“Shepard Fairey Ripped Off My Picture First” says Ed Nachtrieb, photographer of the photo on the left. Fairey’s poster on the right.
Nachtrieb took this photo of a Chinese soldier 20 years ago at Tiananmen Square. Fairey used it afterwards with no mention of the photographer or compensation. This poster was out long before the infamous Obama poster. Read Nachtrieb’s post about it here.
(Seen on Quipsologies)
Posted by Ricky Salsberry
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this isn’t ripping off…did warhol ever tell his admirers who the photographer was of all the photos he did? Fairey used Nachtrieb’s photo to make his own art and it looks good. Stop being bitches and complaining that he uses images that have already been made. That doesnt make it bad art. fools.
2:43 pm
I don’t think using Warhol as an example to justify someone being an ethical artist is a great argument to make.
Do we know whether Warhol attributed or paid for his source photography? I don’t know. When Warhol made art, Google Images didn’t exist… it does now. It would have been a different process of finding source photography in the 60′s. Either way, Warhol’s ethics are still being questioned today.
As far as Fairey’s stuff being good or not, that’s subjective, and I’d argue that it’s just Fairey’s style pasted onto any source image he can find, with a pinch of Soviet Constructivism added in.
I think Fairey has some talent – but when he simply makes throw-away posters with little thought put into them other than something new to paste his logo and style onto… I don’t respect him as an artist/designer.
10:59 am
instead of lamenting about how the world works in this day and age, you should go outside and paint a wall.
12:43 pm