6 ms·

So normally I’m on the side of the appropriating artist with discussions like these… I feel that remix, parody and repurposing is important even if it doesn’t a

• ginko 4y ago
  His versions also generally look worse than the original.
  • bsenftner 4y ago
    A common misunderstanding of modern art is it's appearance has anything to do with the art. Modern art is a totem, a culture sign post, where the actual object of art is merely the milestone for the emergence of the idea. Before Roy's art comic books were actual trash, and he said "no they are not" and that is his cultural contribution. The value one sees in comic books and that medium today is largely thanks to Roy. But outside the formal art world this assessment is pretty much missing, which is part of the elitism of the art world.
  • Narretz 4y ago
    That's highly subjective. The distorted/incorrect perspective for example is a feature, not a shortcoming.
    • quadcore 4y ago
      True. The ellipse of the jet engine is "well" drawn. This is to exagerate the comic-like look one could say. Almost early Disney looking.
    • ginko 4y ago
      >The distorted/incorrect perspective for example is a feature, not a shortcoming. IMO it can only be considered a feature if Roy Lichtenstein ever demonstrated that he actually could draw correct perspective if he wanted to.
      • itohohvf 4y ago
        That's not how art works. If collectors and critics (and the public!) like Lichtenstein's distorted drawings, their opinion matters. It is totally irrelevant whether he went through a photorealistic phase. He could be said to be concerned with the picture plane, i.e. with the arrangement of shapes and colours on the canvas. The painting is broadly representational but the abstract qualities actually matter more in art. Art doesn't operate through skepticism, through doubting the artist's ability. It is about valuing what is in front of you, whatever it expresses or evokes. Nobody with any sense cares whether Lichtenstein could pass a Perspective Drawing Test.
        • quonn 4y ago
          A half truth. Some people care and are much more likely to value technically simple works by an artist if he is known to be skilled.
        • ginko 4y ago
          I do think intent matters. Take Picasso. He made classical paintings in his early career, then developed completely new styles over decades, very much demonstrating that whatever he did away with was done intentionally so. It's why Roy Lichtenstein isn't Picasso.
• bsenftner 4y ago
  The transformative nature of Roy's work was more obvious at the time, mainly because at the time comic books were bottom of the barrel products with nearly zero cultural respect. Roy presenting them as "cultural art" was flabbergasting for many, outrageous and highly controversial. It was barely a step behind pornography from many a person's view at the time - as is how repressed culture was at the time, before the "sexual revolution".
  • derbOac 4y ago
    I think the issue is that he wasn't just painting large scale canvases of comic book style art, he was literally reproducing existing comic book art. I usually side heavily on the side of free speech in intellectual property issues, but it seems like this crosses some line to me. It's not about the value of the form of Roy's presentation, it's about the credit and compensation to the artists he was copying.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      While I think there's merit to some of the arguments people are making in favor of essentially fair use, it's hard not to look back at his career and not think "He sure didn't go out of his way to credit his sources."
      • RuggedPineapple 4y ago
        An aspect of fair use is that it doesn't interfere with the actual market for the thing. A movie analysis, even one that heavily uses the work its analyzing to illustrate its points, is not usable as a substitute for watching the film if one wants to get the experience of the work. In this case one is taking art for sale, and using it as art for sale. Its possible some can view high prestige art and low prestige art as separate markets but I don't really. In my mind its more akin to taking a novel and abridging it to a novella. Same fundamental market.
        • smugma 4y ago
          Yet Shephard Fairey’s Hope didn’t meet the bar for being transformative.
• eternalban 4y ago
  > is important I can see it being important to the career of the “appropriating artist” but possibly you see other important concerns as well. I’m interested in learning what these important things are. [p.s. just occurred that possibly you have a sort of greater good equation in mind. Cultural shackles and stifling establishment and stuff like that. I’d buy that argument if the “appropriating artists” chose to work anonymously for the greater good and not make lucrative careers out of it.]
• TuringNYC 4y ago
  >> But this type of Lichtenstein work never sat well with me. The transformation is extremely minimal - minor changes to the scene, a new cropping, and conversion from ink to painting. I saw the examples in the article and agree with you. I wonder what prevents others from similarly appropriating the work of Lichtenstein himself. What if I were to take a Lichtenstein piece, rotate it, crop 2% of it and sell it anew w/o any royalties? Could the Lichtenstein estate really argue against it if the original its-self is stolen? Or imagine if someone appropriated an original El_Cap_de_Barcelona, could the Lichtenstein estate argue against that when many of their own pieces have done the same?
  • goto11 4y ago
    > What if I were to take a Lichtenstein piece, rotate it, crop 2% of it and sell it anew w/o any royalties? Could the Lichtenstein estate really argue against it if the original its-self is stolen? You should definitely try this, just to see what happens.
