Art imitating Art: Dylan Paintings Draw Scrutiny

FrankS said:
It is clear that one is a copy of another. It is clear which was first.
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Think of this, Frank:

If he wanted to copy that photograph, why didn't he paint it without colors, just like the photograph is? (Anyway I wouldn't consider it a copy either if we talk about a monochromatic painting...) My opinion is he wasn't trying to copy in any way, and he never thought it the way a painter goes to a museum to copy a painting using the same materials... He wanted two things, I imagine: to have fun, and to create something new from a point of view... I guess he got both...

What if Botero decided to make a sculpture based on any old and known painting, with some differences but in a totally recognizable way? Would that be a copy? I don't think so... Some may say it's not a fair comparison because photographs and paintings are flat... OK, and so what? That's not important in any way!

Both disciplines are very different: HCB didn't paint his photograph, but it was recorded by light through a lens hitting sensitive material... It took a fraction of a second... HCB did almost nothing... (Don't hit me...) Dylan did a very different thing, and indeed, he did paint "from" reality since the photograph is reality and nothing else... It's interesting...

To me a copy refers to repeating a process, and repeating the use of materials. This is not the case: it's not a copy.

Even further: a sculpture based upon a painting would be "a bit more robbery" because the first expression (the painting) was a creation by the artist, but in our case, the first expression was not a creation, but a reflexion of reality... Isn't Dylan as allowed ethically as HCB to show that very same instant of reality in any way he wants to? Or anybody else in the future? HCB didn't buy that instant forever, he just reflected it in one way: that's where his rights end.

And without doubt, Dylan's color painting of HCB's photograph shows how much Dylan respects HCB's photograph...

What I find truly interesting is it's reality -and how interesting and moving it is- what we're talking about: both HCB and Dylan can enjoy the same moment... I don't care at all if HCB was there and Dylan wasn't... But in some way he was there thanks to the photograph...

What if Botero paints a scene from a song by Dylan?

I see Dylan's color painting version of HCB's photograph, and I feel life in it, as I feel life in HCB's photograph... First, second... I don't care at all! Original, copy... Not in my book. Which one is better to me? None, really...

Cheers,

Juan
 
I love the way you bring an argument Juan, are you a solicitor by chance? If not you must really love Dylan!

So you must promise us here right now that if Richard Prince, or anyone else for that matter, copies one of your pictures like this and sells it for millions, as he has done before, you wont sue them :)
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
:bang::bang::bang:
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Quite. I suspect Dylan would have been just as eagerly defended had he used a flatbed scanner on the photos and run them through 'art effects plus' on his Mac. The case for the defence looks rather desperate to me.
 
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I think perhaps Juan is simply defending peoples right to do as they wish, unless he is an Uber Dylan fan of course, but along with the ethical issues this raises it is also an insult to everyone who makes original art.
 
I find this depressing. My opinion of Dylan has plummeted.
I wonder if he paid Chinese labor to copy and paint the damn things as well?
 
d_ross said:
I think perhaps Juan is simply defending peoples right to do as they wish, unless he is an Uber Dylan fan of course, but along with the ethical issues this raises it is also an insult to everyone who makes original art.
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This all reminds me of a wonderful Jim Jarmusch quote:

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don't bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from – it's where you take them to.""

You could of course argue about just where Dylan has taken these pictures to, if anywhere ;) Personally, I find the discussion interesting; the paintings and the appropriation itself, not so much. Doesn't bother me.

Curious: in light of this, what do you all think of Shepard Fairey's use of an AP photographer's picture of Obama, for the famous HOPE poster? (Fairey claimed fair use; AP and the photographer thought otherwise; they eventually settled. Mannie Garcia, the photographer, said: "If you put all the legal stuff away, I'm so proud of the photograph and that Fairey did what he did artistically with it, and the effect it's had.")
 
Curious: in light of this, what do you all think of Shepard Fairey's use of an AP photographer's picture of Obama, for the famous HOPE poster? (Fairey claimed fair use; AP and the photographer thought otherwise; they eventually settled. Mannie Garcia, the photographer, said: "If you put all the legal stuff away, I'm so proud of the photograph and that Fairey did what he did artistically with it, and the effect it's had.")[/quote]

Being on the other side of the world Ive only heard about this, but I'm assuming it fits well into the quote you offered here, in that he took the image somewhere it wasn't already at? Which is as the quote says where most art comes from.

