We Should Be Outraged at Shepard Fairey

Pablo Picasso once said that artists borrow, but great artists steal. For a great artist, Picasso could really be full of crap sometimes, spouting baloney like that. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I respectfully disagree with the greatest artist of the 20th century. And now I must assert that the corollary of his statement is not true. Stealing someone else's work does not make you a great artist.
I submit to the jury Exhibit A - the work of Shepard Fairey.

The first time I saw Shepard Fairey's Obama poster, which a graphical artist just RAVED about to me, I had two reactions. First, I did not find it all that impressive or groundbreaking. It looked like a poor man's Andy Warhol to me. Second, it looked, well, familiar. Like I had seen it before. LIKE IT WAS PLAGIARIZED!

Well, say I blinked and call me Malcolm Gladwell. It turns out my instincts were correct. Seems the Artist Fairey made his so-called "iconic" art from a photograph by one Jim Young, a freelancer for Reuters. Now I understand, according to a Reuters article, Mr. Young doesn't care that Fairey used his photograph without permission. Okay, that's fine, and I respect his forgiveness. However, I care. I care that so-called artists are taking the work of others, altering it and passing it off as their own. I don't know how anyone can rationalize this. If someone took a novel, changed some of the words and passed it off as a new work, where is the creativity? Where is the justice to the original artist?

Apparently, I am pretty much alone on this issue. I have been reading posts on a variety of websites, and it seems to me that Fairey is getting overwhelming support. The sentiments fall into several camps:

1. Fairey changed the photograph, so it is a new work.
2. All artists do this. All art is derivative. There is nothing new under the sun.
3. Anyone who deigns to write against Fairey is a failed artist him/herself, and the ranting is just sour grapes.

Let me respond specifically.

1. There is little new about what Fairey did. The image barely changed. I recognized it. Even the color wash he used on the stolen photograph was derivative of other works. Furthermore, those with far greater knowledge of art that I have demonstrate that Fairey has a long history of plagiarism without citing his sources. See this devastating analysis by Mark Vallen, and please explain to me how Fairey is anything more than a copycat.
2. No, "all" artists do not steal. Truly influential artists break ground. Who did the aforementioned Picasso copy? Stanley Kubrick? Stravinsky, who outraged people with the newness of his compositions? I don't believe that every artist can be a genius, but neither should they build heir careers on the efforts of others.
3. The people -- the true artists -- who are commenting are hardly failures, but instead have reputations built upon their own works. The Bad Shepard can't make that claim. I refer you back to Mark Vallen above.

Once when asked in an interview about people stealing his jokes, Rodney Dangerfield said with disdain, "Unimaginative people think everything is in the public domain." He was a funny man, but even he couldn't laugh off plagiarism. I hope someone is on our side when someone tries to steal our work as Jim Young's photo was taken.