So I woke up this morning thinking about this venue of artblogging, and I came upon the article in the NY Times about Shepard Fairey confessing to a copyright violation for using an AP image in his famous “Obama Hope” poster. Of course I, like everyone else in America is familiar with the poster and image. But the artist, I wasn’t so familiar with, at least I thought.

But then I recalled taking a photo of an interesting installation in a window in Chelsea a few weeks back. The image (seen above) was of boy-band looking thugs in a graphic, silk screened, monochromatic etching style. These otters were striking a pose holding weapons against a floral patterned designed wallpaper. The image was very sexy, so I thought that it may be interesting to keep track of the artist.

In the bottom right corner, was that familiar stencil, the one plastered and spray painted all over the country. I’ve since learned that the image is of Andre the Giant. When I first moved to NY a number of years back, I would see it everywhere. And I really hated it. It was not particularly attractive, and it was so over-exposed, it seemed to me that some no-talent hack was doing his very best to try and gain some notoriety.

New York is plastered with graffiti. It’s one of the things New York is known for. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Rudolph Giuliani had almost all of New York stripped of it, and there is a law in place now that puts the responsibility of cleaning it up on the owners of the establishment who get tagged. I’m certain that there is a loop hole somewhere in the law that allows for some of the quality graffiti (probably a permit and payment to the city.) But for the most part, the city has been stripped clean.

So when I would see these Andre The Giant stencils all over the city, I thought, who is this hack who has stenciled this crappy image all over the place? I certainly didn’t recognize Andre the Giant in the image, and even if I did, who cares (no offense to Andre’s loved ones, but seriously.) I’ve seen some amazing graffiti around the city. These days, the most impressive celebration of graffiti can be seen on the 7 train, as you head toward PS1 from Manhattan.

Graffiti artists, taggers, are true artists. The do their work under the cover of night. They work with the laws against them.  In New York, spray paint is locked up behind the counter. Taggers do their work over days, weeks, and months, adding a little bit more to their illegal public murals. And in many cases, the work is spectacular. Some are art school grads, but for the most part they are self taught. The each have their own pseudonyms, and special signature icon, and generally a signature style.

By comparison to real graffiti art, Andre the Giant’s image was crap.

So when the Obama Hope poster first came out, I thought that it was appropriately generic and perfect for the audience.  It was immediately accessible and the image was obviously appropriated. Perhaps I had seen it before because I’m an NY Times online junkie, but I could have seen that image anywhere before the poster came out. It even crossed my mind when I first saw it that there must have been some association with it to the original image, because it was clearly using an image that was out in the public sphere.

When I heard that the poster was winning accolades, again, I thought that it seems like a misguided attempt to raise some unknown self-made artist-next-door onto the wave of Obama’s populist movement. The most original aspect to it is the word “hope” which, while appropriate for the cause, didn’t seem so incredibly profound. Bush was gone, regardless of whomever won.

In analyzing the poster, obviously the Obama campaign had already been branded, as seen in the button Obama is wearing in the poster. The colors chosen were orange-red, white, and cyan, which I guess is in interesting twist on the classic red-white-and-blue. So “hope” was the most ingenious aspect of this poster? I think that the logo design is genius. But the poster seemed very bland.

So in reading the article, apparently Shepard Fairey claimed to have used a completely different image, and counter-sued the AP, who had sued him for copyright violation. He went as far as referencing a different image, and creating development sketches, after the fact, to bolster the claim.

Dude, are you serious? Do you really take us all for idiots?

For graphic designers, (as he is, and I am) copyright is an issue from the start. The whole existence of graphic designers is based on the work of other peoples words. We are hired to take those words, and display them in a fashion most easy for viewers to read, comprehend, and absorb.  Surprisingly, it is quite a lot of work. And the better the graphic designer, the less work it appears the designer has done.  Because it is our job to make the words and ideas pop. So Shepard Fairey definitely has great graphic design skills.

But as graphic designers we are constantly challenged by the decision, especially in today’s world of easy access to images, to either purchase stock imagery or create it ourselves. Custom photography or illustration can takes weeks to perfect. Selecting a group of stock images, manipulating them in Photoshop, and having the client choose one, cuts out an incredible amount of work. The cost of stock imagery is so much cheaper than the process of presenting concept sketches and completing the rendering. In other words, copyright is always a the forefront of any designers consciousness. So who did he think that he was kidding?

There were options that Fairey could have chosen to argue his use of the image.

