There is some contest thing going on right now with DA and Shepard Fairey. I don't do contests really so I haven't bothered with finding out more. My journal is about the ideas surrounding Shepard Fairey as an artist.

His work is famous, it's in many fantastic museums. Many people think his Obama image is one of the most profound pieces of Presidential Artwork in easily a century. I neither truly agree or disagree. I think contemporary criticism can only speak to the contemporary power of a piece, and to give it a place in history now is for those who know nothing about how history works. I liked the image, I like a number of his works.

The issue that many take with his work is that he uses other people's work directly as inspiration without crediting them. Some people think that this use in and of itself is a problem, I respectfully disagree. Being a libertarian and an American I have a keen sense of property and the infringement of others on what is mine. The difference I have with people is that I believe art is inherently communal. A painting that I have commissioned not to be art but to be mine is not art. it is a painting and not all paintings are art.

The problem i have with Shepard Fairey is that he wants this principle both ways. He wants to sue people for stealing his art but claims he can use other people's work in his art under the doctrine of fair use. If he believes that all artwork is communal then I understand his use of AP photos and other artists work as inspiration. That however precludes him from suing others for using his artwork in their own works. If he believes that the work of an artist, even a commercial artist, is theirs alone then that precludes him from using other people's work to create his own. I do not care which side fo the fence he is on but if he wants to straddle it I am not okay.

I am a firm believer that art is what people do when they need to express or expose some truth they cannot express other ways. Sometimes this is holding a mirror up tot he world and showing us all the world through the artist's perceptions. Sometimes this is abstractions of emotional states where the artists seeks to express or emote something they have no words for. Sometimes this is the application of a philosophy upon something created for a practical purpose. Sometimes it is simply telling us a story made up of lies in order to tell us the essential truth within all stories. All of these examples be they a Hokusai print of Mt. Fuji or an Edgar Allan Poe poem or a Frank lloyd Wright building are all created to become a part of the community and to inspire and revel for others the truth the artist was trying to access.

Many people think of these as belonging to the artist which is a legally sound ideal, I simply do not share it. When i make art I make it because it needs to be made. I have stories or thoughts that need to be communal and I make them that way through my art. I understand the legal principles and in truth I am fine with artists who want to copyright their work. I don't consider anything you want to copyright art, I consider it work product. There is also a very distinct difference between selling a painting (the original work or a print thereof) and the idea of suing someone for copying it.Artists sell their art to eat, that no betrayal of the principle, but when they attack other artists for drawing inspiration from their work, that betrays the ideal.

For example, the Obama "Hope" image has spawned dozens of pieces. Some of them simply use the design schema, some directly alter the original. Some artists have tired to sell prints of the pieces they have done which copied Shepard Fairey's original piece. If i made a GW Bush poster that said "Hopeless" and wanted to sell prints, I'm simply inspired by the original idea and I am taking it in my own direction. What about my work is theft? That very thing is what Shepard Fairey sued several artists over and that litigation offends me. That litigation, that attack on a fellow artist means his work is no longer art, it's work product. Just like a corporate logo or car design, it's artistically done but it is not art. In essence Shepard Fairey took the artistic value out of his own work by making his ideas a commodity.

I don't think people who love his work are wrong. I don't think people who disagree with me are wrong either. I think we simply take differing views of the concept of art. One of the best things about art and conviction is we can all be right and all be wrong at the same time. we argue and push our views and they convince or not based on their own merits. What could be more essentially human than that?