Photographer Sam Abell talks about Richard Prince

Sam Abell's Marlboro cigarette advertisement photograph was appropriated by Richard Prince as part of his popular "Cowboy" series. Abell shares his view on this in an interview conducted Saturday, June 14, 2008 at the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA.
http://www.pdnpulse.com/2008/06/look3-video-sam.html

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Contemporary
• Art
• cowboy

[ryanfoley123]

Richard Prince.

[CatZula]

@jujybo100 Copyright has been around a long time--Prince wasn't really getting away with stealing with a lot of his work, he was surviving on lies and technicalities. The courts finally caught up with him...I'm happy for Cariou. Abell can't get his copyright back from the cigarette companies, and they seem to be more than happy to have Prince perpetuate their brand. God knows why the collectors and museums bought into the "theft"--which has since become a real theft of attribution.

[CatZula]

@jujybo100 I hear you. My problem with the free speech argument is that anything can be art (and specifically, anything can be commodfiied and sold as art...even being a jerk). It can therefore be art to run into the street and wave a gun wildly and fire of bullets randomly (this was actual surrealist idea), but I don't think anybody is going to argue that the police shouldn't stop the gunman because they'd be treading on his freedom of expression.

[jujybo100]

i dont mean to get all conceptual and make the actual issue about the abell photographs hollow, it is theft and i don't agree with prince so maybe i don't know what im trying to say, im not trying to change anyone's mind

[jujybo100]

and then again im not calling it reclamation on behalf of prince. i think that freedom of speech is valuable to any declaration of art because once you limit it one way your bound to limit it another way. that being said i totally agree with the decision of the court in the cariou case though that totally resigns my previous statement about freedom of speech. i just suppose that what im trying to say is that, idk, maybe prince is trying to be an asshole and thats art?

[jujybo100]

not necessarily mesmerized by the work because i find it pleasing but rather the idea that he can get away with it, and disgusted by that same fact. i'm not going to be the one to say that he's entitled to use these works the way he does and im not saying its not theft, i agree with you. i do think cariou is applicable in this case however because im thinking about the markets for the original works of art, i guess you could say that cig companies already closed the market on abell's photographs

[CatZula]

@jujybo100 Hmmm...not sure why you're mesmerized by somebody making copies (the Cariou-ripoffs are a bit more complicated, but this is a Sam Abell vid). And with the cowboy photos, they're just copies. It's funny, this whole freedom of speech issue has come up as of late. I don't think so. Again, it isn't the issue. Prince has stolen the images. He's selling a product. You might as well argue that putting warning labels on cigarette adds impinges on big tobacco's freedom of expression.

[jujybo100]

i am all at once mesmerized and disgusted by prince's works, and i have to assume that these feelings are part of what makes his appropriations art. i get angry when i think about someone discovering that their work has been taken by another and repackaged with a million dollar price tag, i sympathize with the likes of abell and cariou but also support prince's freedom of speech and expression. it must be art because it is accepted as such, but i also find it cruel that others suffer becauseofit

[monkeymanrobot]

@CatZula You, like me must really LOVE art!

You spend so much time on these total idiots, that are obviously trying to bait you with the stupid points they make.

I agree with you!

Please don't waist your time on them, because they, and others like them will all ways exist.

MMR

[monkeymanrobot]

I really like reading

CatZula's opinions.

I think they are right!

MMR