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...

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[Jay Grabiec]

i met and talked to sam abell this weekend. he is a wonderful photographer and an insightful man with an understanding and thoughtful appreciation for what an artistic image is. to say that he is one dimensional, antigen4,is ignorant.

manncura-for you to say that the creating artist ,sam, does not understand of his own image is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. and for this thief to take this image and make 7 million dollars off of it with no mention to mr. abell is a crime.

[CatZula]

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.

[rorrt]

What he did was legal...

Was it wrong? Maybe...

Would i do it? No...

[ryan foley]

Richard Prince.

[CatZula]

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.

[mike sanders]

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

[mike sanders]

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?

[mike sanders]

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]

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.

[mike sanders]

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