All I could think about was water. I was late and overdressed; the auditorium was ungodly hot, and I was thirsty. What is more, the Berlin-based artist, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, had, as though anticipating me, deliberately placed an empty water bottle on the seat next to the one I slipped into.
Cat Weaver
Independent curator, Cat Weaver is the Brooklyn-based writer and editor of The Art Machine, a blog that covers the art market in all of its gossipy glory. Formerly Cat wrote How To Talk About Art for Sugarzine, a New York culture and review magazine. She is currently a contributing blogger to the Huffington Post.
Posted inOpinion
Improvements, Met? Yeah, Talk to the Hand.
The Metropolitan Museum’s new front plaza will be funded by David “Tea Party” Koch. Ummm…
Posted inArt
Who Owns Warhol’s Banana?
The Velvet Underground is in a trademark battle with The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts over who owns the iconic banana. The reality is … probably no one.
Posted inArt
Beach Boys, Artists and Copyright Lawsuits
It’s a cruel world that makes a thief out of an adoring fan. Erik den Breejen is a keen Beach Boys fan and one who knows, now, what the back of a beloved hand feels like.
Posted inArt
Is Cariou v Prince Killing the Big T?
‘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.
Posted inArt
Cariou v Prince: The Money Issue
I have long suspected that all the press attention garnered by the Cariou v Prince story, with its heady mix of celebrity, power and money has caused the importance of this case to become magnified in the eyes of courtroom outsiders.
Posted inArt
Will Round Two of Cariou v Prince Change Art Law Forever?
Go ahead, expect more of these sweaty headlines with question marks in them. Because, with the now rather infamous Cariou v Prince case up for appeal sometime this year, we are facing another deluge of half-informed, and angrily contentious, punditry which will wash over the raw, dry, factual sands of more professional reports like a tsunami of histrionics.
Posted inOpinion
Hank Willis Thomas Clarifies His Position on Source Accreditation
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 …
Posted inArt
Lawyers Weigh In on Appropriation Art and Fair Use
The New York City Bar Association’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Appropriation: Contemporary Art After Cariou v. Prince” was, as billed, “a frank discussion of fair use and artistic practice.” And it was, indeed, frank, with all six panelists speaking plainly and tough audience questions encouraged. But it was also, clouded and meandering, the way that all intellectual property discussions are.
Posted inArt
Robert J. Lang On Origami, Sarah Morris Lawsuit
I had the opportunity, to interview Robert J Lang, the origami artist who, along with several others, has filed a lawsuit against painter Sarah Morris who, they say, infringed on their copyrights when she produced 24 of her Origami series of paintings based on crease patterns.
In the following article, we explore Lang’s art, the many forms and practices of origami artists now and in the past, and the diversity of its uses. The article is followed by an interview with Lang in which he addresses, among other things, his lawsuit against Sarah Morris.
Posted inArt
Has Werner Herzog Made the First Art Stoner Flick in 3D?
Director and filmmaker, Werner Herzog’s latest, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, is a strange mix of flighty pseudo-intellectual reverie and jaw-dropping documentary. Filmed in the famously inaccessible Chauvet Cave in southern France with 3-D enhancement, and sprinkled with the usual eccentric Hertzogian locals, the movie cannot fail to entertain and simultaneously irritate — just like the great man himself.
Posted inArt
Origami v Morris: When Paper Folders Strike
In the latest who’s-suing-whom story, six origami artists have filed suit for copyright infringement against artist Sarah Morris for jacking their crease maps to use as a basis for her colorful Origami series of thirty seven paintings.
My first thoughts: Morris cannot lose this one. We have mass-marketed two-dimensional recipes for creating three-dimensional folded paper items, and these recipes have been used as the formal basis for multi-colored two-dimensional paintings. What of it?