Joy Garnett
Encyclopedia
Joy Garnett is an artist based in New York. She is married to visual artist Bill Jones
. Garnett's paintings, based variously on news photographs, scientific imagery and military documents she gathers from the Internet, examine the apocalyptic-sublime at the intersections of media, politics and culture. She engages contemporary consumption of media and the delineation between journalistic and artistic images. She takes the digital image
itself as her subject and is interested in digital media in general.
Her work is often associated with sampling
in new media art
and with appropriation art
. Controversy surrounding her 2003 painting Molotov has drawn international scrutiny to issues of ownership and fair use in appropriation art. Garnett's work has been reproduced in numerous publications including Harper's, Perspecta: The Yale School of Architecture Journal http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10237&ttype=2, and Cabinet magazine
. She is a 2004 recipient of a grant from Anonymous Was a Woman. She currently serves as Arts Editor at Cultural Politics http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=520, a contemporary culture, politics and media journal.
in Quebec
, Canada
in 1983. In 1984 she went to Paris
to study painting, and in 1985 she enrolled at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
, where she remained until she returned to New York in 1988. Once back in New York, she entered the graduate program at The City College of New York where she received her MFA in 1991. While attending City College, Garnett received the Elizabeth Ralston McCabe Connor Award.
After graduating, her work was exhibited in several group shows, including the Summer Show at Debs & Co., New York in 1999. Debs & Co. also hosted her first solo exhibition the following spring, entitled "Buster-Jangle", a collection of paintings that appropriated photos of atomic bomb tests from the 1950s that Garnett found on the web after they were released by the US government under the Freedom of Information Act. Her work was reviewed and noted for its exploration of a “paradoxical realm of terrible beauty… tying together the histories of the bomb and American landscape painting."
from primary sources on the Internet. Eventually this resulted in an online compilation of material known as The Bomb Project. Spawned from her extensive imagery search, it led to an experimental recontextualization of images in a constantly growing archive.
In creating The Bomb Project, Garnett addresses the role of the digital image
as a cultural artifact
, and attempts to reveal the information and hegemonic coding
within these images with as little intervention as possible. She seeks to “establish a context where art, science and government are presented as interlocking and overlapping areas.” Since its launch in 2000, the Bomb Project has been expanded to include still and moving declassified imagery, as well primary source documents, links to current events and news articles. The original documentation, produced by the nuclear industry, is offered side by side with activist views, providing a context for comparative study, analysis and creativity. In its current form, the compendium
is intended to be used as a resource for other artists.
--Artist's Statement
Garnett is well-known for her appropriation of journalistic images in her paintings. She collects images from news sources on the internet and saves them in her archives, usually without noting the source or original photographer. Later, she recreates them in the form of oil painting on canvas. Each painting is produced in one sitting. Stylistically, the results are expressionist as opposed to photorealist.
, who as early as 1917 was exploring the concept of art through recontextualization in the form of Readymades. As Duchamp appropriated the functional object of a urinal in his sculpture Fountain
, Garnett explores the problematic of the found object by re-mediating and transforming the largely functional image of a journalistic photograph by painting it, thereby both shifting its context and opening it up for multiple interpretations by the viewer, as is consistent within the framework and context of art.
Artists such as Richard Prince
and Sherrie Levine
brought the term appropriation art into common use in the 1980s. In a sense, Prince's rephotography
of iconic advertisements (such as the Marlboro Man
) and commercial photographs are seen by some to have paved the way for Garnett's appropriated paintings of journalistic and documentary photos. However, there is a popular current that has grown out of another, longer tradition of painters who appropriate journalistic and vernacular found photographs and incorporate them in their work; these painters include Andy Warhol
, Leon Golub
, Marlene Dumas
, Luc Tuymans
and Peter Doig
.
Hence, while Garnett’s appropriation art may be regarded by some as an extension of the postmodernist ambition to defy traditional notions of originality and authorship, it may be best framed in terms of the tradition of painting that responds to, engages and extends contemporary media theory. In any case, Garnett pushes the boundaries of her medium in order to understand its constraints more fully.
in Nicaragua
during the Sandinista Revolution
(1979). After the Riot exhibition closed, Meiselas's lawyer contacted Garnett with a cease and desist letter claiming copyright infringement
and "piracy" of Meiselas' photograph. The letter stipulated that she remove the image from her website, sign a retroactive licensing agreement to transfer all rights to the painting to Meiselas, and credit Meiselas on all subsequent reproductions of Molotov.
