Shepard Fairey Admits “He Lied” About Obama Poster Image.

A new twist in the controversial case of Shepard Fairey and the copyright infringement case filed against him by the Associated Press has taken on a new dimension. Fairey admits he lied about which image he used to create the now famous Obama poster. He has also admitted to attempting to conceal the truth by submitting false evidence to the court and his attorney.

“In an attempt to conceal my mistake, I submitted false images and deleted other images,” Mr. Fairey said in a statement, released on his Web site. “I sincerely apologize for my lapse in judgment, and I take full responsibility for my actions, which were mine alone.” Shepard Fairey

Read More Here

Artist Admits Using Other Photo for ‘Hope’ Poster

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/arts/design/18fairey.html?_r=1

Fairey who has been represented by Attorney Anthony Falzone of the Stanford University Fair Use Project is now looking for a new lawyer. Falzone has said it would be effectively impossible to represent a client in this situation. Falzone is withdrawing from the case.

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/3136

The big disappoint here is that Fairey has taken the stance that he intended to pursue the right of an artist to use an image as a source under the Fair Use and Transformation  factor of copyright law to create a new and unique work of art. Which I believe is a very important issue today given the growth of modern media.

Before you get your back up stop and ask yourself the question, is there anything really new in the world of creating images that does not reference some historical source?

The whole issue is a Can of Worms that Fairey opened under false pretenses when he decided to lie and create false documents. I guess the question is why? Because under the Fair Use rule it would not have made any difference to his case according to his attorney Anthony Falzone. The fact that Fairey lied about which image he used however does change the issue. Now he is not an Artist who used a source image to create a new work of art; he is a, perjure, a liar. That changes the focus of his defense from Fair Use to Perjury.

Shepard Fairey has stepped up now, has taken full responsibility for his actions, and admitted his mistake. As disappointed as I am that he lied I have to give him credit for now telling the truth.

The truth is today it is far more complicated to make images than every before and it is just going to get more complex in the future. Just look at just about any TV commercial and you will see a reference to familiar imagery. The same is true in modern image making. We have all been assaulted with the imagery of the past. Because we are human, we react to the familiar. I think recognizing the fact that we individually do retain an image vocabulary of our own, built upon a history of images of the past; we need to be truthful to our audience and ourselves and give credit to the source, the influence. This may not help you as far as the Law is concerned but it will help you be truthful about your work and your influences and inspiration. It may help you make more honest art.

We only need to look back in time a short way to the DaDa and Pop Art movements to reference the obvious. Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans or DaDa collages. It is not about the source it is about the truth. We are not even close to figuring out the complexities of modern image making. What we have to decide as artists is, are we going to pursue the question or are we going to allow the courts to decide for us? If you never achieve fame, it is probably not a very important issue, but if you do, it might be. Guess Shepard Fairey found out.

An Important Footnote to the Story and the AP Case

Manny Garcia the Photographer who took the Obama image has filed his own suit against the Associated Press AP. Garcia stated in court documents that AP has never owned the copyright to the image in question. Garcia stated he was hired to photograph George Clooney and that he never assigned the copyrights of the Obama image to AP. Garcia contends he alone owns the copyright to the Obama image, which Fairey used.

Read my original post here:

Copyright Fair Use and the Transformative Factor, by David Eubank

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/copyright-fair-use-and-the-transformative-factor/

Check it out for Yourself

Resource: Stanford University Library Copyright and Fair Use

CHAPTER 9. Fair Use

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html

B. Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html#1

• Art and the” Man Made Continent of Trash”, a Photographer’s Fantastic Story.

I was in Seattle visiting my son and his girl friend and while waiting to go out and take in the sites of Seattle while they ran errands I read about Photographer Chris Jordan’s Photographic series “Running the Numbers One” in the Seattle Sunday Magazine. Jordan uses images to create matrix designs based on the numbers of things. An image of two large breasts popped off the page in juxtaposition to a detailed image of Barbie Dolls arranged in patterns that make up the larger view of the breasts. Jordan used 32000 Barbie Dolls to depict the number of breast augmentations preformed each month in the United States. When I got back to Montana I looked up Jordan’s website and found another one of his Fantastic Number Stories,

• “Gyre” 2009 by Chris Jordan, an image of a Great Wave made out of 2.4 million pieces of plastic that represents the amount of plastic that enters the world’s oceans every hour.

The image, made from plastic debris collected from the Floating Continent of Trash in the Pacific Gyre, is part of, Running the Numbers II, Portraits of Global Mass Culture another photographic series by Chris Jordan.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

• The Pacific Ocean Gyre contains a floating continent of Plastic debris estimated to be twice the size of the Texas.

