And the donut, in this case, is the idea that somebody, be it an artist, or Bill Gates, can claim ownership of an idea, simply by proclaiming it first.

In the case of Lead Pencil, I think that the whole argument is really based on Regina poking Jen with a stick, and really is not based on any legitimate grounds- especially in the McMakin/Pencil situation, which, if inspected closely, are quite different in every way.

But the concept of why this is important- why Scott Larimore thinks it "unfortunate" to bring it up, why anybody really cares- traces back to the relatively recent idea of the ownership of ideas, and to the concept of singular creative genius, which, I think, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

In the good old days, artists actually learned by copying the work of other artists. The idea of two, or two hundred, artists depicting the same imagery, or using the same materials, or mining the same conceptual quarry, was not only unremarkable, it was expected. And how each individual artist expressed the underlying ideas, and the difference between the artists, was what we looked at.

Now, we are told that whoever gets there first OWNS IT.
Just plain silly, in my mind. For one thing, there are no new ideas. Everything has been done before. Somebody recently told me that in film class, they were told there were only 29 plots- frankly, I am surprised there are that many.

When we go to a show of nudes, do we ask- Who did it first? and then disregard every other painting?

I guess we can blame ol Marcel Duchamp- after all, he reduced the making of art to simply purchasing and placing commercial objects, something that anyone can do, and being "first" was one of the only ownership characteristics left.
(I must admit, I am a big Duchamp fan, and think there is much more to his work- and I love his paintings)

In her Stranger piece, Jen quotes various "authorities" who tell us we must google an art concept first, to ensure virgin ground, and others who tell us its okay to rip off dead artists, but not living ones.

Huh?

A couple of other recent examples of this issue-
SheilaWhoMustBeObeyed, my lovely wife, created a piece in 1992, called Vermonica, in LA, which is an arrangement of historic streetlights. http://www.sheilaklein.com/pages/vermonica.htm
Chris Burden, in 2007, created a different arrangement of historic streetlights for the new Broad Contemporary- http://www.artandperception.com/2008/02/urban-light-chris-burden-bcam-lacma.html
Now, as it happens, Senora Klein is not claiming plagarism- she thinks Burden is attracted to the streetlights for the same reason she is, and his recent piece has actually focused quite a bit of attention on her older piece.

Or take this one- My old friend, Boris Bally, has been making chairs from recycled street signs, and exhibiting and selling them around the world, since 1994, and in fact has a patent on them as a product- http://www.borisbally.com/view.php?category=furnishings&ID=28

He was recently informed of this show in Seattle- http://dropcitygallery.com/exhibitions.html

which says it features "original, one of a kind creations", which, on the face of it, seems untrue. Boris is pissed- whether or not the artist has seen his work, and, judging from how closely it resembles his, she probably has, he says it is a blatant ripoff, and that the artist should, instead, create her own distinctive work.

I am sure this sort of thing happens every day, and while some cases are more clear cut than others, the whole area is one that is extremely confusing, to my feeble old mind at least, morally, legally, and in terms of art world business practices.

Comments?

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There is such a thing as parallel evolution (to use a botanist's term) where similar but separate environmental pressures lead to the development of the same attributes in two distinct and unrelated species. In situations where the two are forced to compete with one another, only one of them usually prevails.

If you have any idea what I was talking about, let me know.

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Jim Demetre

And Ries: I'm not poking anybody with sticks. Yes, there are always similarities in art and in science, the same thing going on in two different places. But there are also quotes that turn into grabs.

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Jim Demetre

I guess we have to expect a writer to think like a writer.
But I think the metaphor is more about using words, or even alphabet letters, as opposed to complete sentences.

The most basic components of language, be it written, or visual language, not only can be shared among creators, they often MUST be, to make it comprehensible to the audience.

One of the "grabs" in the Lead Pencil situation is painting a gray rectangle on the ceiling- again, I question the ability of anyone to "own" such a simple building block of visual presentation.

And ownership is far more interesting a subject to me than who did what first.