Garnett agreed to credit Meiselas on the website, but maintained that her use of part of the photograph in her painting was sufficiently transformative
to be qualified as fair use
, rather than as a derivative work
. Hence she refused to sign the retroactive licensing agreement proposed by Meiselas' attorney. This refusal spurred the threat of an injunction
, and Garnett responded by removing the image of Molotov from her website to deter further legal action. Once the image was removed from Garnett's website, Meiselas did not pursue the matter further.
artist." Referencing an earlier legal battle known as Toywar involving similar copyright issues, a group of artists launched a solidarity campaign called Joywar.
The idea behind Joywar was to demonstrate support for Garnett and protection of fair use
by copying the Molotov image and reposting it in as many incarnations as possible. After Garnett announced her decision to remove the original image via the forums on Rhizome.org, she was notified that one of her peers had already uploaded a mirror site, or copy of Garnett's original webpage, on his own server. Within a week, countless other mirrors were being uploaded. Other users were encouraged to grab the image, and either repost it or appropriate it in their own artwork.
Word of the cause spread quickly throughout the new media blogosphere
. Soon the story was being reposted in French, Italian, Czech, Chinese, Spanish, and Catalan. Derivative works were produced and shared at an exponential rate, protesting Meiselas's questionable claim of copyright infringement as a means of controlling what many of Garnett's peers regarded as a creative appropriation protected under fair use. Garnett created an online archive to document the origins, reactions, and critiques surrounding Joywar, and the subsequent global proliferation of images that were spurred by the controversy surrounding Garnett’s sampling from Meiselas' photograph.
In April 2006, Garnett and Meiselas were asked to attend the COMEDIES OF FAIR U$E symposium at the New York Institute for the Humanities
. After meeting in person for the first time the day before, they gave a side-by-side account of the events surrounding Molotov at the conference. Their presentation was well-received, and an edited transcript was later published in Harper's, February 2007.
In the transcript, Meiselas states that her mission as a photojournalist was to provide a cultural and historical context for the images she captured, which she views as fundamentally different from Garnett's goal as an artist to "decontextualize" the images that she appropriates and remediates in paint. Meiselas mainly objects to the removal of her original subject (whom she identifies as "Molotov Man", later revealed to be a man named Pablo Arauz) from the context of the photo, which she views as disrespectful to the individual himself and believes devalues her original work.
Meiselas claims, "There is no denying in this digital age that images are increasingly dislocated and far more easily decontextualized." Meiselas ultimately believes that while "Technology allows us to do many things...that does not mean we must do them." Meiselas contends: "I never did sue Joy in the end, nor did I collect any licensing fees. But I still feel strongly, as I watch Pablo Arauz's context being stripped away--as I watch him being converted into the emblem of an abstract riot--that it would be a betrayal of him if I did not at least protest the diminishment of his act of defiance." Others have responded to this, however, by affirming that Pablo Arauz lent his gesture without his knowledge to the Meiselas photograph, which was to become the iconic symbol of the triumphant turning point of the Sandinista Revolution. These critics note that Meiselas does not mention Pablo Arauz anywhere in her photographic essay, Nicaragua, where his image, the image of "Molotov Man," first appeared; it was therefore Meiselas who initially stripped him of his identity as Pablo Arauz in order to convert the figure into an abstract emblem; this necessarily brings up the issue of the suppression of individual identity in the production of a Cultural icon
.
Garnett, on the other hand, asks "Who owns the rights to this man's struggle?" She questions the legitimacy of an artist's right to dictate who can make commentary on their work and what can be said. On one hand she is concerned with the role that copyright may play in restricting artistic creation, and how to preserve rights of ownership while still allowing for creative appropriation under terms of fair use. But mainly, Garnett is interested in the ways in which painting as a metiér can be wielded to engage issues of mass media-generated culture.