The first would be oversight.  Oops, I meant to pay for the images, but in my business, I forgot. What do I owe you? Please sir, don’t gouge me, I’m a starving artist. I’m not sure of the order of events, but if he already was getting recognition, it would have been easy, and possibly gone under the radar.

Or he could have argued that it was a form of Appropriation art, a movement widely recognized in the art world as conceptual art.

Most of my conceptual artworks reveal themselves only after I have made the work. I’ll think of an idea, begin production, work on it forever, complete it, hate it, and in hindsight realize, hey, this is what I was thinking about when I was doing this piece. So when people ask about its meaning later, It sounds like the concept was thought through before the work was executed. He may not have won the court case by arguing that it was a form of appropriation art, but it would have been a respectable argument.

Or perhaps he could have argued that the actual image he appropriated didn’t matter because the poster combined enough new content that it was a wholly new work. Again, not sure that it would have won the case, but an understandable crossing of a fine line where you didn’t think that you crossed.

No, instead, he went down the path of morons. The path that promised the greatest humiliation, and at the greatest cost to his reputation. I’m sure there is a parable about this. If there isn’t there should be.

Perhaps it’s not all bad. I’m writing about it. And now I know who he is. I think that he’s an idiot. You know what they say, the worst press is no press. I’m not sure that is true in the case where you look like a total loser.  But I do love his images of boy-band otters pretending to be bad boys.

On my rounds a few weeks back of the galleries, I stopped into Printed Matter to check out if there was anything titillating for me to browse through. One of my favorite things to do, especially when I was a student, is to spend hours thumbing through books at the bookstore.

I haven’t been doing that so much lately, partly due to the fact that there really aren’t many bookstores left. Barnes & Noble and Borders Books put all the mom-and-pop shops out of business, and now Amazon has been doing the same to B&H and Borders. It’s amazing to watch evolution at work before our very eyes.

So I got there early on Saturday moring, to try and beat the crowds. In general I love crowds, but when you’re trying to get something accomplished, the crowds in NYC can be debilitating. The first encounter I had was with Leandro Erlich’s “Swimming Pool” installation, which was really quite fun, and initially jarring. You approach the piece from above. It is designed to look like a swimming pool and accompanying deck.  You peer into the crystal blue water, and there’s someone standing at the bottom of the pool!  Do they have weights on thier ankles? How do they hold their breathe for so long?  Then you realize that the person on the bottom is just another art viewer, who has entered the pool from a room below. The water is only a few inches deep, on the top of a sheet of plexiglass, with fans blowing to create waves.  It’s very funny.

So typical for events at PS1, the crowd consisted greatly of those 20-somethings from Brooklyn, with their trailer-park chic, and their porcelain white skin. Coming from Washington Heights, I forget how pleasantly idyllic the lives of the pseudo-unwashed can be. I long to be there again.

So one of the great disappointments of the NY Art Book Fair 2009, is that I missed many of the things of interest. Apparently there were many conferences, book signings, performances, etc. going on for the 3 days plus that the fair was held.  The only indication of them was a chalkboard at the entrance cryptically listing all of the event names and times. I had briefly glanced at the website before heading over, and knew there was stuff going on, but I couldn’t find it. I looked for a flyer with the description of the events (it is a print fair after all) one didn’t exist. I went up to the floor where the conferences were held, and tried asking around. There were plenty of security staff, and maybe one NY Art Book Fair staff, who answered one person’s question, and quickly walked in another direction. I stuck my head in one classroom, where I got a glimpse of AA Bronson, the surviving member of General Idea, a group of 3 artists from Canada who did artistic commentary on the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s.  The door was quickly shut as they were setting up an exhibit of some sort.

So I just found the schedule of events in the back of the book which listed all the contributors in attendance. My bad.  I guess I should have investigated a little deeper. Or maybe they could have posted the schedule in key places around the event.

An ongoing dialog that I have been having with my colleagues, is whether print is dead. As a graphic designer who started in print design in the late 1990s, I was pulled, kicking and screaming into the web. Yes, there is the daunting task of learning about programming, and the technical aspects of how the Internet works, plus the great work involved in making communication design secondary to the information being conveyed. It requires both creative skill and mathematical abilities to do web design effectively. Print is much more immediate, and discrete in its work.

The works presented were varied in the scope and purpose. There were many artist catalogs for sale by the artists themselves, the galleries that represent them, the publishers that produce them, and even the booksellers who promote them.  The experience was very multicultural, which languages of all sorts being spoken. There was representation from Canada, Mexico, and California (yes, to me, CA is a totally separate nation.)

