In a college course called Advanced Image Manipulation, I recently had to give a lecture on Ethics and Legal Issues. My research led me into reading up on topics such as "Fair Use" and "Copyrights". It also led me to the work of Richard Prince, the "prince of thieves".
Prince was born in 1949, in the Panama Canal zone. He first started creating "art" in the 70s. His tactic of re-photographing photographs was something he did from the very beginning. It is not surprising that someone working in the world of fine art is using images created by others. The collage method that has been around for over a hundred years and has used "found" images from the very beginning. Andy Warhol simply copied the design of a can of Campbell's soup and made it into a painting. He became kind of famous. Artists everywhere use "references" to create new images. Artists traditionally copy other artist's work.
Prince's "Nurse" series at least had some involvement by the artist. He took pulp romance novel covers, scanned them, and had them printed on canvas. Then he added his own acrylic paint touches. Changing something done my someone else, to make it your own is sanctioned under certain areas of the fair use statutes.
But this is about something more than altering an image or using an image for a reference. Richard Prince is in a class by himself. But he couldn't have done it by himself. He needed the art world to enable and endorse him. No less than New York's Guggenheim and Whitney museums have exhibited his work. Even worse, Prince set a record in 2005 when one of those Marlboro photos sold for $1,200,000. It set a record for the most money ever paid for a single photograph. The only problem is that he didn't take the original photo. And to make it worse, he didn't alter or change it in any way. All he did was to re-photograph it and make a really large print. Subsequently, a second "Marlboro Man" ad photo sold for $3.2 million. No photographer before Prince had ever sold a photo for that much. Not one.
Successful commercial photographer, Jim Krantz, was quite surprised when he happened to be touring the Guggenheim and saw one of his photos being passed off as someone's own art. But not just passed off. Rather much more than that. This theft was being lauded and granted a showing at one of the most famous of art museums. Krantz has said that Prince's work is already out there, so what's the point of doing anything now? He's also said that he thinks Prince is protected by the Fair Use laws. Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be just a little more concerned than Krantz seems to be. Krantz has shot for many Fortune 500 companies and has probably done quite well for himself. But success is no reason to be complacent about outright theft.
The bottom line is that the Marlboro photos were not changed or altered in any way. And that is coming from Krantz himself. He created the original photos. He would know. I'm not an art critic, but anyone who says that a Prince re-photograph is valued art has some serious problems with understanding what creativity is all about.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/arts/design/06prin.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/how-did-richard-prince-produce-the-most-expensive-photograph-ever-850589.html
http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/art/11815/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Prince
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