Louis Vuitton sues one copyright infringer, hires another

Anaba writes that Louis Vuitton -- the luxury bag-maker that's suing a designer for copyright infringement for using a likeness of one of its totes in a Darfur benefit piece -- has also collaborated with artist Richard Prince on a bag. Much of Prince's work is overtly about the appropriation of corporate imagery (most famously, Marlboro ads). The Walker Art Center, where Prince now has a show, says the artist has built a career on "recycling, reflecting, and reframing photographs, cartoons, advertisements, and other images already existing in the public sphere." Sounds awfully familiar...

Anaba also links to a New York Times piece on photographer Jim Krantz, who shot many of the Marlboro ads Prince rephotographed. Prince wouldn't comment on Krantz's increasing annoyance at Prince's uncredited use of his work. In an email to the Times' author, he wrote, "I never associated advertisements with having an author." I suspect Vuitton would have a very different view of the "authorship" of its handbags.

Beautiful Losers @ the Walker

Beautiful Losers, the book on DIY punk, surf and art is now a documentary film, and on Friday it's screening at the Walker Art Center here in Minneapolis. It features interviews with Ed Templeton, Barry McGee, Mike Mills, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Stephen Powers and Harmony Korine, plus as Walker designer Vance says, an amazing amount of footage from the late Margaret Kilgallen.

Two screenings: Friday, May 2 at 7 and 9:30 pm

Also: In conjunction with the film, check out a free art talk by Chris Johanson and Jo Jackson at the Walker this Thursday, May 1, and an installation by the husband-and-wife art duo at Art of This gallery, which opens Saturday.

Here's the trailer:

RIFT rises: Twin Cities culture sites to launch newspaper

Print news is in such famously bad shape that Advertising Age is running "The Newspaper Death Watch," which quotes an expert who gives an industry in "terminal decline" 20 to 25 years to live. In this context, it's noteworthy when any publication decides to launch a pulp version: This week the Twin Cities culture magazine Rift, which ditched its print version not long ago for a web-only enterprise, announced that it'll start producing a "newspaper style guide" to goings-on in the area. It'll launch May 17 with a print run of 10,000 copies, which will be available at coffeeshops and stores.

While this is a different kind of animal than resource-intensive daily print news, publisher Rich Horton will still face some challenges: distro, paper costs, marketing, paying writers. Rift is fundraising now for the endeavor, and it's banking, in part at least, on the attention and resources its partners will bring to the table. That list so far includes Culturebully.com, the Walker Art Center/McKnight Foundation's mnartists.org, Howwastheshow.com, Minneapoliscast.com and Perfect Porridge.

In an email this morning, Horton says they're going back to print "because of the responses and impact. Really it will be a move to help promote the website -- which is backwards but exactly the way I like it."

He feels a real need for an independent newspaper in town: "City Pages, Vita.mn and The Onion, great if you want tons of advertisements, fake funny news stories and where to find the best Cocktail in the cities."

Vuitton bullies artist over Darfur image

Taylor reports that designer Nadia Plesner is getting sued by Louis Vuitton for showing the likeness of a Vuitton bag in a campaign to encourage divestment from Darfur. As a Vuitton lawyer claims in a February cease-and-desist letter, the bag pictured is the Monogram Multicolore, created by Vuitton art director Marc Jacobs and artist Takashi Murakami. "As an artist yourself, we hope that you recognize the need to respect other artists' rights and Louis Vuitton's Intellectual Property rights," the attorney wrote. Plesner, probably aware that artist's like Murakami have the right to appropriate and satirize the work of others, lawyered up and refused. Now, according to TechDirt, Vuitton is "demanding $7,500 for each day she keeps selling the product, $7,500 for each day she displays its original cease-and-desist letter and (my favorite) $7,500 for each day she mentions the name 'Louis Vuitton' on her website."

"Sometimes recognizable objects are needed to express deeper meanings, and in their new form become more than the objects themselves -- they become art," Plesner wrote in her response to Vuitton's initial letter. Indeed, as Sudanese troops and affiliated militias mow down civilians in Darfur -- as many as 300,000 have died there, according to a new estimate -- the culture of consumption in the west, represented aptly by this particular bag (which retails for $1,580 on the company's website), stands in stark contrast.