I first read about the Gyre in a story about Captain Charles Moore who was on his way home from a sailing trip, from Hawaii to Los Angeles when he decided to cut across the area, little traveled by seaman on his way back to California.  Moore explains the Gyre as a Spiral that moves in a clockwise rotation created by ocean currents. The natural spiraling current traps debris and holds them in place. Moore estimates that plastic started showing up in the 1950s and has grown to an alarming size, thousands of miles across. The plastic floats submerged just below the surface of the water, undetectable from satellite images because of the reflection caused by the water.

• Garbage had historically broken down in the oceans until plastic came along.

Every year this new man made material increases its presence in the ocean and the Trash Continent in the Pacific Gyre grows. When I read the story, images of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty flashed in my mind about how the twisting currents of the Gyre worked on this manmade continent of trash. As I read more about the Pacific Gyre the more captivating, its relationship to the idea of entropy and natural systems is to me. This continent of trash is an unforeseen result of human behavior at work in the natural system. Un-natural materials discarded in a thoughtless manner now have grown to unimaginable levels that are affecting the eco system and sea life.

This Man Made Structure, this Continent of Trash is not only an extension of Smithson’s ideas about entropy it is at the center of the Chris Jordan’s idea of Global Mass Culture. Jordan helps us put into perspective the volume Global Mass Production through his imagery.

• As an artist I am struggling with the concept of such a large structure whose mass rotates in a natural form, the spiral.
  

But by reflecting on whirlpools and eddy’s in the river where I live I can envision such a fantastic structure created by the forces of nature. The image of such things takes me back to the late 1970’s Robert Morris installations where he used cotton fibers to create seas of cotton waste from the textile industry with mirrors calculated to continuously, reflect the surface into an infinite image of volume and mass. Morris was part of a group of process artists. (Process artists were involved in issues attendant to the body, random occurrences, improvisation, and the liberating qualities of non-traditional materials such as wax, felt, and latex. Using these materials, they created eccentric forms in erratic or irregular arrangements produced by actions such as cutting, hanging, and dropping, or organic processes such as growth, condensation, freezing, or decomposition.) These ideas seemed radical in art, difficult to adjust our thinking too back in 1970s and 1980s. It clear now that the minimal and conceptual ideas of artists like Morris and Smithson is a reflection of the natural systems at work in our earth environment. Unintended or manufactured the only differences are intent; the results are mirror reflections of the outcomes, like Morris’s fiber and mirror installations and Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Chris Jordan helps us to understand the Numbers by bringing perspective and Volume to the size of Global consumption.

• Out there off the coast of the Untied States in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is the result of a random occurrence of the accumulation of man made materials creating a New Continent of Floating Trash; a Floating, spiraling continent of Our Own Making; which will exist for an immeasurable measure of time.

Jordan’s Photographic images illustrate the fact that this new continent is sure to grow in mass and volume daily. It will grow unlike the Hawaiian Islands that Captain Charles Moore sailed home from, created by volcanic activity. Our New Continent will grow because of Human activity directly related to Global Mass Consumption without thoughtful contemplation of unintended results and because of our inability to understand the abstract ideas of volume and mass, our lack of understanding the numbers.

Links About:  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

Capt. Charles Moore Ted TV

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html

Chris Jordan on his Photography Ted TV

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html

Chris Jordan Website

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

Man Made Continent of Trash a Fantastic Story by David Eubank February 2008

http://davideubank.wordpress.com/man-made-continent-of-trash-a-fantastic-story/

Want to have some fun use Google Earth

http://earth.google.com/

Just type in “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and see the size of our new continent and where it is located.

REALLY, IT IS TRUE HE DID.

• The Wall Street Journal reports in an article “IF Things Weren’t Bad Enough”, by Andrew Osborn.

Professor Igor Panarin’s forecasts are all the rage in Moscow, America Disintegrates in 2010.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html 

• The Professor said that until recently nobody took him seriously, about his predictions. Now they are listening.

Professor Panarin says the economic and moral collapse the United States will trigger a Civil War that will end the union between states. The new independent states will realign themselves with foreign countries like Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Russia and the European Union. Of course, the Russians will get Alaska. Well they the Russians can see it when they look out the window. I wonder if they can see Sarah waving at them.

• The professor provides us with a map of the new AMERIKA.

The map is color-coded; I like that because I am an Artist. I like color. I like visual props it helps me understand information that is hard to imagine. Now I see the professor’s point his theory.