My favorite were the hand made books created by the artists themselves. There were a couple that I picked up, that didn’t necessary stand out from the rest for anyone other than me.

The first was a small book created by a recent graduate of OCAD, the oldest art and design school in Canada. Ryan Dodgson drew simple line drawings of his friends, and in place of their heads, he had buildings from around the Toronto area. A very sweet, simple idea.

The drawings were photocopied and saddle stitched by hand, printed on what I hope is acid free paper.

The second piece that I got was a truly wonderful book by Mel Kadel.  It is an edition of 100, titled Spring Lounge. The drawings are exquisitely rendered, and printed on hand stained paper, and printed using an inkjet printer. The images make reference to the psychedelic 60s, wall paper, graphic novels, illustrated maps, and Chinese landscape painting. I really love it.

The variety of works in the fair was inspiring. Magazines that cross the lines of architecture, design, and style sharing a table with a magazine specializing in those whose sexual focus it “the behind”. That zine was aptly named Butt. Elsewhere, I picked up a couple of newsprint images, offered for free, depicting a straight couple enjoying themselves on a roof top.

Then there was The Thing. The Thing is a quarterly periodical which, instead of print, the subscriber receives an object. The artists range from visual artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers. The concept is brilliant.  The objects were interesting.

In all, it was a very enjoyable experience. I look forward to next year’s fair.  This time, I’ll try and be a little better prepared.

People will recognize his style, if not the work itself, because it is true Americana. Illustration meant for mass consumption. I doubt very much that Basil Wolverton would have ever imagined he would have ended up as high art, on the main streets of New York’s exclusive gallery district.

Mad magazine was potty perfect, growing up in the 70s. I recall piles of the magazines stacked on the tank of our toilet growing up (we were a family of 3 boys).  I wonder whether the girls of our generation would have such fond memories for these gag images? But it must be said that the images are certainly timeless, and as entertaining to the current younger generation as it was in our day.

Scatological, gory, gruesome, sexual, Wolverton’s images may not be appealing to the conservative collector. Even I couldn’t imagine hanging it with pride, in my powder room. (Maybe in the wood paneled basement recreation room?) However, museum quality it definitely is.

The much awaited High Line park in New York’s Meat Packing District and Chelsea turns out to be worth the wait.  It is not completed yet, but has all the necessary features to be considered a success.  But the question is, was the design such a success?

The question is couldn’t any landscape designer made a go of it? It would have taken quite a bit of bad taste to have made the High Line a complete disaster.  It already had plenty of there there. Raised above the crazy congestion, traffic and pedestrians alike, the park offers an immediate break from New York’s messiness.

Every 100 feet or so, there is something to see, somewhere to sit, a picture to be snapped. I wouldn’t say that this necessarily was due to the talents and vision of the winning design firm. Whereas, unlike Las Vegas, where they’ve torn down much of their history to replace it with the faux history offered of older cities, Paris, New York, London, the original elevated train had it’s historical surroundings already in place.

There are the views of the Hudson River, where ships would sail, and unload their wares in the buildings all along the west side of Manhattan. It was through sailing up and down the Hudson (rather than driving along the West Side Highway) did I become aware that many of the buildings along the west side were originally the warehouses where ships would unload. And the elevated train, that was the High Line was how they were able to move things from one building and port to another.

The Competition for the design of the park was fierce. There were 720 entries from 36 countries. A friend of mine was cited as Jury Selection in the list of winners, but unfortunately they misspelled his name, so when you do a Google search, he doesn’t show up.  Here’s to you, Ken Conzelmann.

The Standard Hotel, pictured above, straddles the current entrance to the park, just below 14th Street and the West Side Highway.  Here’s an example of a architecture that was dated even before pen hit paper.  A friend and I were walking through it a few weeks back, after the hotel’s “soft launch”.  The conference room was a makeshift bar, and the outdoor patio was strewn with construction debris.  It seemed like this place was built on a tight budget.  Some of the concrete work was soon poorly executed, you could see where the builders went back with hammer and chisel to shave off the flashing. And the glass balcony walls were not executed with the precision of the Apple Store, just a few blocks up.

Will the park end up functioning as designed?  One thing that was very clear on the day that I visited was that there were plenty of visitors. Some milling about, some getting on, some basking in the sun. Yet it didn’t seem crowded, despite the crowds, despite the gardens, the lounge chairs, the people walking with the gaze askance.

As pictured above, it wasn’t necessary to bring your own picnic blanket or chairs, because there were plenty provided.