I’ve met Idiot the Wise, aka !Inspire! on Flickr, and came across a call for arts towards the Inspire Collective Art Show (to be shown in galleries and on the streets of Tel Aviv). Such a great concept. You could check out the Flickr gallery for the first show here.
The MotionGrapher website posed an interesting poll about Shephard Fairey’s infamous Obama poster and Milton Glaser’s critical review. Another critique of Fairey’s work is on artist Mark Vallen’s blog. Earlier, the New York Times published an article, indicating that Fairey’s suing the Associated Press to combat copyright infringement. “The suit asks the judge to declare that Mr. Fairey’s work is protected under fair-use exceptions to copyright law, which allow limited use of copyrighted materials for purposes like criticism or comment.”
I think it depends upon the intention of the artist, whether or not the work is a commentary (falling under fine arts arena) or promotion/advertisement (commercial arts). Public figures are subject to scrutiny and critique–political cartoons and satire are evidence of this–but money always complicates matters. Andy Warhol displayed familiar faces and icons in his work–it was a social commentary on popular culture, but if you look at his commercial work, it was original. With Fairey’s work, he started out in graffiti/street art. Much like the tattoo realm, street arts sometimes take artwork from their original context and places it into a different medium, with or without the original artist’s consent. It’s the nature of the beast and hard to control. From one point of view, it is plagiarism, but in another view, it’s imitation and sometimes viewed as flattery. For fine arts, there shouldn’t be a limitation on creation/expression as it’s personal and an expression of one’s self, but with commercial arts, there should be greater sensitivity to copyrights.
I came across the print shop of MFA Talon Printing in my research for fine art printers. As an artist, this print shop offers great options: serigraph (silkscreen), giclee, and various techniques (gold leaf, UV coating, and metallics). They claim to be the “one of the first fine art printing studios in the country to produce Fine Art Books entirely in silkscreen” but be prepared to stash away some money as they retail for $5,000 to $7,000 for each portfolio book.
. Art by Sherrie Thai of ShaireProductions.com
Sorrow is my third piece of the Heritage Series (Ghosts of Khmer Rouge and Contemplation), a self-initiated project concerning the historic atrocities in Asia. Originally a personal tribute to my family in regards to their experiences via the Khmer Rouge, I think this particular piece is applicable to the current events as war is still prevalent. Regardless of your position, the effects of war is saddening.
The background of this image was similar to the rest of the Heritage series–patterns from a brush pen infused with a cloud texture in Photoshop. I’ve always loved trees and thought they have many human aspects. The trees of Angkor Wat have so much life to them–they seem to cry out in pain. Combining horror elements with social themes may have a greater impact to the message of the artwork.