While this particular case was never taken to court, similar conflicts have become subject to drawn-out legal battles. Most cases disputing fair use and copyright infringement in appropriation art have been dealt with on a case-to-case basis, because much of the legislation about what constitutes fair use leaves room for interpretation. The recent case establishing precedent is Blanch v. Koons (2005) between Andrea Blanch, a commercial photographer, and the artist Jeff Koons
. The case was decided in Koons' favor, establishing that a visual work of art that has incorporated appropriated imagery is sufficiently "transformative" and therefore protected as a fair use
. It trumps the findings of an earlier high profile case in 1991, Rogers v. Koons
which involved another instance of Jeff Koons
, being accused of copyright infringement by the author of the sourced image. Koons argued that his work fell under fair use by parody
, which was rejected at the time.
.
Her 2007 exhibition "Strange Weather", was held at the National Academy of Sciences
in Washington DC. Using mass media images of Hurricane Katrina
as source material, Garnett "locates tensions between the visceral power of paint and the fleeting nature of images in the mass media, addressing the evolving role of art in an information-saturated society."
Garnett occasionally curates group exhibitions (see "Reflective Reflexion" http://www.flickr.com/photos/newsgrist/sets/72157623472735516/ at the Curatorial Research Lab, NY, 2010 and "Things Fall Apart" http://winkleman.com/exhibition/view/1581 at Winkleman Gallery, NY, 2009.) Forthcoming exhibitions and projects are listed on the artist's website. Garnett serves as Arts Editor at Cultural Politics http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=520, a tri-annual journal that examines the connections between cultural identities, political issues and conflicts, and global media.
Bill Jones (artist)
Bill Jones is a photographer, installation artist and performer based in New York. His work is concerned with light as both a physical phenomenon and metaphorical figure. Jones was part of the Vancouver School of conceptual photography, along with such artists as Rodney Graham, Ian Wallace and...
. Garnett's paintings, based variously on news photographs, scientific imagery and military documents she gathers from the Internet, examine the apocalyptic-sublime at the intersections of media, politics and culture. She engages contemporary consumption of media and the delineation between journalistic and artistic images. She takes the digital image
Digital image
A digital image is a numeric representation of a two-dimensional image. Depending on whether or not the image resolution is fixed, it may be of vector or raster type...
itself as her subject and is interested in digital media in general.
Her work is often associated with sampling
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
in new media art
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
and with appropriation art
Appropriation (art)
Appropriation is a fundamental aspect in the history of the arts . Appropriation can be understood as "the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work."...
. Controversy surrounding her 2003 painting Molotov has drawn international scrutiny to issues of ownership and fair use in appropriation art. Garnett's work has been reproduced in numerous publications including Harper's, Perspecta: The Yale School of Architecture Journal http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10237&ttype=2, and Cabinet magazine
Cabinet magazine
Cabinet is a quarterly, Brooklyn, NY-based, non-profit art & culture periodical launched in 2000. Cabinet also operates an event and exhibition space in Brooklyn.-Section 1: Columns:...
. She is a 2004 recipient of a grant from Anonymous Was a Woman. She currently serves as Arts Editor at Cultural Politics http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=520, a contemporary culture, politics and media journal.
Education and early career
Garnett completed her undergraduate work at McGill UniversityMcGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in 1983. In 1984 she went to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to study painting, and in 1985 she enrolled at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts is the distinguished National School of Fine Arts in Paris, France.The École des Beaux-arts is made up of a vast complex of buildings located at 14 rue Bonaparte, between the quai Malaquais and the rue Bonaparte, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Près,...
, where she remained until she returned to New York in 1988. Once back in New York, she entered the graduate program at The City College of New York where she received her MFA in 1991. While attending City College, Garnett received the Elizabeth Ralston McCabe Connor Award.
After graduating, her work was exhibited in several group shows, including the Summer Show at Debs & Co., New York in 1999. Debs & Co. also hosted her first solo exhibition the following spring, entitled "Buster-Jangle", a collection of paintings that appropriated photos of atomic bomb tests from the 1950s that Garnett found on the web after they were released by the US government under the Freedom of Information Act. Her work was reviewed and noted for its exploration of a “paradoxical realm of terrible beauty… tying together the histories of the bomb and American landscape painting."
