There was an interesting AMA on Reddit just the other day about this. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/37hzrn/i_am_missy_suicide_founder_of_suicidegirls_artist/
Is Appropriation art the first time its done. After that is copyright? How does that work?
This totally made me not like some modern āFine Artā, when I first saw John Baldessari, I knew original art was hard but really!
I had a friend who used to model, and was approached multiple times by SG reps due to her modeling work with a local guy who photographed gothy women (āVisually Odd Photographyā).
The stories I heard about various agencies and photogs were pretty nuts. What a crazy industry.
SG in particular apparently was structured a bit like a pyramid scheme, where to become a SG, you had to refer 5 friends who did a photo shoot with them first. I donāt recall whether you had to pay out of pocket for those shoots.
That aside, I have a good deal of respect for the variety that SG brings to modeling.
It would be great if this entire thing turned out to be just a scheme to get people to pay $90 for printouts of SG Instagram shots.
Hilarious. Rock on, Missy.
That would be fucking awesomeā¦
ā¦if they got a speedy trial by jury. But he wouild porobably get a bastard lawyer who could keep Suicide Girls running in circles until legal fees devour the website. This is American justice.
Am I the only one who see that isnāt even a cat!?!!?
I have no idea what youāre talking about.
Wait, is the cat lady exploited or empowered? Is she 1000 times more so by Richard Prince, or 1/1000th?
Cāest ci pas un chat.
Interesting take on the whole kerfuffle from an acquaintance of mine, who is very much not a fan of Prince:
I still donāt see how this asshat isnāt being sued into oblivion by the copyright owners. What heās doing is almost nothing but blatant copying - itās so little changed that it has to be considered either a direct copy or a derivative work, both of which are prohibited. Iād love to see him take a Hollywood movie, do his usual level of āchangesā, and start selling DVDs.
The people heās āappropriatingā Seem to have very few resources. Meanwhile heās part of a fine art community thatās mostly become another leg of the financial/investment world. They canāt afford to go after him, and he can almost certainly afford to stall them out if they did.
Somehow I donāt think heās going to sue. Heāll just happily continue to take $90,000 where others get just $90.
I seem to recall stories about SG being a fairly exploitative workplace (who wouldāve thought!) and Missy Suicide basically being a shop window for the arsehole who ran the place.
And hey, the AMA linked above has unanswered queries about that as the top-voted comment. Heh.
why not just do the same thing with his photos? surely he has a website. folks all around the world could take screen grabs and run their own exhibition. personally, iād price the work at around $1.10 just to help saturate the market.
You mean to say that someone on the internet is pretending to be a cat?
Frankly, the very idea is just preposterous.
You should read the first comment of her Reddit AMA. Itās about her company exploiting women and photographers. She doesnāt answer. Her attempt to get some publicity worked very well, but not how she had hoped.
Good artists challenge. Great artists provoke.
