THE COPYCAT AND THE ORIGINAL CAT

Is there a difference between appropriation and exploitation? Interpretation and imitation? Real live originality and gold-plated copycatting? Even in a postmodern world where the difference is sometimes hard to figure, I'd say there is.

FLYPAPER [Beach Books, 1967]Do you see any similarities in the images below? Three are by Norman O. Mustill, from "Flypaper" (1967) and "Twinpak" (1969). Three are by Vik Muniz, from a fashion spread that appeared in The New York Times Style Magazine (Dec. 5, 2005).

The similarities, though not exact, are so striking when taken together that if Muniz's images and techniques are not plagiarized from Mustill's, they bear what Martin Filler calls in the context of architecture "the onus of plagiarism." That is, they are imitations, whether acknowledged or not. And they can't be claimed as postmodern appropriations because by definition appropriation art is intended to deconstruct, parody or otherwise comment on well-known cultural icons -- Mickey Mouse, for instance, or the Mona Lisa.

Shortly after The Times fashion spread appeared, I raised this issue with the editors of the magazine. After three months of stonewalling, they finally got back to me. The magazine's photography director, Kathy Ryan, who worked on the spread with Muniz, a currently "hot" self-described copycatter, said: "The similarities are a coincidence." She said Muniz told her he doesn't know Mustill's work.

OK, they're a coincidence. But to be fair to Mustill, a currently "not hot" original cat, how about allowing a letter to be published in the magazine noting the similarities with matching illustrations? Can't be done, she said. So much time has passed, it wouldn't make sense. (Blame the victim, anyone?) I guess I'll have to blog about this, I said. Fine, she said, no problem.

So have a look at the evidence.

Exhibit A: On the left, Mustill (from 39 years ago). On the right, Muniz (from three months ago). In this case, notice the exact material: tree branches within a human form in the context of a fashion statement and the referential hand.

IMAGE BY MUSTILLIMAGE BY MUNIZ


Speaking of coincidence, here's what Muniz writes in "Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer" (2005), a book that serves as his manifesto: "Copying has been an extensive part of my work as an artist ..."

Mustill comments: "Ape artist perhaps. D'ya think he believes this admission gives him carte blanche to rip off anyone and anything he surveys?"

Exhibit B: On the left, Mustill (from 37 years ago). On the right, Muniz (from three months ago). In this case, notice the technique combining newsprint and human figure cutouts.

IMAGE BY MUSTILLIMAGE BY MUNIZ


Muniz writes: "I have always believed individuality to be more important than originality in art making. ... When I worked in advertising, the rule was not to use any new idea that hadn't been tested by an artist before. Everything was borrowed or stolen."

Mustill comments: "So much for originalité artistique. Puts the whole fucking rumble into its proper perspective. He's still working in advertising."

Exhibit C: On the left, Mustill (from 39 years ago). On the right, Muniz (from three months ago). In this case, notice the reversal of imagery: the house as background vs. the house within the figure. (And how about the thematic reversal: ludicrous preening vs. fashionable tailoring?)

IMAGE BY MUSTILLIMAGE BY MUNIZ

Muniz writes: "I guess that's how creativity develops: whenever you are doing something good, first people ignore you, then they antagonize you, and finally they copy you. ..."

Mustill comments: "'cept to have my work morphed, reinterpreted, redeployed, and included (anonymously) among the famous, is no comfort at all."

Incidental intelligence: The "O" in Norman O. Mustill stands for "Ogue," a single-word manifesto. When he took the middle name years ago, by dropping the "V" from Vogue, it made the point that ... oh, never mind, if you don't get it, there's no point explaining it ... Suffice to say, it underscores a special irony of the Muniz "coincidence."

March 13, 2006 8:23 AM |

Categories:

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
HERMAN WOUK'S LATEST 
It's hard to say which comes off worse in Herman Wouk's latest novel, his first in a decade: the U.S. Congress or the American press. "A Hole in Texas" offers the choice between two emblematic stereotypes: a red-faced opportunist who heads the House Armed Services Committee and a mustachioed investigative reporter for the Washington Post.
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This page contains a single entry by Straight Up | published on March 13, 2006 8:23 AM.

HERE'S A STRETCH was the previous entry in this blog.

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