The Bomb Project
In 1997, while doing research for her first solo exhibition, Garnett began gathering images and documents about nuclear testingNuclear testing
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...
from primary sources on the Internet. Eventually this resulted in an online compilation of material known as The Bomb Project. Spawned from her extensive imagery search, it led to an experimental recontextualization of images in a constantly growing archive.
In creating The Bomb Project, Garnett addresses the role of the digital image
Digital image
A digital image is a numeric representation of a two-dimensional image. Depending on whether or not the image resolution is fixed, it may be of vector or raster type...
as a cultural artifact
Cultural artifact
A cultural artifact is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology, and sociology for anything created by humans which gives information about the culture of its creator and users...
, and attempts to reveal the information and hegemonic coding
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
within these images with as little intervention as possible. She seeks to “establish a context where art, science and government are presented as interlocking and overlapping areas.” Since its launch in 2000, the Bomb Project has been expanded to include still and moving declassified imagery, as well primary source documents, links to current events and news articles. The original documentation, produced by the nuclear industry, is offered side by side with activist views, providing a context for comparative study, analysis and creativity. In its current form, the compendium
Compendium
A compendium is a concise, yet comprehensive compilation of a body of knowledge. A compendium may summarize a larger work. In most cases the body of knowledge will concern some delimited field of human interest or endeavour , while a "universal" encyclopedia can be referred to as a compendium of...
is intended to be used as a resource for other artists.
Techniques
“My paintings examine how we engage and consume images in the media. I am particularly interested in the conflicts that arise between documentary image-making and painting, between mass media outlets and art viewing contexts... these paintings are visceral re-imaginings of current events both far and near; they echo epic social and geological shifts by allowing the source imagery to break apart, nearly into abstraction. This process allows me to explore the apocalyptic-sublime landscape as instantly globalized image. My subject is at once the content of these found images, and the digital image itself as the new lingua franca of our increasingly networked world.”
--Artist's Statement
Garnett is well-known for her appropriation of journalistic images in her paintings. She collects images from news sources on the internet and saves them in her archives, usually without noting the source or original photographer. Later, she recreates them in the form of oil painting on canvas. Each painting is produced in one sitting. Stylistically, the results are expressionist as opposed to photorealist.
Use of found images
The use of found objects or images in her works stems from techniques first pioneered by artists like Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, who as early as 1917 was exploring the concept of art through recontextualization in the form of Readymades. As Duchamp appropriated the functional object of a urinal in his sculpture Fountain
Fountain (Duchamp)
Fountain is a 1917 work by Marcel Duchamp. It is one of the pieces which he called readymades. In such pieces he made use of an already existing object. In this case Duchamp used a urinal, which he titled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt". Readymades also go by the term Found object...
, Garnett explores the problematic of the found object by re-mediating and transforming the largely functional image of a journalistic photograph by painting it, thereby both shifting its context and opening it up for multiple interpretations by the viewer, as is consistent within the framework and context of art.
Artists such as Richard Prince
Richard Prince
Richard Prince is an American painter and photographer. Prince began appropriating photographs in 1975...
and Sherrie Levine
Sherrie Levine
Sherrie Levine is an American photographer and appropriation artist.-Education:Levine received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1969. In 1973, she earned an M.F.A. from the same institution....
brought the term appropriation art into common use in the 1980s. In a sense, Prince's rephotography
Rephotography
Rephotography is the act of repeat photography of the same site, with a time lag between the two images; a "then and now" view of a particular area. Some are casual, usually taken from the same view point but without regard to season, lens coverage or framing. Some are very precise and involve a...
of iconic advertisements (such as the Marlboro Man
Marlboro Man
The Marlboro Man is a figure used in tobacco advertising campaign for Marlboro cigarettes. In the United States, where the campaign originated, it was used from 1954 to 1999. The Marlboro Man was first conceived by Leo Burnett in 1954. The image involves a rugged cowboy or cowboys, in nature with...
