Lichtenstein's Theft and the Artists Left Behind 1 1

[delekkerste]

If I did that at the art school I graduated from I would've been potentially expelled, not called a genius.

 

And how does the school feel about Roy Lichtenstein?

[Logan510]

If I did that at the art school I graduated from I would've been potentially expelled, not called a genius.

 

And how does the school feel about Roy Lichtenstein?

 

 

The effete snobs loved him, the rest of us troglodytes thought he was a hack.

[devilsrain]

If I did that at the art school I graduated from I would've been potentially expelled, not called a genius.

 

And how does the school feel about Roy Lichtenstein?

 

 

The effete snobs loved him, the rest of us troglodytes thought he was a hack.

 

thats pretty funny. You like Rothko? http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/11/10/rothko-paintings-auction/18830733/

[Logan510]

If I did that at the art school I graduated from I would've been potentially expelled, not called a genius.

 

And how does the school feel about Roy Lichtenstein?

 

 

The effete snobs loved him, the rest of us troglodytes thought he was a hack.

 

thats pretty funny. You like Rothko? http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/11/10/rothko-paintings-auction/18830733/

 

That's not really my type of work and to be honest I don't really appreciate it. I don't really feel the need to apply any deep meaning into a few color swatches and it doesn't enrich my life.

[kav]

But it's 'CHALLENGING'!!

[devilsrain]

If I did that at the art school I graduated from I would've been potentially expelled, not called a genius.

 

And how does the school feel about Roy Lichtenstein?

 

 

The effete snobs loved him, the rest of us troglodytes thought he was a hack.

 

thats pretty funny. You like Rothko? http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/11/10/rothko-paintings-auction/18830733/

 

That's not really my type of work and to be honest I don't really appreciate it. I don't really feel the need to apply any deep meaning into a few color swatches and it doesn't enrich my life.

 

yea not for 75 million.

 

 

[Logan510]

But it's 'CHALLENGING'!!

 

 

Probably what makes me a troglodyte, but I don't need to be challenged by a painting.

[wombat]

I don't know. The names of those paintings is pretty deep.

[kav]

I notice art lovers don't seek challenges in bars if that's supposedly their bag.

[Logan510]

I don't know. The names of those paintings is pretty deep.

 

 

One of my favorite stories is when John Byrne was in art school, they insisted on every piece having a title, so he named everything he did " man's inhumanity to man"

[kav]

[kav]

I think this piece is genius-it deconstructs the assumptions inherent in art while at the same time reinforcing those assumptions while challenging the viewer to re assess their own inner assumptions and at the same time embrace them. It's both insider and outsider art while breaking new ground entirely and standing the art world on it's head.

[Prince Namor]

No matter how you dissect it, or what insults you throw or how much you devalue the source material, one thing stands true:

 

Lichtenstein manipulated someone else's commercial art, to claim as his own.

 

Period.

 

 

I guess if you have a limited vocabulary, you could make that argument. "Manipulation" hardly covers what RL did to the source material. "Commercial art"? Heck, why don't we say that Roy appropriated from a graphic novel to give it more titillating impact. He turned trash into treasure, and that upsets people who like trash and feel they are marginalized by people who like treasure, which they feel is actually trash. That's really the crux of this whole thread.

 

No matter how you dissect it...

 

Lichtenstein manipulated someone else's commercial art, to claim as his own.

 

 

[Jeffro.]

 

Someone else's work-for-hire product, one panel out of a totally forgettable whole, was the starting point for something he transformed into art which most educated people outside of a handful of indignant comic fans consider to be truly great.

 

 

Most educated people think it is truly great? Do they?

 

I'll bet a lot of otherwise educated people don't even know the source material. These same people probably think RL created these images himself, instead of basing them off the works of others.

[RockMyAmadeus]

The defense of Rob Lichtenfield or whatever is that "spoons" name is..

is indefensible in a comic book chat room

Russ Heath is revered in the comic community and here on these CGC boards, a lamb among wolfs

to defend the wolf on a comic chatboard is frankly as about as low down as possible

 

 

Best post in the thread.

 

[Jeffro.]

"Lichtenstein manipulated someone else's commercial art, to claim as his own."

 

This.

 

Not you too, Andrew.

 

Is that statement not true Gene?

 

Someone else's work-for-hire product, one panel out of a totally forgettable whole, was the starting point for something he transformed into art which most educated people outside of a handful of indignant comic fans consider to be truly great.

 

 

The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use

 

In a 1994 case, the Supreme Court emphasized this first factor as being a primary indicator of fair use. At issue is whether the material has been used to help create something new or merely copied verbatim into another work. When taking portions of copyrighted work, ask yourself the following questions:

 

Has the material you have taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning?

 

Was value added to the original by creating new information, new aesthetics, new insights, and understandings?

 

In a parody, for example, the parodist transforms the original by holding it up to ridicule. At the same time, a work does not become a parody simply because the author models characters after those found in a famous work. For example, in a case involving the author J.D. Salinger, an author wrote a book in which a character known as Mr. C was allegedly modeled after the character of Holden Caulfield, from Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. After Salinger sued, the sequel’s author claimed that his work was a parody, an argument rejected by the district court primarily because the work was not transformative. Aging the character and placing him in present day does not add something new, particularly since the character’s personality remains intact as derived from the original work. (Salinger v. Colting, 641 F. Supp. 2d 250 (S.D. N.Y. 2009).)

