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November 26, 2007
Ppffshaw!
She's making me blush. I don't usually get admiring emails from law profs.
Hi Jan -- I just wanted to introduce myself, having followed your blog with great interest. My name is Sonia Katyal, and I am a law professor who specializes in the area of art, law and technology at Fordham Law School in NYC.
Being a fan of your work, I wanted to send you an abstract and article I finished on intellectual property, appropriation art, copyright, and the notion of the relationship between semiotic democracy and disobedience; it seemed like something that was relevant to your work. I'm thinking of turning part of it into a book, and so would be thrilled for any thoughts you might be able to share -- you can also download the paper for free on SSRN. Feel free to pass it on to interested folks via blog or otherwise, and I'd be grateful for any thoughts you might be able to pass along.
I told her I read the abstract. Twice. I also said I'd have to study it, let alone the paper it refers to, before I had any thoughts she might find worthwhile. Since I'm no academic, the terminology went right by me. Off the top of my head, though, I said the whole issue of postmodern appropriation and what it entails made me gravely ill. I called my illness "conflicted feelings." And just to show I was still breathing, I added, "Whether it's semiotic disobedience or outright theft seems to me to depend on whose ox is gored."
When I was finally able to download the paper itself -- not easy to do, it turned out -- I got a short way in and came across this passage:
...the spirit of semiotic disobedience reflects some of the same classic goals and interests of traditional civil disobedience. The individuals I am speaking of do not expressly seek to reclaim the protection of the law; rather, their very objective is to demonstrate the expressive value of transgressing its limits. If our First Amendment jurisprudence has taught us anything, it has taught us the importance of recognizing the value of symbolic dissent, even when unpopular, as a key mediating tool in integrating the marketplaces of prohibited and protected expression.
Which clarifies what she's getting at. I think. More thoughts, anybody?
Postscript: A reader writes:
Hey, who cares what she's saying? She's pretty hot. In the immortal words of Baudelaire:Que m'importe que tu sois sage?
Sois belle! Et sois triste!
PPS: Clayton Patterson writes:
If I am getting this, without reading the paper (or going too far into this, as I don't have time), appropriation -- especially after Warhol -- seems like the backbone of many of today's art treasures. The Warhol soup can is clearly someone else's design. I'm not sure why no one seems to mention this fact or gives credit to the original designer. The same for Roy Lichtenstein's comics. (Today's Damien Hirst shark in formaldehyde at least is not stealing another person's work. But please, where is the art?) Young designers are taking lettering styles from The NY Post, for example, and using it -- and on and on. It is unimportant to be original anymore. Just take it -- whatever it is -- use it, and it is yours. This appropriation as art thinking is another large stone sinking the American culture and society. It is like a cancer -- appropriation of words or pictures, or sounds, or tunes, or looks, or whatever -- sad really.
PPS: Another reader writes:
hmmmm ... semiotics, "the analysis of the nature & relationship of signs in language," plus disobedience. er...uh...duh...d'ya think a clenched fist w/ an upright, erect middle finger would qualify? jist askin'.
PPS: Holly Crawford writes:
Given what I read, which was only your quote from her piece, I would want to know if she is OK with you or me publishing [her ideas] with our names and no reference or citation to her. In art and music it's OK, but in other fields it's plagarism and not freedom of speech. Did she draw a line? Everybody gets inspired by others' work. Obviously you can't have satire or parody without some appropriation, which is why appropriation artists position work as a cultural joke.
PPS: Another reader writes:
As cute as you are, I suspect that the law professor's "having followed your blog" and "being a fan of your work" are boilerplate, along the lines of those pop-up IM's one gets from Cinnamon or Tiffani saying that they've just looked at your online "profile" and you seem like a "cool guy." In short, she says "semiotic disobedience" to all the boys.
PPS: William Osborne writes:
An incredibly interesting and very important article. All artists interested in media theory should read it. It's astounding to find a law professor is so erudite in the area of postmodern cultural theory. And she ain't just any law prof either. Read about her brother.How delighted you must be that someone like her has taken note of your blog!!! I think your off-hand deconstructions of the media pass most people by.
I have printed the article out and am going to pour over it. It is closely related to what I have been working on with our music theater studies of the media, like Cybeline. We want to go much deeper into these themes with our newest work, and I think Katyal's article will be very helpful, not so much for legal eventualities, but for how she discusses the social and aesthetic themes involved.
If all someone can say about her is that she is pretty, then I would rather forget the French and use some good ol' German: Was für ein Dumbkopf!