) and commercial photographs are seen by some to have paved the way for Garnett's appropriated paintings of journalistic and documentary photos. However, there is a popular current that has grown out of another, longer tradition of painters who appropriate journalistic and vernacular found photographs and incorporate them in their work; these painters include Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Leon Golub
Leon Golub
Leon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.He was married to and collaborated with the artist Nancy Spero...
, Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas is a South African born artist and painter who lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Stressing both the physical reality of the human body and its psychological value, Dumas tends...
, Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.-Life:Tuymans...
and Peter Doig
Peter Doig
Peter Doig is a contemporary artist born in Scotland. In 2007, a painting of Doig's, entitled White Canoe, sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction record for a living European artist.-Early life:...
.
Hence, while Garnett’s appropriation art may be regarded by some as an extension of the postmodernist ambition to defy traditional notions of originality and authorship, it may be best framed in terms of the tradition of painting that responds to, engages and extends contemporary media theory. In any case, Garnett pushes the boundaries of her medium in order to understand its constraints more fully.
Initial conflict
Garnett's 2004 exhibition Riot featured a series of paintings based on images pulled from mass media sources, depicting figures in "extreme emotional states." One of the paintings, entitled Molotov, was originally sourced from a jpeg found on the Internet that was later discovered to be a fragment of a larger photograph taken by Susan MeiselasSusan Meiselas
Susan Meiselas is an American documentary photographer. She has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1976 and a full member since 1980. Her works have been published in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Times, Time, Geo and Paris Match...
in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
during the Sandinista Revolution
Nicaraguan Revolution
The Nicaraguan Revolution encompasses the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front which led to the violent ousting of that dictatorship in 1979, and the...
(1979). After the Riot exhibition closed, Meiselas's lawyer contacted Garnett with a cease and desist letter claiming copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
and "piracy" of Meiselas' photograph. The letter stipulated that she remove the image from her website, sign a retroactive licensing agreement to transfer all rights to the painting to Meiselas, and credit Meiselas on all subsequent reproductions of Molotov.
Garnett agreed to credit Meiselas on the website, but maintained that her use of part of the photograph in her painting was sufficiently transformative
Transformation (law)
In United States copyright law, transformation is a possible justification that use of a copyrighted work may qualify as fair use, i.e., that a certain use of a work does not infringe its holder's copyright due to the public interest in the usage...
to be qualified as fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
, rather than as a derivative work
Derivative work
In United States copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work .-Definition:...
. Hence she refused to sign the retroactive licensing agreement proposed by Meiselas' attorney. This refusal spurred the threat of an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
, and Garnett responded by removing the image of Molotov from her website to deter further legal action. Once the image was removed from Garnett's website, Meiselas did not pursue the matter further.
Joywar
Before Garnett pulled the image off her website, the story had been picked up by Rhizome.org, (a non-profit organization with a website and listserve dedicated to new media art). Many of Garnett's peers were following the course of events, and were concerned by what they viewed as "one artist using his copyrights as a way to censor anotherartist." Referencing an earlier legal battle known as Toywar involving similar copyright issues, a group of artists launched a solidarity campaign called Joywar.
The idea behind Joywar was to demonstrate support for Garnett and protection of fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
by copying the Molotov image and reposting it in as many incarnations as possible. After Garnett announced her decision to remove the original image via the forums on Rhizome.org, she was notified that one of her peers had already uploaded a mirror site, or copy of Garnett's original webpage, on his own server. Within a week, countless other mirrors were being uploaded. Other users were encouraged to grab the image, and either repost it or appropriate it in their own artwork.
Word of the cause spread quickly throughout the new media blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
. Soon the story was being reposted in French, Italian, Czech, Chinese, Spanish, and Catalan. Derivative works were produced and shared at an exponential rate, protesting Meiselas's questionable claim of copyright infringement as a means of controlling what many of Garnett's peers regarded as a creative appropriation protected under fair use. Garnett created an online archive to document the origins, reactions, and critiques surrounding Joywar, and the subsequent global proliferation of images that were spurred by the controversy surrounding Garnett’s sampling from Meiselas' photograph.
In April 2006, Garnett and Meiselas were asked to attend the COMEDIES OF FAIR U$E symposium at the New York Institute for the Humanities
New York Institute for the Humanities
The New York Institute for the Humanities is an academic organisation affiliated with New York University, founded by Richard Sennett in 1976 to promote the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals and the general public. The NYIH regularly holds seminars open to the public, as well as...
