An artist is making $100,000 a pop off other people's Instagram photos — and it could be totally legal
Rob Price
May 22, 2015, 3:38 PM
Rob McKeever/Gagosian Gallery
The latest exhibition by New York artist Richard Prince is raising ethical questions in the art world. The reason? He's selling canvases that feature other people's Instagram photos.
"New Portraits," first exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in New York last year, features portraits of subjects that were not shot by Prince himself. Rather, they are screenshots of images other people have uploaded to Instagram. Prince has added his own comment below those already there, and printed the entire work on large canvasses.
The artworks are now selling in New York this weekend for around $100,000 (£64,000) each, Gothamist reports.
One subject of the photos, DoeDeere, confirmed on Instagram that Prince did not seek permission before re-purposing one of her images. She posted on Instagram: "yes, my portrait is currently displayed at the Frieze Gallery in NYC. Yes, it's just a screenshot (not a painting). No, I did not give my permission and yes, the controversial artist Richard Prince put it up anyway."
She said the canvass featuring her portrait sold for $90,000 (£57,500).
This isn't the first time Prince has flirted with copyright laws. According to Petapixel, Prince is: "notorious in the art world for taking other people’s work, 'appropriating' them as his own with various changes, and then selling them for large amounts of dough."
So is Prince actually breaking the law? It's a gray area. If he were to make perfect replicas, it would be a clear infringement of the original artists' rights. However, fair use may apply if the work is "transformative."
According to Stanford University Library: "At issue is whether the material has been used to help create something new or merely copied verbatim into another work."