Hank Willis Thomas’s “Unbranded” series (via brooklynmuseum.org)
Artist Hank Willis Thomas, in an e-mailed response to my December 17 article, “Lawyers Weigh In on Appropriation Art and Fair Use,” made this clarification:
“I wanted to make clear that when I appropriated images for the Unbranded series I did credit the image to the artists whose names I knew or could find. For the others I wrote ‘original photographer unknown’ under the title of the work. It was important for me that no one confuse the images as something I took. It would ruin the piece. I don’t however think a credit should be on the image that is being appropriated, because that would also ruin the piece. I hope that makes sense.”
