Richard Prince never has to prove his point. The photographers whose work he’s accused of appropriating prove it for him nearly every time: He re-photographs their images, adds an almost incidental element or simply takes it out of context, and they complain (or sue) because he makes millions. Imagery, he suggests, is always selling something. Art, at some level, is commerce and vice versa.
One of the artists whose photos were appropriated by Prince has begun selling her own copies of his altered version—for a thousandth of his asking price.
Prince’s latest show at Larry Gagosian’s gallery in New York has turned out the same way, except that it’s his first show fully in and about the social-media era: he’s selling screenshots of other people’s Instagram photos for $90,000, with a single creepy statement added in the comments. The lines he’s used to blurring between someone else’s personal property and his own would appear to have blurred even further. When you post images of yourself to Instagram, who owns them? Do you? Does Instagram? Does anyone?
Many art critics have defended Prince, saying Andy Warhol similarly copied imagery he came across—except he didn’t, really: his Campbell’s soup cans are hardly photographic replicas. Jerry Saltz, New York magazine’s art critic, claimed the images Prince used were “in the public domain,” suggesting that “the copyright is getting very fuzzy” when it comes to social media.
Defenders of Prince’s work have compared his appropriations to Andy Warhol’s use of corporate brands, most famously on Campbell’s soup labels.
Except it’s not. Copyright law hasn’t recently changed, and it works just as well on the Internet: The moment you create a photograph, paint an image on a canvas, or publish a story—the moment a work is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression,” even a computer—the copyright belongs to you. And for a very long time. A work only enters the public domain, at least in the United States, 70 years after the death of its creator. None of the images that Prince used for this Instagram project are in the public domain.
But that claim was never necessary for Prince’s legal defense. It’s the single, suggestive line he added in the comments section of each person’s photo before taking his screenshot that’s likely enough to have transformed the appropriated image into an original work. And you better believe he knew that.
The irony of the outrage against Prince’s Instagram “theft” is that people on the Internet are constantly using images—and content—on their blogs and websites, even purportedly journalistic ones, that they found somewhere else on the Internet. (This damning review of Prince is accompanied by a photo taken from Gagosian’s website.) And you better believe Prince knew that, too.
Whether you appreciate what he’s done—or think he’s a jerk—seems to depend entirely on whether you know who he is. Many of the people whose Instagram images he used apparently had no idea; nor did this British writer, who simply calls him “a man…stealing Instagram prints” (and, incidentally, used the same gallery photograph swiped from Gagosian’s website).
Broc Blegen’s “Coming Out Party,” featuring duplicates he made of highly valued contemporary artworks, in the MAEP galleries at the MIA in 2012. Photo: Chris Atkins.
A few years ago, the MIA hosted an MAEP exhibition by Broc Blegen, a young artist—and Richard Prince fan—who replicated sculptures, installations, and other artworks by well-known living artists as closely as possible. He considered them his personal art collection, attributed to the original artists yet acquired for a fraction of what the originals are worth. It was a statement about the art market as well as the line between original and copy. Does an original really have more value, more power, or just a higher price tag?
In Prince’s case, of course, the copy will have the higher price tag. Recently, one of the people whose Instagram photos were appropriated by Prince began selling them for 1/1000th of Gagosian’s price: $90. She then Tweeted: “Do we have Mr. Prince’s permission to sell these prints? We have the same permission from him that he had from us. ;)” Prince called the move “smart.”