Replies: 19 Comments
on Saturday, May 31st, Trezora Art Jewelry said
This is a great conversation as it touches on so many point.
1) Indigenous people have a right to their heritage. Sometimes that is all they have been left. Stealing that as well is a crime.
2) Honesty is the way we present ourselves as artist. It is an issue of integrity with ourselves and our customers.
3) As customers we have a responsibility to ask questions and understand the answers. Ultimately, buy what you love.
4) Recognize that art is a business and since there is money involved there will be unscrupulous artists and buyers.
5) Style is not something that will ever be copyrighted. Awful hard to copyright something which may be hundreds or thoudands of years old. In the intellectual property world it's called "prior art". Pun intended.
on Thursday, May 22nd, peterpaint@yahoo.com">peter said
How petty to come down on this artist who is trying to do his own thing. It matters not who his influences are. picasso stole ideas from many of his friends.
on Thursday, May 15th, Ellen said
"To thine own self be true...." Others will recognize you eventually for who you are.
on Wednesday, May 14th, walt said
Pollack referenced Hopi sand paintings. He did everything he could to make a connection not only between his art but his life history to make various connections.
Picasso referenced (and sometimes copied almost directly) from Iberian and African sculpture.
Matisse referenced Algerian art, Arabic art in general.
The Romans referenced the previous Greeks. As did the Renaissance and the Neo-Classicists of this continent.
It is the way of art to be inspired and to repeat various aspects of what has come before. There is still something about originality though that originates in the artist beyond the influences. None of this is easy to define. And that is what makes it all so interesting, deeply engrossing and even mystifying. It is not that one should just accept it all. But that in the careful selecting, the education, the reflection and yes even the discrimination one finds the best of the best, the most original, the finest, the most touching, the most expressive...It is in the taughtness not the slackness that it all comes to life.
on Wednesday, May 14th, Mark said
I agree Jose. My point was that the work itself, if it is the artists own creation, even if it looks like another's cultural work that they may not be apart of is OK. Passing one's self off as an individual of a culture that they do not belong to is wrong. I could create Native American sand paintings and so long as I do not say I am a Native American there is nothing wrong with that (tho they may object).
on Wednesday, May 14th, jose said
Nicholas, I beg to differ, it is not plain wrong if a true and meaningful connection can be established and if the work that ensues is the artist's own creation.
on Wednesday, May 14th, josé said
Mark, I agree with you, but I am just not 100% certain about how this story has been told to us. On the one hand we are told that he tries to pass himself for something he is not, which I agree is objectionable, but on the other we are informed, and I quote, 'According to this artist's profile on the website of the gallery that represents him, during his time in the Northern Territory he was exposed to the artistic practise of the indigenous people and was later taught to paint in the traditional Aboriginal x-ray style by an Aboriginal Elder.' This statement doesn't come across to me as the artist trying to pass himself off for something he is not but rather as establishing a fairly reasonable connection.
Again, if the work presented was not his own but personal themes of those people he learnt from and if this gallery was indeed resorting to this artist to mass-produce much sought after works to sell to the passing tourist, it is indeed a scam... but then we are faced with a new question: who is to blame for this, really? The Artist? The Gallery? the Buyer?
When I passed through Alice Springs I overheard German tourists - they could have been American or Portuguese, same difference - ordering something the gallery had in it's portfolio... 'and could the gallery guaranty that it would be a close enough replica' - that was the precise image they wanted, without even caring to understand what it was about! Scam, of course, but I sometimes think the buyers themselves are happy to be fooled as long as they take back the loot and can tell a tale or two when they're safely back in their hometown far from the flies and the dust of the outback. The Tourist doesn’t understand the magic of the gallery owner telling him ‘come back in six month’s time, the artist’s gone walkabout, maybe he’ll have something ready by then’.
Want a massive heart attack? Go to Vietnam and see the perfect replicas they sell of Monet, Van Gogh, Klimt, you name it, shop after shop after shop they've got it, if not this week, tomorrow or the day after. That's just the way it is. If we travel fast enough we might just be lucky to fetch a brand new Lucian Freud ‘Benefits Supervisor Sleeping’ for cheap cheap. I wouldn't do it – I wouldn’t paint somebody else’s work, neither would I join the Foreign Legion or become a hit-man for no matter what sum. But no matter how much it hurts us there’s no stopping people from going down that track. It is, of course, shameful that a gallery should stoop to such levels and in the end it really is up to the collector/buyer to do his homework properly, fully understand what he is looking for and be willing to wait for the real thing.
on Wednesday, May 14th, Nicholas Forrest said
Hi Mark, my thoughts exactly. No matter which way you look at it, profiting from another culture and race is just plain wrong
Nicholas Forrest
artmarketblog.com
on Wednesday, May 14th, Mark said
The point here is not should artists learn from other artists and even in some way 'steal' from them, not directly but as a learning process. It is that an individual pretended to be what he is not to sell work. The work might be original, it might even be good, but it is presented under a false blood line. It would be like me, a middle aged white man, saying I am a Native American in oreder to sell my work. An artist should create what he/she wants, in what ever way or style they want, but should not pretend to be what they are not in order to make sales. That does only harm to all artists and buyers, and art in general.