. After meeting in person for the first time the day before, they gave a side-by-side account of the events surrounding Molotov at the conference. Their presentation was well-received, and an edited transcript was later published in Harper's, February 2007.
In the transcript, Meiselas states that her mission as a photojournalist was to provide a cultural and historical context for the images she captured, which she views as fundamentally different from Garnett's goal as an artist to "decontextualize" the images that she appropriates and remediates in paint. Meiselas mainly objects to the removal of her original subject (whom she identifies as "Molotov Man", later revealed to be a man named Pablo Arauz) from the context of the photo, which she views as disrespectful to the individual himself and believes devalues her original work.
Meiselas claims, "There is no denying in this digital age that images are increasingly dislocated and far more easily decontextualized." Meiselas ultimately believes that while "Technology allows us to do many things...that does not mean we must do them." Meiselas contends: "I never did sue Joy in the end, nor did I collect any licensing fees. But I still feel strongly, as I watch Pablo Arauz's context being stripped away--as I watch him being converted into the emblem of an abstract riot--that it would be a betrayal of him if I did not at least protest the diminishment of his act of defiance." Others have responded to this, however, by affirming that Pablo Arauz lent his gesture without his knowledge to the Meiselas photograph, which was to become the iconic symbol of the triumphant turning point of the Sandinista Revolution. These critics note that Meiselas does not mention Pablo Arauz anywhere in her photographic essay, Nicaragua, where his image, the image of "Molotov Man," first appeared; it was therefore Meiselas who initially stripped him of his identity as Pablo Arauz in order to convert the figure into an abstract emblem; this necessarily brings up the issue of the suppression of individual identity in the production of a Cultural icon
Cultural icon
A cultural icon can be a symbol, logo, picture, name, face, person, building or other image that is readily recognized and generally represents an object or concept with great cultural significance to a wide cultural group...
.
Garnett, on the other hand, asks "Who owns the rights to this man's struggle?" She questions the legitimacy of an artist's right to dictate who can make commentary on their work and what can be said. On one hand she is concerned with the role that copyright may play in restricting artistic creation, and how to preserve rights of ownership while still allowing for creative appropriation under terms of fair use. But mainly, Garnett is interested in the ways in which painting as a metiér can be wielded to engage issues of mass media-generated culture.
While this particular case was never taken to court, similar conflicts have become subject to drawn-out legal battles. Most cases disputing fair use and copyright infringement in appropriation art have been dealt with on a case-to-case basis, because much of the legislation about what constitutes fair use leaves room for interpretation. The recent case establishing precedent is Blanch v. Koons (2005) between Andrea Blanch, a commercial photographer, and the artist Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
. The case was decided in Koons' favor, establishing that a visual work of art that has incorporated appropriated imagery is sufficiently "transformative" and therefore protected as a fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
. It trumps the findings of an earlier high profile case in 1991, Rogers v. Koons
Rogers v. Koons
Rogers v. Koons, , is a leading U.S. court case on copyright, dealing with the fair use defense for parody. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that an artist copying a photograph could be liable for infringement when there was no clear need to imitate the photograph...
which involved another instance of Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
, being accused of copyright infringement by the author of the sourced image. Koons argued that his work fell under fair use by parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
, which was rejected at the time.
Recent work
Garnett's work has long focused on the apocalyptic landscape and representations of cataclysmic events in the media. Garnett's recent solo exhibition "Boom & Bust" http://winkleman.com/exhibition/view/1940, October 15-November 13, 2010 at Winkleman Gallery, NY, zeroed-in further on the explosion as spectacle and metaphor. Her previous solo show in 2008 at Winkleman Gallery consisted of four large paintings connected by the suggestion that their source photographs were possibly taken at precisely the same moment in different locations around the world. This work comments upon mass media imagery as a kind of global lingua francaLingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
.
Her 2007 exhibition "Strange Weather", was held at the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
in Washington DC. Using mass media images of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
as source material, Garnett "locates tensions between the visceral power of paint and the fleeting nature of images in the mass media, addressing the evolving role of art in an information-saturated society."
