“ ON THE RIGHTS OF MOLOTOV MAN ”
The article brought the perspective from two ends in a “licensing war”. I understand where both ends stood for. How far can we take copyrights before we are allowed to alter any parts of them to create our own work? And how much responsibility should we have for the work that we borrow?
In Joy Garnett’s defense, the core of his project is to detach the meanings and the context of the images he selects for painting and purely uses them for imagery's sake. On Susan Meiselas’s end, is it insensitive of Joy to use such a historical and meaningful image without acknowledging the background? Perhaps. But is it because of how historical and how iconic it has become, that led Joy to the image in the first place? And if it is, is it ok to strip its meaning away? Maybe.
I have no answers to these questions. Should we completely disregard the meaning and the context of the work that we borrow from? Should we be so overprotective of our work to the point that it can not be reiterated by others in a new narrative?
But I do like that the article allowed us to see this particular incident from both ends. Personally, I think because Joy has used a series of images from different contexts of “extremis”, the Molotovman piece has already become merely an element of the entire photo series as a whole. But also, I think it would be considerate of Joy Garnett if he was to go back and add the context of each imagery used.
https://zscalarts.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/on-the-rights-of-molotov-man-susan-joy.pdf