Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Art of Crime

As reported humorously by Stephen Colbert several years ago, artist Shepard Fairey was sued by AP photographer Mannie Garcia for supposedly appropriating the copyrighted image to create the iconic Obama HOPE poster.


Clearly, the photo at least served as a launch point for Fairey's art. Even Garcia appreciated how his original photo was transformed. So although the poster may seem directly derivative of the original, Fairey used artistic license to change its meaning to and effect on the viewer, and because of this deserves to call the new image his own.

It's hardly uncommon to use existing images to create new ones, but the line of possession is constantly changing. The elevation of a simple picture to art is a tricky matter but in the name of HOPE, Fairey pulls it off.

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