Garnett occasionally curates group exhibitions (see "Reflective Reflexion" http://www.flickr.com/photos/newsgrist/sets/72157623472735516/ at the Curatorial Research Lab, NY, 2010 and "Things Fall Apart" http://winkleman.com/exhibition/view/1581 at Winkleman Gallery, NY, 2009.) Forthcoming exhibitions and projects are listed on the artist's website. Garnett serves as Arts Editor at Cultural Politics http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=520, a tri-annual journal that examines the connections between cultural identities, political issues and conflicts, and global media.
Selected Exhibition Catalogs
- Exhibition catalog (solo): Strange Weather: New Paintings by Joy Garnett; essays by Lucy R. LippardLucy R. LippardLucy Lippard is an internationally known writer, activist and curator from the United States. Lippard was among the first writers to recognize the de-materialization at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art...
and Andrew RevkinAndrew RevkinAndrew C. Revkin is a journalist and author who has spent a quarter of a century covering subjects ranging from the assault on the Amazon to the Asian tsunami, from the troubled relationship of science and politics to climate change at the North Pole. From 1995 through 2009, he covered the...
. National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, Washington, DC, 2007 - Exhibition catalog (group): Atomic Afterimage: Cold War Imagery in Contemporary Art; Exhibition and Essay by Keely Orgeman. Foreword by Patricia Hills. Boston University Art Gallery, 2007
- Exhibition catalog (group): Image War: Contesting Images of Political Conflict; Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, Independent Study Program, NY, 2006 - Exhibition brochure (group): Night Vision; essay by Tim Griffin. First Pulse Projects, NY, 2002
- Exhibition catalog (solo): Rocket Science; essays by Manuel De LandaManuel de LandaManuel De Landa, , is a writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is presently the Gilles Deleuze Chair of Contemporary Philosophy and Science at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland; a lecturer at the Canisius College in Buffalo, New York; a lecturer...
and Bruce SterlingBruce SterlingMichael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
. Debs & Co., New York, NY, 2001 - Artist's multiple: Buster-Jangle; Debs & Co., New York, NY, 1999
Selected Writings
- Book chapter: "Virilio and Visual Culture: On the American Apocalyptic Sublime", on painting and Paul Virilio, co-authored with John Armitage. Virilio Now: Current Perspectives in Virilio Studies (ed. J. Armitage), Polity, Cambridge, UK; Henan University Press, Beijing (2011)
- Book chapter: "Vertov's Accident (Or, 'The Paint Still')", in Vertov From V to A, edited by Peggy Ahwesh + Keith Sanborn, Ediciones la Calavera (2008).
- Interview: Joy Garnett with Ryan Bishop. Theory Culture + Society, April 2010. To coincide with special issue, Changing Climates (May 2010)
- Journal article: "Radicalizing Refamiliarization", by Joy Garnett & John Armitage (U. of Northumbria). Journal of Visual Culture 8:2 (August 2009)
- Journal article: "Portfolio: On the Rights of Molotov Man - Appropriation and the art of context," by Joy Garnett and Susan MeiselasSusan MeiselasSusan Meiselas is an American documentary photographer. She has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1976 and a full member since 1980. Her works have been published in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Times, Time, Geo and Paris Match...
. Harper's MagazineHarper's MagazineHarper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
(February 2007) [pp. 53–58]. - Journal article: "In Their Own Words: Image Junkie", NYFA Current, New York Foundation for the ArtsNew York Foundation for the ArtsThe New York Foundation for the Arts was created in conjunction the in 1971. The organization gives grants to individual artists and writers and developing arts organizations with a mission to '.'-NYFA's Programs:...
(April 20, 2005) Vol.14, no.8 - Journal article: "Follow the Image"; Field Report, Cultural Politics, 1:1 Berg, Oxford (UK), March 2005
External links
- Artists's homepage
- Joy Garnett at Winkleman Gallery
- NEWSgrist - where spin is art, Artist's blog
- Riot exhibition at Debs & Co., NY, January, 2004
- Webcast of lecture: Open Source Culture lecture series, Columbia University's Open Source Culture series, September, 2004
- "Joywar" Archive