Melanie Solomon wrote:

> It turns out that the artist spent the last few years working from magazine
> images.

The artist Sherrie Levine rephotographed Walker Evans photographs and
showed them as her own *because* they were in the public domain. That
was part of the conceptual basis of the work. She was redefining what
photography means in terms of original as well as the gender of the
artist. Later she traced and "repainted" paintings by male artists and
exhibited them as hers. I'm not aware of the state of copyright on the
imaes she used.

I'm sure many think Levine's work sounds like a joke but she's a serious
artist working with important issues of art and has a great deal of
influence because of her method of working and ability to demonstrate
her ideas efficiently. My worry about an artist who appropriates images
isn't that they've violated a copyright but that they understand the
implications, both philosophical and legal, of doing so and that
understanding is made accessible to the viewer in the museum environment
in some way. That knowledge would educate and influence future artists.

Museums should spend less time worrying about how their images are used
(stolen?) and more time asking *why* they are being used and what that
use means in the culture.


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