• To tell you the truth I am having a hard time with Igor’s theory.

First, he realigns California and Arizona with China, well they would go with Mexico don’t ya think, at least Southern California.

Then he only gives Hawaii to Japan. I think that Japan would for sure get more states especially where they have manufacturing plants like WV, LA, ALA, GA, KY, TENN, SC, and NC.

I would remove New Mexico from Mexico because the Aliens have already claimed them along with Nevada, so China looses one too.

Then there is the question of the Canadian section. I really think they will negotiate with Mexico over Arizona because there are more Canadians there than Mexicans. Florida too will surely go to Canada.

Now I wonder about Minnesota as most of you do anyway. But Wisconsin; no way will we give up the Packers to the Canadian league.

And those states he gives to the European Union, Nah I just don’t see New Hampshire or Vermont going that way let alone New York and New Jersey, they are well you know, it is a defiant NO!

As for the Western, Rocky Mountain States, NOPE I just don’t see it.  In fact, I just don’t see it at all with any of the states. Sure, we all have our opinions and we all have our differences, that is the strength of America.

Here in Montana we argue and debate all the time, but I can guarantee if trouble comes we will all stand up together and face trouble head on. Look at our Military they are not Californians or Republicans or Mexican Americans, they are Americans period and so are we all.

• Now to tell the truth things are bad in America with the economy right now.

But we all know we will come through this, better and stronger and just maybe smarter. Our Parents and Grand Parents did. And remember this Professor the world tested America in the 1940’s because some people thought we Americans were to weak to over come the Great Depression. But history is the definitive answer to that test.  

• And let’s talk about art.This is an Art Blog.

Modern Art owes its birth to the hard times of the past, the wars the depression. The artists and other creative thinkers were inspired and created a new world of intellectual ideas and art from their experience of the hard times.

Yes, the economy is hard it is scary and uncertain. However, the real deal the real important things are and will remain the same throughout this test, so be grateful, and be fearless. Change has come to America embrace it, welcome it and ask yourself what kind of America you want in 2009 and 2010.  We need to stand up together and fix what needs fixing and move forward as One Nation. And if those who would see us fail want to test us when we are struggling, well so be it. I for one don’t think it will work out to well for them.

As for Russia taking control of Alaska Professor I don’t think Sarah is waving at you, look harder I think she just has one finger up.  

I made my own map, I think it is better than Igor’s

My Map

Events have reached a new low for Robert Rauschenberg in Naples Florida. Seems he is the victim of a frugal trash hunter who has been caught recycling his art work.  Robert Fontaine a neighbor of Rauschenberg and the HW Gallery of Naples, Fla., improperly sold artwork under his name, complete with bogus certificates of authenticity, after Fontaine pulled discarded pieces from Rauschenberg’s trash. This may be better than gleaning aluminum cans out of the neighborhood trash bins and taking them to your local recycler. Rauschenberg filed suit to stop the sale of his work and to recover any monies gained through its sale. But the rub here is whose trash is it now. Yale Freeman, Fontaine’s lawyer contents that the Law of Abandonment applies to these found or discarded treasures. Depending on what the Florida court rules, this case could set a legal precedent that could impact all of us. I would still think that if the court rules that the art was abandoned, fraud charges about forged documents would stick. It just goes to show how untrustworthy some art dealers are. Other victims in this case are the buyer’s who bought the artwork thinking it was legitimate Rauschenberg’s. Fontaine one day saw this trash out on the curb and realized that is was Rauschenberg’s trash, says his lawyer. Fontaine then pulled out of the trash three roles of what are called chromes, which contained Rauschenberg’s signature. Fontaine’s lawyer say’s that his client is not trying to denigrate or degrade the artist in any way. But Fontaine is trying to sell the found work through his association with the Naples gallery. The report states that Fontaine is associated with the Aptivea gallery in Naples. To add insult to injury Fontaine received a 500 dollar grant from Rauschenberg to study art. While Fontaine was a student he put together a presentation of the found artwork for one of his art classes which he called “Walking with Bob”, say’s his lawyer Freeman. Maybe he should have called the presentation, “Walking all the way to the Bank without Bob”. So I guess that another man’s trash is another man’s treasure; maybe…

Yale, Fontaine’s lawyer say’s that his client thinks Rauchenberg is kind of really a nice guy! DUH, the nerve of this guy just frost’s my cake.

MORE: http://www.usatoday.com/money/2008-02-28-rauschenberg_N.htm