Slog - Comments on Copying Art, Part 2 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2 Last week I ">posted here about about a piece I wrote for Newsweek on why museums sometimes exhibit copies of artworks rather than originals. I added an anecdote about the Getty's copies of Allan Kaprow's activity books in that Slog post, and here's another anecdote I ran into while doing the reporting. It turns out that Carl Andre copied one of his own works to cancel out the original because he felt the original was being so mistreated. Andre "completely disowned" his original, declaring it "a corpse." "And to force the point, he had the sculpture remade, displaying it in... Copyright 2008 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0800 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:40:30 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by inkweary What a prima donna. Michaelangelo's David was situated beneath a waterspout of the Duomo for decades: that's poor placement.

This is a slippery slope. If artists can "disown" a work they then make it valueless. This creates a dilemma for a purchaser: Why pay good money for an object that the artist may disown because he doesn't like the environment in which it is kept. An artist who gets a reputation for disowning is going to devalue his entire body of work.

]]> inkweary http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046366 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046366 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:19:12 -0800 Comment by Fnarf Slaves do not willingly submit themselves to the marketplace. If Andre didn't want people to have control over his (terrible) art, he had a perfect option: don't sell it.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046474 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046474 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:58:14 -0800 Comment by max solomon ahh, minimalism. will you ever stop boring me?

]]> max solomon http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046489 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046489 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:02:57 -0800 Comment by genevieve Am I the only one who finds Carl Andre 13 kinds of awesome?

]]> genevieve http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046502 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046502 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:07:27 -0800 Comment by elenchos It seems like this whole drama just made the sculpture more famous, and therefore increasing its market value. Which is not saying he shouldn't have made the copy.

]]> elenchos http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046721 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046721 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:38:01 -0800 Comment by Philly what i dont get is what makes the sculpture so great. It's a bunch of copper plates on the ground, right? I could do that. i hate this kind of art that takes no fucking skill. will some art nerd please enlightenme as to why I should like this peice or even find it remotly interesting?

]]> Philly http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046892 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046892 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:05:43 -0800 Comment by max solomon @6: because of the THOUGHT that it embodies. you COULD do it, but you didn't. Carl Andre did it, and backed it up with a blizzard of theory. For even more irritating minimalist art, look up Lawrence Weiner.

]]> max solomon http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046912 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046912 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:08:58 -0800 Comment by elenchos @6

You mean enlightenment other than the whole freaking article Jen Graves wrote about it? If you can't be bothered to make the effort to read then there is no chance you will ever find this kind of thing interesting. Which is not a crime; just quite bitching as if you're owed an explanation.

]]> elenchos http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046956 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1046956 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:14:45 -0800 Comment by Fnarf I made a copy of this piece when I was at Home Depot trying to decide whether to go with the cheap lino tiles.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1047008 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1047008 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:24:15 -0800 Comment by Eric F "My son puked a Pollock." There's half a century of this critique of modern art, and the critique never developed into anything other than a quip, and nobody changed how they make art in response to it, so could it be time to give it a rest?

Also, Fnarf, you're confusing property with copyright. They differ.

]]> Eric F http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1047343 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1047343 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:41:53 -0800 Comment by Fnarf No, I'm not. I never ended up buying the tiles. I just laid them out in Andre's exact pattern here, and then started shouting "I will not be a slave! I am a Free Man!" until they threw me out.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1047496 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/06/copying_art_part_2#c1047496 Visual Art Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:40:30 -0800