KM Viray
“American artist” Richard Prince filled Gagosian Gallery in New York City with his “artworks.” Why all the quotation marks, you ask? Many consider Prince more of a thief than a legitimate artist, especially his latest collection which are portraits of people he found while browsing through numerous Instagram photos.
His series, titled “New Portraits” features young females in a suggestive poses. The portraits are simply screenshots in an Instagram feed. Prince tweaks the comments below the images before he prints them on giant canvasses. Each of the 38 total portraits measures 65 by 48 inches.
Surprisingly, Prince gets away with this without going into copyright infringement by simply going through the loopholes in copyright laws. He makes enough tweaks in the portraits for it to be considered “new,” For example, under an image of Sky Ferreira riding in a red sportscar that he found and printed from Instagram, Prince wrote: “Enjoyed the ride today. Let’s do it again. Richard.” In the art world, those comments alone may qualify it as a new creation.
Richard Prince is known for appropriating art since 1975—that is, he takes the work of other artists, tweaks it a bit, and then sells them for bucket loads of money.
This act is supposedly not illegal. Apparently, copyright laws applied in the art world are concerned with one thing only: if the material being sold is a new creation, or if it is simply a copy of somebody else’s work. Once you change something, may it be a simple word or the color of a hat or lips, it’s officially yours.
Many, of course, have tried taking the matter to the courts, but to no avail. Prince keeps getting off scot-free and keeps on doing his controversial art-creation method–and earns much off of it, too.
Several subjects in the collection who’ve suddenly found themselves as modern Mona Lisas have expressed different reactions upon knowing their faces were being sold for thousands of dollars.
Instagram user DoeDeer says, “Figured I might as well post this since everyone is texting me. Yes, my portrait is currently displayed at the Frieze Gallery in NYC. Yes, it’s just a screenshot (not a painting) of my original post. No, I did not give my permission and yes, the controversial artist Richard Prince put it up anyway. It’s already sold ($90K I’ve been told) during the VIP preview. No, I’m not gonna go after him. And nope, I have no idea who ended up with it! #lifeisstrange #modernart#wannabuyaninstagrampicture”
The adult lifestyle brand Suicide Girls issued an good response to Prince’s appropriation of their images: the brand’s founder, Missy Suicide, sold the same images that allegedly netted Prince $90,000 for only $90–but this wasn’t for profit, but rather for charity.
What’s your take on this? What would you do if someone uploaded a screenshot of your Instagram post and sold it for $90,000?
