OK. I am well and truly fried by yet another egregious misuse of public art!
Here's the basic story as reported by Willamette Week in Oregon.
There is a massive hammered statue called "Portlandia" that has graced that city for the last 29 years. It was bought and paid for as a work of public art and really captures a certain interpretation of the city.
Enter- insanity.
At the time of the purchase, "the Metropolitan Arts Commission, now known as the Regional Arts & Culture Council, when it voted to allow artists to retain the copyrights to their publicly purchased artwork.
The artist, one Raymond Kasky, latched on to this advantage with a vengeance. He has consistently denied anyone who might make some dough from their pictures or photos of the piece the right to reproduce their work. Forget about postcards. Forget about seeing the icon in movies. (As a matter of fact, he even sued Paramount Pictures for showing the statue in the background of Madonna's Body of Evidence.)
Forget about sharing public art with the public.
In spite of this, public entities keep commissioning him to do their pieces. Taxpayers keep paying for him to decorate public spaces.
WTF???
The closest to this I had run across before was Kapur's ban on photos of his Cloud Gate in Chicago, ("In 2005, the sculpture attracted some controversy when a professional
photographer without a paid permit was denied access to the piece.As is the
case for all works of art currently covered by United States copyright law, the
artist holds the copyright for the sculpture. This allows the public to freely
photograph Cloud Gate, but permission from Kapoor or the City of Chicago (which
has licensed the art) is required for any commercial reproductions of the
photographs. The city first set a policy of collecting permit fees for
photographs. These permits were initially set at $350 per day for professional
still photographers, $1,200 per day for professional videographers and $50 per
hour for wedding photographers. The policy has been changed so permits are only
required for large-scale film, video and photography requiring ten-man crews and
equipment. )
or Christo's ban on using images of this home depot orange flags in Central Park.
But for a city to pay top dollar of the public's cash for a sculpture, install it on public property, then to give the artist the right to nix its use by anyone other than himself who might may cash from it really is nuts.
I'd attach a picture of the piece here, but, of course, would not like to be sued for visual trespass. Here's a link to someone else's shot of it.
http://images.amcnetworks.com/ifc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/portlandia-statue.jpg
I welcome all comments,
Monday, September 15, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Overwhelmed!
So I am overwhelmed with the number of sculpture stories that are crowding the news these days. Today alone yielded two blockbusters for me...
The new Edgar Allen Poet statue is going up in Boston in a month!
http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/09/05/edgar-allan-poe-statue-date-october-5-boylston-charles-street-south/
This is the first full statue to go up in the Garden since Nancy Shoen's Make Way for Ducklings went in in 1987. True, there is the 9/11 memorial on the Arlington Street side, but lovely as it is, it's not an actual statue.
One of the things that fascinates me about the Poe-to-be is its location. It's slated to sit on the corner of the Boyston/Charles Street entrance where, they say, the writer was born. But that's not the first time a writer was slated to sit there.
In the early days of the 20th century, the Burns Society of Boston hired Henry Hudson Kitson, a well-known Boston sculptor, to create a statue of Robert Burns. They had the blessings of the Arts Commssion initially.
So Kitson made a lovely piece of the poet and his dog for them. But after months of problems with the artist and political maneuvering (Kitson was out of favor with the guys in the commission) the piece ended up in the Fenway in 1920. (It's now in Winthrop Square).
And that, children, is why there was an empty spot to fill in gallery row of the Boston Public Garden.
Here's what the new piece, called Poe Returning to Boston will look like.
picture from http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/01/24/edgar-allan-poe-statue-developments-in-boston/
And if that weren't enough- watch soon for sensational info on a newly discovered treasure trove of ancient statues in Greece...
The new Edgar Allen Poet statue is going up in Boston in a month!
http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/09/05/edgar-allan-poe-statue-date-october-5-boylston-charles-street-south/
This is the first full statue to go up in the Garden since Nancy Shoen's Make Way for Ducklings went in in 1987. True, there is the 9/11 memorial on the Arlington Street side, but lovely as it is, it's not an actual statue.
One of the things that fascinates me about the Poe-to-be is its location. It's slated to sit on the corner of the Boyston/Charles Street entrance where, they say, the writer was born. But that's not the first time a writer was slated to sit there.
In the early days of the 20th century, the Burns Society of Boston hired Henry Hudson Kitson, a well-known Boston sculptor, to create a statue of Robert Burns. They had the blessings of the Arts Commssion initially.
So Kitson made a lovely piece of the poet and his dog for them. But after months of problems with the artist and political maneuvering (Kitson was out of favor with the guys in the commission) the piece ended up in the Fenway in 1920. (It's now in Winthrop Square).
And that, children, is why there was an empty spot to fill in gallery row of the Boston Public Garden.
Here's what the new piece, called Poe Returning to Boston will look like.
picture from http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/01/24/edgar-allan-poe-statue-developments-in-boston/And if that weren't enough- watch soon for sensational info on a newly discovered treasure trove of ancient statues in Greece...
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