Plesner, hopefully boosted in her efforts by the suit, says she'll continue with her "Simple Living" series, which both raises awareness of the genocide in Darfur and generates funds -- 30 percent of sales -- to its victims.

Update: Vuitton has collaborated with artist Richard Prince, whose celebrated work includes Marlboro ads he re-photographs, without crediting the original photographer.

Update 03.13.11: Louis Vuitton sues artist Nadia Plesner -- again -- for using handbag image in Darfur art

Update 05.04.11: EU court rules against Louis Vuitton in Nadia Plesner copyright case

I'm Banksy.

Shirts.

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Barack and Hillary: An allegory

Seen at a German parade.

Ku Klux Klad

Mother Jones' runs "Aryan Outfitters," an audio-video slideshow by photojournalist Anthony Karen, on Ms. Ruth, tailor to the Klan.
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Heliotrope V: May 15–17, Minneapolis

For its fifth year, the annual Heliotrope festival of underground music returns to the Ritz Theater in Northeast Minneapolis, but breaks with tradition by bringing a non-Minnesota headliner. Concluding the three-day festival, May 15–17, is Japanese modern psych giants Suishou No Fune. The 24-band roster includes some of my favorites: Skoal Kodiak, White Map, Build My Gallows High, The Pins, Thunderbolt Pagoda, and many others. Here's the full schedule and a few shots from last year:Dallas Orbiter @ Heliotrope 4, 2007
The Pins @ Heliotrope 4, 2007

Juxtaposed

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Homeland Security: Keeping America Safe... from Australians

"I can bet if I were a wealthy Australian with $40,000 in the bank to inject into the economy and my own house, this never would've have happened." So says Daniel, an Australian citizen who came to the U.S. for the first time early this month, and found himself in a detention center in Michigan, suspected as a terrorist. He'd saved up for the trip, did plenty of research, and finally made the journey. But when he arrived, he was pulled aside by Homeland Security officers and interrogated for four hours about miniscule details of his life -- emails long ago when he considered legal ways to work in the U.S., an FBI hat in his bag, and, most importantly, a friend's joke on MySpace about how he shouldn't pack a boxcutter. Ultimately he was handcuffed, questioned, endured invasive bodily searches, was sent to Dearborn and then home; he's now banned from travel to the U.S. Here's his story, in two parts. I haven't verified it, but his presentation seems straightforward, earnest and credible.

Thanks for the tip, Wirro Wort.

Surveillance lamp

Excellent. By Per Emanuelsson and Bastian Bishchoff.

Artist: Eugenio Merino

Western fascinations -- from ubiquitous Bart Simpson to the more insider cult of the art festival -- butt up against more pressing concerns elsewhere in the world in Eugenio Merino's work. See more, like his bin Laden/"Stayin' alive" sculpture, at Rebel Art.

Telephonic sheep

Artist unknown, via Cualquiera.com.

Contemporary art piñatas

Warhol and Jeff Koons art piñatas by Franco Mondini-Ruiz. Nice idea (if you want to smash priceless art but can't afford it), but I'd love to see the Matthew Barney version: a beehive that oozes Vaseline when you hit it, perhaps?

Take Ben Stein's Money: Yoko sues "Expelled" filmmakers

Heh:

John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his sons are suing the filmmakers of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" for using the song "Imagine" in the documentary without permission...

The documentary, which features Ben Stein, an actor, comedian and former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon, looks at alleged discrimination against scientists and teachers who support so-called intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution.

Critical Art Ensemble's Steve Kurtz cleared of federal charges

Wow, this is huge. After four years, remaining charges against artist Steve Kurtz have been dismissed:

For the first time in four years, since his wife died of heart failure in their Allentown home, setting off a government investigation into whether he was a terrorist because of the bacteria he kept for his artwork, Steven J. Kurtz is finally free of federal charges.

Kurtz, 49, the University at Buffalo art professor and co-founder of the Critical Art Ensemble, saw a federal judge dismiss the government charges Monday as “insufficient on its face.”

U. S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara said the government could not support the charges of wire fraud and mail fraud for the way Kurtz obtained bacteria from a fellow academic at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Robert E. Ferrell.

