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The hot new trend in contemporary art: Plagiarism

Shephard Fairey is not alone in, um - what's the word? - building on other people's work. Thomas Garvey takes in an exhibit of ICA Foster Prize winner Kelly Sherman's work at the Barbara Krakow Gallery:

... Now I admit I kind of admire Sherman's conceptual chutzpah here - Prince and Levine appropriated other people's imagery, so why not just appropriate them? There's a neat little thrill to be had in that (along with extra points for ripping off those rip-off artists during their big Met show). Of course you have to be careful, and vary things just enough to avoid legal action, like the kind Shepard Fairey visited on those with the temerity to appropriate his own, plagiarized works. I admire this line of endeavor so much, in fact that I am willing to download any of Sherman's works from the Internet for you, and print it out with my signature for $1 less than she's going for at Barbara Krakow. ...

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Comments

Let me be the first to break it to you, Adam: plagiarism was invented a long time ago. These hot new artists are even less original than you make them sound :)

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Yeah, I know. But now they're immersing this old art technique in dramatic, exciting new forms.

If only they could give credit where credit is due.

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I think that this kind of artist have pretty much exhausted all the cleverly novel things that can be done and said, so they have little choice but to be derivative upon derivative.

I could map out the N-dimensional conceptual space and write a computer program to generate contemporary art works derived semi-randomly from that.

Sadly, I could not make the computer program be consciously pretentious and self-absorbed, nor would it be fabulous at openings and cocktail parties.

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It's worth noting that this isn't just plain old-fashioned plagiarism: this is plagiarism of plagiarism. That is, even the idea of "appropriation" is being appropriated. I guess this makes it "meta-plagiarism." A whole new -ism!

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Let me be the second to break it to you, Adam: plagiarism was invented a long time ago. These hot new artists are even less original than you make them sound :)

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... for funniest comment of the year, anon division.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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IMAGE(http://sitelife.boston.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/7/14/070a215a-9075-4b08-aef9-534517138530.Small.jpg)

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Upon visiting Apple's Cupertino, CA headquarters in 1983:

Bill Gates: "Good artists copy, great artists steal."
Steve Ballmer: "Oh yeah? Who said that?"
Bill Gates: "I dunno. Some artist."

Supposedly an actual exchange, portrayed in Pirates of Silicon Valley(1998).

The quote is from Picasso, I think.

-Cosmo
http://cosmocatalano.com
World's Toughest Writer

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I think it's Oscar Wilde.
"Talent borrows; genius steals."

Of course he may have stolen that from Picasso.

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It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest
It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief

The Fly by U2

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