kill the animals
I donât know, iâm an artist myself and i have an attachment to even my shittiest of sketches. I would be upset to find out someone tore up something of mine, though if Picasso were alive today he might not care. Maybe he would. I would never know but i certainly dislike the idea of someone destroying anyoneâs art as a stunt if the original art wasnât created for said purposes.
In this case, wouldnât it count more as a transformation to another piece of art (the individual pieces, plus the performance art involved) than a plain destruction?
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As much as I dislike CAH, what they are doing is art as well. The fact that it has rustled your jimmies so much shows how effective it is already.
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I wrote a couple of paragraphs of defense of CAHâs philanthropy before I detected the irony in âworst people ever.â Well done.
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I can certainly understand that sentiment, being a person who often makes stuff as well. Having said that once youâre dead whatever opinions you may have had cease to matter, completely. If the thought of some one âmisusingâ or destroying your work causes you too much strife youâd be best off keeping that work completely to yourself, as those 2 things arenât a possibility so much as they are an inevitability.
Iâm reminded of the concern trolls that pop up every time a piece of sculpture that uses books is posted. Ineffectually wringing their hands in condescending disapproval of the âlossâ of âliteratureâ as though the act of printing any given set of words on a page then sandwiching them between two covers automatically imbues a book with some magic, irreplaceable significance.
So too in this case. We have an off hand doodle signed by an incredibly prolific artist (Who may not have even doodled it himself, may not even have signed it himself) well known for handing out exactly such offhand doodles like they where candy. The world will be no poorer for the lack of this piece, and those expressing their disdain would not even be aware of itâs existence in the first place had it not been for this stunt.
If Picasso wasnât 40 years dead, he might be grateful for your concern. As it stands he literally canât be. And further, the folks at CAH could have a yearly âPicassoâs table scrapsâ barbecue sacrificing dozens of similar pieces without making a single dent into anything that the man himself actually produced that holds any significance what so ever.
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well said. my feelings exactly.
Maybe. But it isnât original, nor does its ability to ârustleâ me prove much on that front. I suppose Iâm more the fool for allowing any emotional engagement in the question. Still, destroying any work or art without the orginal artistâs consent is entering into territory that I wonât endorse.
Like I said - no doubt Iâll be âpunkedâ in such a matter as to reinforce how caring about this was dumb. Iâll take my lumps.
Doesnât death count as an implicit consent? If the artist disagrees, heâs free to raise objection.
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Well⌠it is transformative.
Roy Lichtenstein was often criticized for simply reproducing comic panels at a larger size. A lot of people thought that wasnât original either, but now the work is pretty valuable. Warholâs ideas of art were often scoffed at as well.
That said, I canât see these scraps of the Picasso ever being worth more than the original work. Sometimes we are a little too precious about art. Iâm okay with the CAH guys doing this. The ISIS guys destroying stuff bothers me a little more.
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I remember reading a story about Picasso destroying his own work, with a palette knife, cutting up his works, right before a gallery showing, declaring he wasnât satisfied with them.
I canât however find any evidence from this memory using Google, so I canât be sure itâs a true story or it actually concerned Picasso.
What I wanted to say, backed by evidence, is that perhaps the artist himself did not value his work a highly as we do now.
I think it is a fun question, itâs perhaps a bit decadent to play games with stuff that is worth this much money but when I look at the other responses in this thread Iâm not sure this work should be worth that much in the first place.
When you as a artist sell a work, it is no longer your place to object to anything the buyer does with it. Sure, destroying a work is a bit of a dick move, but I donât really see any real damage being done here, like others said, there are plenty more picassoâs, and the creator is no longer around. When you sell a thing you let go of your rights to decide what happens to it, if you donât agree to that increase the price until you do, or include a clause giving you viewing rights.
When the most hated man on the internet decides to never listen to his Wu-tang cd and destroy it, that would be a dick move. I would not care much about it, Iâm no wu-tang-fan, but I can see how someone could get really pissed about never getting to hear those songs. Could you blame Martin Shkreli for that? Sure, is it partly also Wu-tangâs fault for the way they released and sold the cd? Definitely.
This is the risk you take when you create something that is one-of-a-kind, when there is only one copy of something, that makes it extra special but also makes it vulnerable to âdeletionâ. Hopefully the Wu-tang secretly kept some digital copies, and for the picasso, we will always have the photoâs and most likely even a timelapse-video of it being cut up.
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I think the stakes involved here are affected pretty strongly by the fact (not noted here, but one Iâve seen elsewhere) that what theyâve got is not a one-of-a-kind item, but one of a set of 50 prints made from the original.
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According to the law, this is not true. Art is different than other mass produced goods, and artists have special rights defined in the law. The Visual Artists Rights Act was created to prevent this sort of thing, assuming that the artist or copyright holder wants to prevent it. I have no idea who might have the standing to stop CAH in this case, but you canât simply (legally) destroy any work of art you purchase.
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Thatâs really interesting! It makes sense when you read the other rules like proper attribution, you canât go around buying art and putting your own name on it, that makes sense, and you canât change a work to make it seem like the original artist made a lousy work. I get all that, Itâs not that big a leap to also including destruction of a work. Interesting idea and good law 
The wikipedia article seems to have had a formatting error but it seems like it should say:
[Rightâ]s granted under VARA persist for the life of the author
So I guess this law does not apply in this case.
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Picasso is dead. Any rights he had died with him.
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Thank you, I came here to post this.
That said, the law has no effect on the work of dead artists. And I guess that makes sense â itâs a bit much to expect humanity to hold every single piece of art ever created as holy relics till the end of time.
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