on Tuesday, May 13th, norstar@telus.net">elizabeth johannson said
maybe the heart and spirit guide the hands, maybe the guides who imprint their stories spark creative work. maybe blood lines are only one way to link to and find connection and if you are an artist sharing stories and connection through your work may be a kind of validity that is intrinsic and outside of legal definition. i have learned much from shuswap elders, and it dances through my paintings. i am influenced by africa when i want to paint a response to darfur, the end of october i replicate some form of sugar skulls in the style of Freydas but maybe it is really all about blood lines, i am a viking so perhaps plundering is my heritage and defines my work.
on Tuesday, May 13th, walt said
Jose and Nick, the orphan works bill trying to find its way through congress and this story begin to show us all how complex the subject it. Jose is right when he speaks of how we all at some level devour and spit back up all the art we've studied previously. This is a truth. No one is born full grown from the head of Zeus. But there is the journey that Ann brings up that is part of the heart and soul of an artists work. Without that journey an artist has nothing worth saying. Then I would wonder if indeed they are an artist at all. And that belies the idea that making a living from ones art is the only definition of a professional artist. To not only plagiarize the work but also the historical kinship of another artist or culture is scraping the bottom of the barrel. But under most circumstances such role playing would be legal in America. I'm sure similar things have been done.
on Tuesday, May 13th, josé said
We must advance with caution and seriousness. It is a good thing that a style of Art cannot fall under copyright protection, if it could there would be no Art because Art needs to feed on Art, it cannot be canned into sealed individual units no one else can taste of without the risk of being sued. Art is about experimentation and renewal and the exotic element has always been present in whatever new appears. Gaugin travelled to the southern seas and brought back wonderful new paintings, Walter Spies used Balinese elements in the work he developed there, Picasso was greatly influenced by African Art, a great many artists get inspiration from beyond their studios. Australian Aboriginal Art is fascinating and well deserves to be investigated, deconstructed, adapted and many artists do indeed look into it and come up with fabulous work. However, if what you are telling us Nicholas, is that this fellow has not produced anything new and has merely copied the work of others and, if in addition to this he has claimed that these dreamtime stories – which is what aboriginal art is about - are his, than yes, I agree that he is a fraud.
on Tuesday, May 13th, isik@orange.fr">Ann Isik said
A lot of art produced today requires faith in the integrity of the artist. Fakers rob not only their purchasers, but the 'real' artists and do damage to the trust of art lovers and purchasers. As 'real' art takes years and years of work to develop and mature, cheating is at least, disheartening, actually downright destructive ... but gladly, also to the fraud him/herself, at some level. Thanks Nicholas for blowing the whistle on this piece of scum.
on Tuesday, May 13th, Mark said
There are those who will do anything to make a buck. it will never end and there is no way to stop it. One can only hope that those who do the wrong get caught. Here in the USA (the world over as well I think) there is such a culture of greed that even those who know of wrong doing do nothing because maybe they too can make some money. I do not usualy wish for past times, but if there ever was a time of honor, I wish we could bring that back, but then at the risk of sounding negative I am not sure there ever was a time of true honor. Maybe one day there will be.
on Monday, May 12th, Nicholas Forrest said
Surely it would be better to not be an artist at all than to produce fraudulent work?
Nicholas Forrest
artmarketblog.com
on Monday, May 12th, Strategy Node said
As a "starving artist" I understand the desperate lengths artists go to in order to make a living. I'm not justifying what he did, just saying that I understand it.
on Monday, May 12th, Strategy Node said
As a "starving artist" I understand the desperate lengths artists go to in order to make a living. I'm not justifying what he did, just saying that I understand it.
on Monday, May 12th, Brad Michael Moore said
Walt, You could also say America has fertile soil for this subject...
All I can hope, right now, is that the flames of descent have finally fanned - may they consume this US proposed Orphan Law before it becomes such - Great story to bring to us, Nicholas...
on Monday, May 12th, walt said
Nicholas,
I don't think there is anything quite like this in the copyright or fair practices law in the States. But it opens an interesting new can of worms.
A year or so ago I was made aware of a non-Aboriginal Australian artist who was passing himself off as an Aboriginal Australian artist and making quite a bit of money in the process. The artist in question was born in Sydney but spent time during his teenags years at a school in a particular area of Australia's Northern Territory that has produced many of the most well known and highly valued Aboriginal Australian artists. According to this artist's profile on the website of the gallery that represents him, during his time in the Northern Territory he was exposed to the artistic practise of the indigenous people and was later taught to paint in the traditional Aboriginal x-ray style by an Aboriginal Elder. The art gallery that was selling the work of this fraud did nothing to alert potential customers to the fact they might be purchasing works of art that looked the same as that produced by geniune Indigenous artists but were by an artist who was not an Aboriginal Australian. Because a style of painting is not protected under Copyright Law it is not illegal as such for this artist to paint in the style of Aboriginal artists, but it is illegal for the artist to promote himself and present himself as an indigenous artist when clearly he isn't. 
