & thought it sounded really cool.”

He set up the site using radioreference.com, which features a number of embeddable police streams, as well as SoundCloud’s embed feature. The remixes are backgrounded by the nighttime skylines of the relevant cities, which currently include Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Montréal. Eberhardt’s plan, eventually, is to include all the cities from radioreference.com and even develop an app for iOS.

It’s a fascinating way to experience the city. Until the app is available, most people tuning in will be listening from the comfort of their homes and offices, an ambient bubble amidst an abstracted aura of violence and turmoil.

The "Forget Art Fair," installed by Linda Gallery in Beijing's 798 Art Zone. The fair competed — tongue in cheek — with the 2011 edition of Art Basel and even passed out VIP cards for visitors.

LOS ANGELES — After spending a year living in different parts of Asia, I’ve been asked by many people for my thoughts on the art scene there: Does China really live up to the hype? How does Korea fit into the picture? And what about Southeast Asia? Unfortunately, I can’t answer all of these questions, especially because after a year there I felt I was just beginning to scratch the surface.

But I was fortunate to meet some incredible artists in my travels. In China, Korea and the Philippines, I came across very challenging and interesting work, which sprung up out of very different traditions and sociocultural contexts. But which artists stood out?  Whose work am I most looking forward to in the coming year? Rather than write a 2011 summary, I thought I’d write a 2012 “head’s up”, a list of artists whose work continues to stick in my head and who I hope to see more from in the coming year. This list is neither scientific nor exhaustive, but I’ve at least arranged it by the four cities in which I spent the most of my time in 2011.

Beijing, China — Forget Art

12:50 pm, Ma Yongfeng's microintervention on a bathroom door at MK2 Art Space for "Memory/Identity," curated by Alessandro Rolandi.

With news of Zhang Daqian toppling Picasso as top auction earner, it can be easy to lose sight of Chinese artists working largely outside the commercial sphere. Founded by Ma Yongfeng, whose goldfish video at MoMA PS1 provoked outcries from animal rights activists, Forget Art is one of Beijing’s most active art collectives, with a focus on microinterventions around the city, from an old Taoist temple to a bath house frequented by rural migrants. Forget Art’s one booth art fair at Linda Gallery made a splash on June 4 for its wry humor and subterfuge (some attendees received a VIP pass), and their cover photo essay in LEAP magazine featured guerilla art interventions like a leaf spiked through a twig in a park near 798.

Forget Art has grown increasingly active in the Beijing art scene, with a recent installation at Za Jia, an art space, bar and formal Taoist temple in Beijing’s Drum and Bell Temple area. Dubbed Not Only a Taoist Troublemaker, works included “Suspending Rock,” a performance and installation by Wu Yuren, who stood under a 100 kg hanging rock for two hours, and a propaganda-style poster by Alessandro Rolandi declaring “May Your Matters Be Safe.” I never saw their installation at Caochangdi’s Dragon Fountain Bathhouse, but residents in the village were talking about it for months afterward, and the documentation video certainly reveals its charm.

Manila, Philippines — Kiri Lluch Dalena

Kiri Lluch Dalena's "Erased Slogans," focused on famous protests in recent Philippine history.

I wrote about Kiri Lluch Dalena’s haunting installation at the University of the Philippines recently, in which she responded to and documented the aftermath of the horrific Maguindanao Massacre, the worst massacre of journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began keeping record. Since then, I’ve come to learn more about Dalena’s work, which shifts comfortably from challenging video documentaries examining social and political issues in the Philippines, to more lighthearted works.

Recently at Now Gallery in Makati, Manila, she exhibited a half dozen condom sculptures, each shaped and colored differently. The colors were inspired by actual flavored condom colors available in the country.

Part of what makes Dalena’s work so impactful is the way she relies on the Filipino community to help her document much of her subject matter. To prepare for Time and Place of Incident, she used social networks like Facebook and blogs to develop contacts. And for certain hard-to-reach areas, she relied on volunteers to film for her. The sense of play and gravity come together in her Erased Slogans, in which she Photoshopped out the political slogans at famous protests in recent history. The images are darkly humorous, and the slogans reappear as actual gravestones in a later installation.

Shanghai, China — Xiao Ke

I first met Xiao Ke during her stunning “Silent Acappella” at Welcome to Enter, a curatorial initiative by Anita Hawkins in which I also took part.

In her performance, Xiao Ke performed inside the cube set up by Hawkins, while her dance was projected on the outside for the audience. The mixture of kinetic movements and wall banging with her surreal, hypnotic movements on two faces of the cube hooked us all in, and I wanted to see more. Her Shanghai-based dance studio has collaborated internationally, and she’s now stepping into more conceptual dance explorations.

Seoul, Korea — Dirk Fleischmann

Dirk Fleischmann's myfashionindustries label, produced in both North Korea and the Philippines. Purchasers receive a video illustrating the entire production process.

You might think that Dirk Fleischmann doesn’t sound very Korean, and you’d certainly be right. German-born Fleischmann lives and works in Seoul, and his autobiographical myconceptstore, which premiered at the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale, was a hit attraction. The store featured a number of conceptual products from his art career, including a series of watches all set to 00:10, or 10 seconds.  Without looking at the watches, Fleischmann used trial and error to set a perfect 00:10. The amount of time it took for him to set 10 seconds determined the price.

Other products included an organic egg from Gwangju, which I purchased, Snickers bars he used to sell in his studio as an art student, beer from North Korea and even a line of clothing made in the communist Korea.

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I wish I could write more about the art in Asia, and I have and will be doing so in this blog. These artists’ works have lingered in my mind a little longer than most, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they produce in 2012.