Kennedy, R. (2007, December 6) If the Copy Is an Artwork, Then What’s the Original? The New York Times
Link here
This article brings up an interesting angle of appropriated art; what happens when the creator of the appropriated piece sees his work next to another (wo)man's name? To give a brief background, Artist Richard Price makes art by blowing up ads from magazines. Jim Krantz takes pictures for magazines and his pictures have been the subject of Mr. Prince's work. Jim Krantz's dilemma, that of being the victim of appropriation, brings up two points for me. First is that there is no line between craft and art, and whatever line critics try to draw is only as thick as their egos. Secondly, manipulating any aspect of a picture or found object that somehow causes a viewer to become more engaged with a picture or object, is art's game.
Krantz mentions in this article that “there’s not a pixel, there’s not a grain that’s different" in Richard Prince's works. He complains that he doesn't understand why he shouldn't get some credit. And the answer is really simple, when he published those pictures, no one gave them a second look. He was creating an advertisement that was only held in America's psyche for a matter of moments. Maybe some people saw it and said to themselves, "oh that's pretty" or "I could really use a cigarette" but I doubt that anyone contemplated the piece. Mr. Prince, by manipulating the work's size, gave it something it lacked before, iconic status; suddenly the picture deserved a second look. If Mr. Krantz had taken his pictures and played with size, maybe he would be selling his works at auction, but that's not the case.
As a point of comparison, Mr. Krantz asks, “If I italicized ‘Moby Dick,’ then would it be my book? I don’t know. But I don’t think so.” His comparison is moot because Moby Dick isn't an ad in the paper, or a short story on page 263 of Reader's Digest, its already an American Classic. Italicizing Moby Dick wouldn't do anything for the reader other than giving them a headache. If anything, I believe that Mr. Krantz is a little upset that he didn't think about size as a mitigating factor in how we view pictures. Nor should he, really, because he wasn't taking the pictures for art's sake, but to sell cigarettes.
At the risk of shooting myself in the foot, I posture, should Roy Lichtenstein owe comic writers anything? Should Robert Rauschenberg pay royalties to the tire company that made the tire in First Landing Jump? Probably not. And even though Mr. Prince is really maxing the envelope here (which might be part of his art's greatness), the same applies.