As for the uniqueness of individual artists- well, of course, thats what makes art worth looking at. But that is different from saying that each artist is creating new ideas, each one never seen before in the history of the universe.
Pretty much all art, if you take it back far enough, is based on nature.
Nature can mean more than landscapes or still lives, of course- crystal forms, mathematical formulas, light and shadow,social interactions- all of these are modelled from the physical world, and no artist I have ever heard of is free from its universal influence.

How they express the ideas they pick from the rack is what makes em great or lousy.
Every single artist who exhibits in Seattle, or anywhere else for that matter, has elements of their work that can be compared to another artist.
The best, most inspiring work I have seen in the last year- say, Susie Lee's video sculptures, or Anthony McCalls big installation at Western Bridge, or Scott Fife's portrait heads at Platform, or Karin Ganz' Girl with Gun Email- all are clearly standing on the shoulders of artists who came before, none is free from similarities, or quotes, or even "grabs" from the past- and each is great because of the way the individual artist interpreted, realized, and explained the world thru their own eyes, brain, and hands.

None is "new". All had ideas in them that Bill Gates probably owns.

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The original post dealt with a significant conceptual premise, about a cultural unfoldment, "owning" ideas....the implications of which are surely beneficial to some within the legal profession, while likely problematic to the rest of us, or at least, to the rest of us who exercise any creativity.

I tend not to worry about these things, drawing images in my work from within a lot more than referencing the works of other artists. At least consciously.

But when I suggest that some artist's work "prevails" over others, I'm talking about audience response and, ultimately, the marketplace. Wasn't this story also about the Trues and their deliberations over whether or not to buy a Lead Pencil work? As a critic, I have no doubts about the artistic legitimacy of Lead Pencil Studio or Roy McMakin, but the do seem to be competing with one another in the same niche economy.

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Jim Demetre

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Jim Demetre

But really, what Jeffee and Jim are saying is similar to how I feel- that is, the expression of an individual artist is what makes an artwork interesting or not.
And not the underlying "idea", which, I still say, is almost never new.

But searching for inspiration within is process, not result.
And no matter where the inspiration came from, the result is still relatable to art that came before.

Process is important to artists. And as an artist, its certainly important to me. But when I put on my other hat, as a viewer of other people's art, I care less about how deep they looked within for inspiration, and more about the finished piece, and how it relates to the world.

What is interesting to me about art is what choices the artist made. Not whether they think they were making "new" choices.

I am not holding my breath waiting for new colors, or shapes, or patterns, either.

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Agree completely with Ries about process relative to what results...being immersed in ones inspiration is the gift that comes with being an artist. What "comes alive" in the experience of encountering an artists work is like the viewer side of what NSE noted about an artist's intuition, what people mean when they say, "I know it when I see it."

Given that words are the medium of this venue, lets toss in a couple more: "content' and "style." Like NSE, the work I like the most tends to have both visibly implicit depth and a style that curiously sings of originality.

Critical acclaim may account for an artist's initial breakthrough or a debut museum exhibition, but no artist can keep working at this level unless there is a demand for his or her work.

For an artist to distinguish him or herself from his or her peers in their chosen audience/marketplace, he or she needs to keep abreast of their work. That was all that Liz Brown seemed to being saying in Jen's piece and I agree with her. Artists who chose not to do this are in no way less legitimate than those who do, but they may be putting themselves at a critical or economic disadvantage.

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Jim Demetre

Somehow the following quotation from Matthew Collings in the new Modern Painters seems related, although taken out of context:

quote:

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Modern art makes a show of independence from society. Modern artists live in the same industrialized mass-production power world as the rest of us but act as if it doesn't exist, like Christians in the Roman Empire. The artists render unto Caesar the things that are his-in daily life they have to conform to capitalism the same as everybody else-but in the studio the values are different.

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Again and again, I come back to how the actions required of artists in the marketplace to make a living are directed by the forces of capitalism, and in our culture, burgeoning corporatism.

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Jim Demetre