Some people here keep comparing Dylan's copies to the likes Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons work, but they seem unable to see that in most cases their works also take the original to new places. It's a bit like photographing a great piece of architecture like the Guggenheim Bilbao, every photographer pretty much has their own viewpoint when they photograph it, it's still obviously the same place but seen differently, Dylan and others who do this didn't even try to see things differently!
 
Some people here keep comparing Dylan's copies to the likes Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons work, but they seem unable to see that in most cases their works also take the original to new places. It's a bit like photographing a great piece of architecture like the Guggenheim Bilbao, every photographer pretty much has their own viewpoint when they photograph it, it's still obviously the same place but seen differently, Dylan and others who do this didn't even try to see things differently!
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So when is it ok and when is it not? As in when is it seeing things differently (e.g. as Juan pointed out, adding colours, is that seeing things differently?)
 
sig said:
So when is it ok and when is it not? As in when is it seeing things differently (e.g. as Juan pointed out, adding colours, is that seeing things differently?)
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]If you look at the copy of the Cartier Bresson photograph for example, you will see that apart from painting it in colour everything in the painting is exactly as is in the photograph, right down to the lines of the walls in the background etc. There are infinite ways ways he could have appropriated this picture and taken it somewhere other than just project it and paint over the image, as looks like was done. For example Richard Prince who rephotographed the Marlborough Cigarette adverts, and then sold them for over A million dollars, photographed them from a magazine then removed the half tone via PS, then cropped the image and enlarged it greatly, by doing this the image, whilst still a copy of the original, had an appearance far removed from that on the magazine page. In other words he made a piece of art from a photograph, what did Dylan do? he made a painting of a photograph with no aesthetic or philosophical change whatsoever, he brought nothing to the image other than the false suggestion it was his own vision.[/FONT]
 
charjohncarter said:
So, how would you like to be me and suffer going to all those horrible parties in the 1960s with his records playing. I used to say, 'Do you have any Gene Pitney?'
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When I was a little boy living on the farm I saved and saved to by a transistor radio, then finally one day we went to town and in a second hand shop I found one I could afford, bought it, turned it on and there was Gene Pitney!
 
d_ross said:
When I was a little boy living on the farm I saved and saved to by a transistor radio, then finally one day we went to town and in a second hand shop I found one I could afford, bought it, turned it on and there was Gene Pitney!
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That couldn't have been better, wish I could turn on my transistor now and hear Gene Pitney. And not Robert Zimmerman.
 
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The more I read upset people's comments, the more I think a part of it was done on purpose by Dylan... It reminds me of the mid-sixties when he was sure his folk-acoustic-protest years had defined a huge group of followers who were indeed just trying to limit his style and pubic behavior into their own limits and beliefs, and then he went electric and his bet was poetry over social content... Maybe he already heard, before even thinking of the exhibition- that very strange opinion (to me) about his humble and enjoyable -and not pretentious- painting from photographs being "vulgar copying including the desire of stealing because he's not an artist and has no creativity"... I really think he doesn't need any kind of defense, but perhaps, he just needed the same he's always needed: pushing other people's barriers... But apart from that, he's been drawing and painting for decades because he likes it and enjoys it, and that part of his expression has always had a lyric character: I mean there's some art there too... No need at all to consider that his main expression, or one as relevant as his poetry... All of us can say what we think of all his drawings and paintings, but they express things to me and other people, and I've seen some of them since I was a child, and I would gladly own that painting he did from the photograph by Cartier-Bresson... I would be very happy if I had it hanging here at home... It's a unique piece of art and I'd prefer it to owning "a print" from that HCB's negative. And the painting shows the same fragment of reality the photograph did, and I admire both creators, and enjoy to imagine how both enjoyed the process of creating both similar but different works, and also how they enjoy their final results, and especially, how they enjoy our world and share it... Maybe this is about freedom. I find this whole story fascinating.

Cheers,

Juan
 
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