The dismissed indictment came as no surprise to Kurtz’s lawyer, Paul J. Cambria, who has described the government’s prosecution as “an unbelievable overreaction.”

“Kurtz and Ferrell never dreamed that anybody would claim they were violating some law by basically acquiring Level One — which is harmless — bacteria and trying to create an art project,” Cambria said after learning of the dismissal. “They never thought in their wildest dreams that someone would think that was a crime.”

[Story continues]

Justice prevails, it seems, except this guy's life has been turned upside down by what many see as the government's punitive behavior against artists and people outside the mainstream.

Mediation is CP's best

While I'm dismayed that a building beat out my wife for "best use of neon lighting" in City Pages, I'm psyched that Taylor Carik's Mediation got the "best local blog" nod in the new City Pages Best of the Twin Cities issue.

Hard Knox: Ashcroft probed on waterboarding

I hope this woman -- calm, polite, asking the kind of incisive questions often missing in our political discourse -- is studying journalism at Knox College. Check out her question to the ornery former Attorney General on waterboarding (which Ashcroft says is is not prohibited by the Geneva Conventions because it leaves no "lasting scars"):

ME: First off, Mr. Ashcroft, I'd like to apologize for the rudeness of some of my fellow students. It was uncalled for--we can disagree civilly, we don't need that. (round of applause from the audience, and Ashcroft smiles) I have here in my hand two documents. One of them, you know, is the text of the United Nations Convention against Torture, which, point of interest, says nothing about "lasting physical damage"...

ASHCROFT: (interrupting) Do you have the Senate reservations to it?

ME: No, I don't. Do you happen to know what they are?

ASHCROFT: (angrily) I don't have them memorized, no. I don't have time to go around memorizing random legal facts. I just don't want these people in the audience to go away saying, "He was wrong, she had the proof right in her hand!" Because that's not true. It's a lie. If you don't have the reservations, you don't have anything. Now, if you want to bring them another time, we can talk, but...
ME: Actually, Mr. Ashcroft, my question was about this other document. (laughter and applause) This other document is a section from the judgment of the Tokyo War Tribunal. After WWII, the Tokyo Tribunal was basically the Nuremberg Trials for Japan. Many Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. And among the tortures listed was the "water treatment," which we nowadays call waterboarding...

ASHCROFT: (interrupting) This is a speech, not a question. I don't mind, but it's not a question.

ME: It will be, sir, just give me a moment. The judgment describes this water treatment, and I quote, "the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach." One man, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding American troops to obtain information. Since Yukio Asano was trying to get information to help defend his country--exactly what you, Mr. Ashcroft, say is acceptible for Americans to do--do you believe that his sentence was unjust? (boisterous applause and shouts of "Good question!")

ASHCROFT: (angrily) Now, listen here. You're comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. We don't do anything like what you described.

ME: I'm sorry, I was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water down their throat...

ASHCROFT: (interrupting, red-faced, shouting) Pouring! Pouring! Did you hear what she said? "Putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water on them." That's not what you said before! Read that again, what you said before!

ME: Sir, other reports of the time say...

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read what you said before! (cries of "Answer her fucking question!" from the audience) Read it!

ME: (firmly) Mr. Ashcroft, please answer the question.

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read it back!

ME: "The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach."

ASHCROFT: (shouting) You hear that? You hear it? "Forced!" If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...does this college have an anatomy class? If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...

ME: (firmly and loudly) Mr. Ashcroft, do you believe that Yukio Asano's sentence was unjust? Answer the question. (pause)

ASHCROFT: (more restrained) It's not a fair question; there's no comparison. Next question! (loud chorus of boos from the audience)

Logo: In the eye of the, ahem, be-holder

It's hard to see anything offensive about this straight-up new logotype for the British Office of Government Commerce. But when presented to the agency's employees, a few of them, upon viewing it with a 90-degree head-tilt laughed at its obscenity. Huh? When I look, I guess I can see someone flipping the bird, but a few pervs in the crowd saw a man holding his, er, willy.

Writes The Register:

“It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters ‘OGC’ and is not inappropriate to an organization that’s looking to have a firm grip on government spend.”

Creature Comforts asks: What is art?

Claymation musings on the theme by Aardman's Creature Comforts (creator of Wallace & Grommit).

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