Archive for October, 2011

• Art and Copyrighting

  Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

      Sometimes amateur artists neglect to copyright their artistic work. This neglect can lead to copyright lawsuits. Amateur artists, who believe, their artwork may have been copied can contact a law firm in Denver. The legal and remunerative benefits of copyrighted artwork should not be overlooked. Every artist should copyright their artwork. Copyright protects artists’ creative ideas. Copyright increases the value of the artwork. Copyright protects the artists’ clientele from purchasing fraudulent artwork. Artists should copyright their artwork to protect their creative ideas and thoughts, increase the value of these creative ideas, and prevent funds from being diverted to fraudulent art dealers.
     Copyright protects artists’ creative ideas. Artwork that is placed on the World Wide Web cannot be shared, if the artist has taken steps to copyright it. Art differs from music in this instance. Copyrighted music can be shared on home computers. A copyrighted painting cannot be copied, then hung in different rooms. Copyrighted artwork cannot be altered in any form. The artist may intend this rule to include a painting’s mat and frame. Copycat artists cannot reverse an image or take words from a sentence, if that image or sentence is copyrighted, and claim it for their own artwork. Copyright protects artists’ creative ideas from being shared, altered, or copied by copycat artists.
     Copyright increases the value of the artwork. Copyrighted artwork cannot be reproduced without the artist’s written consent and without remuneration. Artists may pro-rate the cost of their artwork, from originals to Giclees, by copyrighting their artwork. Pro-rated work increases an artist’s clientele and revenue, as not all art buyers can afford an original. Copyright allows artists the ability to pursue new creative ideas and art forms. Copyright increases the value of artwork by allowing artists to limit reproduction, pro-rate their artwork, and pursue new creative ideas.
     Copyright protects buyers from fraudulent art purchases. Copyrighted artwork displays the artist’s name on either the front of their work or on the back. It places a number on each artwork or the word, “original”, on it. The date the artwork was created is also placed on the artwork, to better monitor its increase in value over time. Copyrighted artwork protects buyers from fraudulent art purchases, because it assists buyers to identify original work cues: the artist’s name, its unique number and the number of prints in circulation, and the date the artwork was created.
  Every artist, amateur or not, should copyright their artwork. Copyrighted artwork protects artists’ creativity, it increases the artwork’s value, and it protects the artist’s clientele from purchasing fraudulent pieces. Vikki Reed is an example of an artist who copyrights her artwork.

• Rat Finks and Hot Rod Artists

  Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

  Making a bridge between highbrow and lowbrow might be the biggest challenge in contemporary culture.  It’s one of those impossible feats, and something many gallery owners still attempt, because the failures can be more spectacular than the near successes.  Trying to find the place where intellectuals merge with populists is tricky, and usually it’s made trickier when that place is subject to change at any given moment.  Pop culture does depend on the tastes of a radically volatile audience, one that is even more temperamental than the critics who write about it.

  

  When there is a serious connect, however, like in the case of Rat Fink, it becomes a matter of curiosity to find some possible connections so that the experiment can be repeated.  Of course, like anything that is popular and critically relevant, repetition is impossible.  Ed Roth’s work can speak to those who are in the market for Rothko prints as well as those looking for rims and tires, and the intersections are fascinating even though they are impossible to replicate.  Here, the art does not come as a response to a growing hot rod culture, but is an absolutely organic product of it, growing out of it in the same way that racing and speed work together.  That is to say, it’s not a representation or a reflection, but an expression.  Here, in the realm of direct, empirical experience, a trend begins when the desire to express and be part of the expression meet with a critical mass (and interestingly, this happens with or without the permission of the critics).  The artists of the hot rod world have to be messianic figures, then, as well as children of the streets, being both in and above and also of the worlds that they doodle and paint.

   

  Perhaps one of the most important lessons for the art world, then, has to do with trends.  While “Big Daddy” Roth also spawned another generation of artists, like Jeff DeGrandis, and helped his contemporaries, like Pete Millar, any inorganic attempts to piggyback onto a trend fall flat fairly quickly.  These artists were part of the same culture as Roth, or at least the share the same roots in concrete and steel.  Any serious consumer of  mickey thompson tires would know the difference between a poseur and an authentic enthusiast in a heartbeat.  These street instincts are based on immediate impressions, and experience is what proves their viability.  The art world would certainly benefit with a taste of the same combination of intelligence and instinct.

  (This image was originally posted to Flickr by noego at http://www.flickr.com/photos/noego/165266701/. It was reviewed on 9 December 2006 by the FlickreviewR robot and confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.)