Good Artists Borrow....Great Artists Sell Out?

Two stories making the rounds morphed into some muddled morality tale in my mind this morning (yes, I'm an alliteration slut). First is from London, where an ex-friend of Damien Hirst is claiming the diamond-encrusted skull is a direct rip off of work Hirst saw him doing in the early 90s. Decide for yourself:

From the London Times [Via artinfo.com]:

Three weeks after [Hirst] artist unveiled his diamond-encrusted skull with a price of £50 million, another artist, John LeKay, has told The Times that he has been producing similar jewel-encrusted skulls since 1993 [above image, left]. He also believes that it is not the only one of his ideas that Hirst has used in some way.

LeKay, who claims to have been a friend of Hirst’s between 1992 and 1994, and who shared a mixed show with him in New York in 1994, said of the diamond skull: “When I heard he was doing it, I felt like I was being punched in the gut. When I saw the image online, I felt that a part of me was in the piece. I was a bit shocked.”

LeKay, a 46-year-old Londoner who lives in New York, created 25 of the skulls in 1993. Inspired by Mayan skulls, he used crystal to make his skull glisten. “When the light hits it, it looks as if it is covered in diamonds,” he said.

The other story I read also deals with the notion of artists profiting from something someone else thinks they shouldn't, but raises a finer point in that the presumed betrayal isn't of a friendship or idea, but rather an ideology. It deals with an anonymous and misguided campaign to highlight the increasing commercialization of street art (aka graffiti). The headline above isn't exactly how I feel about this, mind you, just a lazy attempt at being funny. In addition to splashing paint over existing street art (particularly by artists now showing in galleries), the "Splasher[s]" as the anti-commercial campaigner is/are known are suspected of setting off stink bombs during exhibitions.

From The New York Times:

The covert campaign targeting street art began about seven months ago, with blobs of paint that appeared overnight, obscuring murals and wheat-pasted art on walls in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. Arcane messages were pasted at the sites, but it was difficult to ask for an explanation. The author was never identified.

Shepard Fairey, whose work has been a target of the splatterings.
Then in November, during a panel discussion on women and graffiti that included a street artist called Swoon, a figure wearing a hooded sweatshirt flung a sheaf of fliers using similar language from a balcony overlooking an auditorium at the Brooklyn Museum. Swoon was among those whose work had previously been struck by paint, and some couldn’t help wondering whether the person who threw the fliers was also the Splasher, as the perpetrator of the paint attacks had come to be known.

Web sites, magazines and newspaper articles reported about the splatterings. Some wondered about the motivation and identity of those responsible, but the Splasher — or Splashers — remained anonymous.

The most recent episodes came this month, in two incidents involving what seemed to be stink bombs lobbed at shows of street artists on the Lower East Side and Dumbo. And some in the art world believe the identify of the Splasher may have been revealed. Last Thursday night James Cooper, 24, was arrested at the Dumbo show after witnesses accused him of attempting to ignite a homemade incendiary device in a metal coffee canister.

The Wooster Collective, who are interviewed for the article, has been covering this and actually broke the story about Cooper last week in this blog post:

One thing seems clear - there are two motivations that have been driving the Splasher. Attention and a jealous desire to sabotage and ruin the work of well known artists who have gained a certain amount of notoriety. It then makes sense that after gaining a ton of press over the last few weeks, that the Splasher would try to take things to another level by not only ruining the artwork on the streets of people like Faile and Shepard, but by getting even more attention for ruining their gallery shows as well. Since it would be all too obvious to walk into an art show and throw paint on the wall, why not then attempt to close down the show by causing a panic?

There are, to my mind, legitimate questions with regards to where one draws the line in supporting such statements. Where does the romanticism that turns a blind eye toward the vandalism aspect of street art turn to criticize of the vandalism of the vandalism? In other words, is one gesture, more pure than the other? And if so why?

And with Hirst's ex-"friend," did he invent decorating skulls? Hardly. Where is the line with regards to standing up for one's rights/copyrights and understanding that it's more or less the only rule left that everything is grist for the mill?

I hesitate to weigh in on these topics, truth be told. But don't let that stop you.