    • tough 4y ago
      Im going to do this. Lichtensteining the Lictenstein for the lulz.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • mrdrqr 4y ago
    The Lichtenstein estate wouldn't care because no one wants your copy.
  • Terretta 4y ago
    You need to gather reference copies of all of "his" works, then "transformatively" sequence them back into a comic book, one painting per frame of the story. The estate wouldn't have a leg to stand on, and any case would make the comic book sell better from notoriety.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    I've seen 'slowed down' versions of music on youtube under different account names than the original artist. Zero originality, and yet, they stay up. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcqFKzzYc44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcqFKzzYc44
• simplotek 4y ago
  > But this type of Lichtenstein work never sat well with me. The transformation is extremely minimal - minor changes to the scene, a new cropping, and conversion from ink to painting. If I handed something like that in in school I’d get eviscerated in reviews (or worse!). If Lichtenstein applied the exact same approach to the Nike logo and plastered it on tshirts, he would be sued to bankruptcy and beyond. To me it's obvious it's blatant, shameless stealing.
  • ghaff 4y ago
    You mean like the shirts Warhol printed with the Campbell's Tomato Soup can?
    • whitemary 4y ago
      No. Lichtenstein didn't paint depictions of comic books. He painted the actual images from within the comic books.
  • andsoitis 4y ago
    There are many many artists who use the Nike logo in their work. https://www.google.com/search?q=paintings+with+nike+logo&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari https://www.google.com/search?q=paintings+with+nike+logo&ie=...
  • tsimionescu 4y ago
    There are significant differences between trademark law and copyright law. Using the same logo may well be acceptable in a work of art; while using something that resembles it, even if cropped and rotated like here, on a shoe would be quickly stopped by Nike.
• singpolyma3 4y ago
  I have no opinion about the work in question, but let's please stop conflating that insanity of academic "plagiarism" with serious endeavours or copyright. What happens in school stays in school, the real world doesn't care how many footnotes you have.
  • ghaff 4y ago
    They actually do in many contexts. I assure you my company's lawyers want to know the source of any numbers or specific claims. And, while you may not necessarily footnote (though in books you often footnote/endnote), editors want support for various statements as well. And, yes, if I literally copy something someone else writes or the substance of it without giving credit and they find out and complain to my company--I'm getting fired if it's blatant (as I should be).
  • RuggedPineapple 4y ago
    I can assure you that the real world does in fact care about plagiarism.
• iamben 4y ago
  I've really enjoyed reading the comments in this thread, but it's such a tough one, isn't it? When does 'fair use' kick in? When has someone made something 'art'? Richard Prince wins for literally printing big Instagram photos, Shepard Fairey has to settle for the 'Hope' poster. A whole generation of artists are making careers from reappropriating classic cartoon characters. It's a murky line.
• stametseater 4y ago
  > To be clear, Lichtenstein is a very capable artist, and can produce very beautiful work that is (as far as I can tell) highly original. For example, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cap_de_Barcelona https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cap_de_Barcelona You had me expecting some demonstration of classical skill like early Picasso works, not... that.
• pmoriarty 4y ago
  This reminds me of Marcel Duchamp's moustachioed Mona Lisa: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/oct/22/marcel-duchamps-moustachioed-mona-lisa-sells-for-750000-dollars https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/oct/22/marcel-...
  • thecupisblue 4y ago
    Ironically, Duchamp's arguably most well-known art piece Fountain (the signed urinal) was also his friend's, not his.