 

Purposes such as scholarship, research, or education may also qualify as transformative uses because the work is the subject of review or commentary.

 

EXAMPLE

 

Roger borrows several quotes from the speech given by the CEO of a logging company. Roger prints these quotes under photos of old-growth redwoods in his environmental newsletter. By juxtaposing the quotes with the photos of endangered trees, Roger has transformed the remarks from their original purpose and used them to create a new insight. The copying would probably be permitted as a fair use.

 

Determining what is transformative—and the degree of transformation—is often challenging. For example, the creation of a Harry Potter encyclopedia was determined to be “slightly transformative” (because it made the Harry Potter terms and lexicons available in one volume), but this transformative quality was not enough to justify a fair use defense in light of the extensive verbatim use of text from the Harry Potter books. (Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. v. RDR Books, 575 F. Supp. 2d 513 (S.D. N.Y. 2008).)

 

 

While RL's use was certainly commercial, it quite easily passes the transformative factor test. New expression? Check. New meaning? Check. New aesthetics? Check. So, basically you're left with, "B-b-b-b-b-b-but he's still a bad guy!" and "Modern and contemporary art is all a big scam and comic art is underappreciated!" Never mind the fact that it was the publishers and work-for-hire system that gave no ownership or voice to the artists in question, that they were paid maybe a buck or two at most for any of the panels RL appropriated (all of which would be forgotten/worthless without RL), or that the artists weren't even always credited and that RL did, have positive things to say about those artists (as we know from interviews from the mid-1960s).

 

No matter how you dissect it, or what insults you throw or how much you devalue the source material, one thing stands true:

 

Lichtenstein manipulated someone else's commercial art, to claim as his own.

 

Period.

 

I love the forgettable whole argument. wildly_fanciful_statement. He wants to praise RL while at the same time denigrating the source. RL didn't have mess without the panels he modified.

[delekkerste]

I love the forgettable whole argument. wildly_fanciful_statement. He wants to praise RL while at the same time denigrating the source. RL didn't have mess without the panels he modified.

 

Uh yeah, because he couldn't have created his own images if he wanted to. But, that wasn't (part of) the point of Pop Art. RL didn't have jack without the panels he modified? He was doing interesting work before his comic paintings and he did a lot of interesting work afterwards as well. But, go on and tell me how he was nothing without those comic panels.

[Rip]

Gene, just think if we discussed In Advance of the Broken Arm by Duchamp or Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning.

 

The debate brought into the early 20th century by Duchamp is; should art reflect an artist’s skills, or even be handcrafted by the artist. Duchamp stated that an artist could create simply by making choices.

 

Artists like Duchamp were key in shifting “retinal” (pleasing to the eye) artwork to the “intellectual” thereby challenging traditional notions that beauty is a defining characteristic of art.

 

Pop art (which first came from Britain) is challenging the art world, focusing upon the popular Mundane (low art) and raising it to a high. Its moot if the pop artist grabbed Health, Abruzzo, Kirby or a Lollypop ad. It is important that he something grabbed something mass produced and considered not art.

Production, process and mass culture are now a focal point. Ben day dots, irony and witt are now the key elements in the context of a running dialog within the art gallery.

 

Do people think of Tony Abruzzo when they think about the Ben Day dot process or do they think about Lichtenstein?

 

The irony lost is the many criticisms in the thread are in fact what continues to give these pieces life.

[kav]

Skill: not required

Originality: not required

Come up with a gimmick: required

 

That's your art world

[ft88]

Art builds on top of other art. RL owes a lot to Duchamp as much as anybody. RL and Warhol would likely be the first to celebrate the idea that they lifted the images from elsewhere, then deconstructed them ____________ __________ ________ (ad lib your own art history lingo).

 

Duchamp forced the art world, and eventually influencing the world at large, to view everyday items as fine art. Love him or hate 'em Duchamp is held in the highest esteem for this aspect alone.

 

Fast forward to RL and Warhol. Warhol celebrated the insanity of the art collector, pop culture, fame and art for art's sake combined with famous for being famous.

 

As has been stated in many a way, RL elevated comic art the same way Duchamp did. RL plagiarized Duchamp as much as Heath.

 

I guess what impresses me the most is whether or not the artwork and artist changed the way the world (art world, world at large etc) thinks about things. Duchamp did with all things; RL did with comic art. RL isn't original and celebrated for the images that he lifted, its for how he made the art world and world at large look at comic art.

 

That the panels are throwaway comic panels in their original form is exactly the point. RL's reconstruction makes you look at them more than the usual 3 seconds we might give. Sure, anyone can respond with a cynical "who cares", but that can true of any fine art, modern or otherwise. Same with Duchamp.

 

If you don't want to go to that existential world of art for arts sake and artistic deconstruction, I truly find that a legitimate way to view the world. It's certainly the world I live in 99% of the time. But many, especially folks who enjoy modern art, really find it rewarding to wander into that world.

 

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

 

It's a throw away line, or it can make you think in circles.