Who Owns Letters?

Yesterday was the first time I had ever heard of Jack Pierson. Do you know who he is? If not, read up on the recent controversy about his work and Barneys use of (very) similar visuals here, here and here. Here's a sample image of Pierson's work:

When I first saw a few images of his work the first thing that popped into mind was, "Oh cool, this guy took the chopped up lettering that you see in the movies for ransom notes and blew them up as sculptures." In other words, I felt he took something familiar and recontextualized it as art. Great. Good for him.

But what I don't really get is the fuss over Barneys making "copies" of Pierson's work for their window displays. While it's clear that their displays owe very much to Pierson's work, did Pierson own this idea in the first place? Does he have his "style" (copied from elsewhere) copyrighted?

Edward asks the right question in how do we even know it was copied (does the "public" have to recognize it or just the art world)? Meaning, if I had seen the Barneys display first, I would have thought the same thing above, that they made sculptures reminiscent of ransom letters in movies. Good for them. I would have never thought about this Pierson guy because I wouldn't have known he existed.

My question is this... why do artists have the right to approriate images from corporations/public but corporations can't approriate images from artists? Why do we celebrate an artist who takes the Starbucks logo and makes it into art but if it were vice-versa we'd throw a fit?

Is Pierson's "style" really that innovative? How much credit for it should he get anyway? Should I get all up in arms WHEN I see that some company has drilled holes into some pattern in their wall or something similar? I'm sure it has been done before and it will be done again. I'll survive. Do I really own holes?

I think an appropriate solution to all this is that Barneys should put up a sign or some sort of public acknowledgement that their "scultpures" were inspired by Jack Pierson and that the public can see his work at Cheim & Reid. That is, if they actually were (most likely). It's possible that they weren't since it isn't such an original idea to begin with.

I think it's very romantic of people to get up in arms about "protecting" artists. I also think it's a bit hypocritical... it's not a one way street. Corporations can rip off artists and artists can rip off corporations. What goes around comes around. Etc... Of course, I work in the corporate world everyday so I can see both sides.

I'd like to know if this has any effect on Pierson's sales...

What do you think?

[Related: You know who gets celebrated but Verizon gets bashed. Do we know for sure that Verizon did this? I would love to find out it was some sort of conceptual graf artist doing it.]

Comments

[Michael Fitts]

I don't see how he (The artist) could have a legal leg to stand on. You can't copy-write letters or words that are in the public domain. I think he should be happy that he's being copied and I agree that the idea isn't that original. He should back off and take advantage of the publicity before he embarrasses himself. If he plays his cards right his sales could go up. If he cops an attitude about the whole thing he could come looking like a cry baby.

[J.T. Kirkland]

I'm not sure how much crying the artist s doing. It seems to be his gallery... they sent out the email.

Idea still applies... I wonder if Pierson will make a statement himself.

[John M. Adams]

Good point JT - by the way - store used to drill holes in wood (ok masonite) and display EVERYTHING on it - it is called pegboard (but your pieces aren't pegboard).

[sean]

but NOW you have heard of this guy....

[J.T. Kirkland]

Exactly! So it was good for him to be exposed to a wider audience!!

Cheim & Reid need to just simmer down!

[Tim Quinn]

They copied his style complete with deadpan delivery and word-choice. No question they were copying his work.

Be ready to defend yourself . . .

[J.T. Kirkland]

I don't know Tim... the post has been up for 24 hours. Usually the dissenters appear by now. Based on the comments at Edward Winkleman's site (linked in the post), most people seem to say get over it. Artists steal too... can't have one be OK but not the other.

[Joseph Barbaccia]

You can own a work of art but you can't own art.