• humanistbot 4y ago
  > But this type of Lichtenstein work never sat well with me. The transformation is extremely minimal - minor changes to the scene, a new cropping, and conversion from ink to painting. If I handed something like that in in school I’d get eviscerated in reviews (or worse!). The art from those like Lichtenstein, Warhol, Duchamp, Malevich, Hausmann, Pollock, etc., has to be understood within the broader international conversations around art at the time, particularly so-called "High Art" coming out of classical European traditions. It is intentionally subversive of what was the dominant mode of art at the time, because these artists broke through and fundamentally opened up 'art' to include literally anything. It is hard to describe how hostile the European Establishment of early 20th century High Art was to anything that was outside of the mainstream traditions. These artists were the Punk Rock of the time. - Malevich paints a single geometric black square on a white canvas, signs it, and puts it on a wall in an art gallery. Utterly unremarkable today, but it was such a scandal at the time when representational art was all people recognized as art. - Duchamp buys a mens' urinal designed and built by some random hardware manufacturer, signs it, and hangs it up on a wall in an art gallery. Duchamp later takes a print of the Mona Lisa, gives her a mustache, signs it, and puts it on a wall in an art gallery. None of this takes any technical skill in painting, sculpting, etc., which is part of why it was so subversive at the time. - Hausmann cuts out shapes from magazines, pastes them together into the figure of a man in such a seemingly-haphazard and crude manner that a 7 year old can do it 'better,' signs it, puts it on a wall, and titles it The Art Critic. The whole point was to raise a middle finger and say, "Who made you in charge of deciding what art 'really' is and isn't?" It intentionally takes very little of what has traditionally been considered fundamental techniques in painting, sculpture, etc. The point is that an untrained 10 year old child could do it just as "good" on a technical level of execution. So it shifts the skills required to constitute art from requiring years of expertise in technical execution of drawing, painting, sculpting, etc., to conceptual intervention. > If I handed something like that in in school I’d get eviscerated in reviews (or worse!). As you should be. When you take an art class today, you are almost certainly not training yourself so that you can shock the early 20th century international art establishment who can't see beyond the traditions of the old masters. Besides, that's already been done. They removed so many unwritten rules about what could or could not be considered art, but there is still a lot of value in the old traditions and techniques. It's like saying, "if I performed this punk rock song for my classical piano class, I'd get eviscerated in reviews (or worse!)" > To be clear, Lichtenstein is a very capable artist, and can produce very beautiful work that is (as far as I can tell) highly original. For example, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cap_de_Barcelona https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cap_de_Barcelona . I’m just not sure about the types of work shown in the article. At the time, the art that they were appropriating was not even considered to be art as such. Not even 'bad art' or so-called 'outsider art' or god-forbid 'degenerate art' --- it wasn't even seen as art in the first place. A piece of porcelain designed to be an industrially mass-produced urinal wasn't seen as a creative expression worthy to be considered 'art.' Same with the design of a soup can, or comic books. Today, this seems ridiculous, especially with the recognition of design throughout many industries. But it wasn't at the time.
• rendaw 4y ago
  What's missed in these discussions is that plagiarism doesn't just hurt the original author, it also hurts the fans. If you find a work you like, you follow the author to find more works with similar vision. If the author plagiarized it, you're never going to find those other works. I listen to a lot of Touhou arrangements/remixes. Some of it is barely a cover, some of it is so different you'd be hard pressed to identify what of the original actually remains. But it's clearly labeled, and I've heard the original, and I decided with full knowledge that the new work offered enough new ideas that I wanted to own it independently. Plagiarism is also disrespectful because it reduces the agency of the fan - it decides for them that the new work has sufficient merit and denies them the ability to make that decision themselves.
  • goto11 4y ago
    Comic books at the time where generally anonymous work-for-hire. The publishers like DC deliberately avoided crediting the artists. The original creators of Superman ran multiple lawsuits against DC, but only got a payout in the 1970's because the media attention became too embarrassing. Often the artists didn't even own the original drawings, so the comic publishers could sell the originals as collectors items without the artists warning a penny. So while I don't particularly care for Lichtenstein, I think the comic book industry itself (and indirectly its consumers) is to blame for the anonymity of comic book artist. Creator-owned comics and artist credits only really became mainstream in the 1990's. Interestingly, this is quite different from the European tradition, where artist were well known. No artist would get away with just swiping a panel from Tintin and present it as an original work, since everybody knew Tintin was created by Hergé (although to be fair Hergé himself had uncredited assistants.)
• tootie 4y ago
  I almost look at it the same way I'd look at Duchamp putting a urinal in a gallery or taping a banana to a wall. It's not the work itself it's the context.
• xtiansimon 4y ago
  I think looking back to the 1960’s from the digital age is distorting history. Comic books were low art, cheaply printed, cheap, and tossed away in the trash. Copying from a comic book and not giving credit is a sneaky rotten thing at best, but comics were childish and low-brow. Lichtenstein is like making a joke. I read Warhol by Gopnick and you get an idea about the pop art movement. Low-brow references were the material of their work just as much as their paint and canvases.
• Maursault 4y ago
  > But this type of Lichtenstein work never sat well with me. The transformation is extremely minimal - minor changes to the scene, a new cropping, and conversion from ink to painting. Meh. How many times has Madonna and Child been "plagiarized?" Here[1] is some kind of orgy of "plagiarism." If Lichtenstein had andy-worhalled the original work, enlarged and made prints directly from the original pieces, there could be a point. But even if Lichtenstein had painted these cells faithfully, a painting of another work is not the original work itself. But that's not what Lichtenstein did. He merely used the comic cell originals as subjects and drastically changed the appearance so that they are quite different from the original. If Michelangelo painted a faithful copy of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa such that the two could only be distinguished using paint analysis or something, the feat should and would be applauded rather than Michelangelo being accused of plagiarism. [1] https://www.pghcitypaper.com/arts-entertainment/a-unique-art-exhibit-includes-250-portraits-of-a-single-subject-whos-also-the-docent-1941511 https://www.pghcitypaper.com/arts-entertainment/a-unique-art...