PPS: A reader writes:
"who cares what she's saying? she is hot!" love that guy. and in addition to fortifying ourselves with baudelaire, let's get interested in semantic righteousness and call a rip-off a rip-off. we know it when we see it. lawyers should stay out of this.
PPS: David Ehrenstein writes:
"Semiotic Disobedience"? Isn't that disciplining your slave by thwacking him in the cojones with the complete works of Julie Kristeva?
William Osborne adds:
From the comments, I don't think anyone actually read her article. I at least went through it, even if pretty quickly, and her arguments are very differentiated. She is not advocating stealing people's ideas. In fact, she discusses in detail all of the problems surrounding appropriation, including very sophisticated arguments about how legal theory must distinguish between simple copying and work that turns the appropriated ideas into very different statements, especially those that involve social protest.
Dec. 6 -- Now for la piéce de rèsistance: "If the Copy Is an Artwork, Then What's the Original?" And don't forget to have a look at the slide show.
Posted by jherman at 9:19 AM
November 22, 2007
William Burroughs Gives Thanks
Bon appétit!
Posted by jherman at 10:15 AM
November 18, 2007
Just for the Record
I have no idea how many readers wrote to tell them. But I know of at least one. This was my email message to The New York Times Book Review:
One Legend Too ManyTo the editor:
The Chelsea Hotel has so many legends attached to it one less won't hurt. The Chelsea is not "[w]here William Burroughs wrote 'Naked Lunch,'" as Jeff Giles puts it in his review of "Legends of the Chelsea Hotel." ("Chelsea Mornings," Oct. 28) Mr. Burroughs wrote the manuscript at the Villa Muniria in Tangier (at 1 Calle Magallanes, where Jack Kerouac typed up an early version for him) and at the Beat Hotel in Paris (at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, where Brion Gysin and others helped him prepare a later version for publication).
I sent the email three Sundays ago, on the morning of the review. A few days later I received this automated reply: "Thank you for writing to the editors of the Book Review. We read every e-mail we receive, but cannot always respond. We will contact you if we decide to publish your letter." Never heard from them again.
This morning they ran their correction, unattributed. If they had contacted me, I would have told them my correction was incomplete. And now so is theirs. A key section of "Naked Lunch" was written in a hotel in Copenhagen, as a friend reminded me, and as Ted Morgan writes in his peerless Burroughs biography, "Literary Outlaw":
Burroughs left for Copenhagen in July 1957 ... on an intuition that it would be important for his book. He had four main zones, or sets, where the book takes place -- the United States, South America, Interzone (which was Tangier), and Freeland -- and in Scandinavia he found the real model for his imagined Freeland, a place of the living dead. He had already described it as a series of bars along a canal, which was what he found in Copenhagen. What he saw exceeded the most ghastly product of his imagination. ... The dead-level sanity and bone dullness of the Danes appalled him. It was a police state without police, populated by robots completely conditioned by the state. The only antisocial element was the juvenile delinquents, known locally as "Leather Jackets." It was all horribly depressing, the sandwich bars, the workmen in overalls listening to classical music on the radio, the lack of conversation, the general inanity and squareness of the people.
... Scandinavia catalyzed the novel, which was now taking shape faster than he could write it down in his hotel room. Every time he reached an impasse, something happened to show him the way, so he stayed in Copenhagen through August and worked. The main theme, it was now clear to him, was the desecration of the human image by control addicts. As Lola La Chata, the Mexico City pusher, used to say, "Pushing is more of a habit than using."
You think if I send this item to the Book Review -- naturally with all due apologies to past, present and future generations of the Danish pipples -- that the editors will run a correction to the correction?
Oh yeah.
Postscript: Colleen Thornton writes:
Thanks for shedding new light on an old legend. I had no idea that Copenhagen had made such an impression on William Burroughs, though in an entirely understated (typical) way. You see, I have lived in Copenhagen (København) for nearly 15 years and have, over time, found this so-called "sane" society quite NUTS. The whole country is suffering from an astonishing case of collective passive-aggression that occasionally erupts into overt aggression over things of which they are utterly ignorant; such as the world outside of Denmark, except the fictional reality of the USA.While "Danish Design" is used to solve all sorts of problems here, it clearly has no medicinal effect on the junkies, drunks and prostitutes that live their colorful lives just yards from my doorstep.
Burroughs recognized the symptoms of the Danish disease alright. He'd not be surprised by how this "small country" has slid into social schizophrenia -- self-medicating, self-congratulatory and utterly without self-awareness.
So much for the Danny Kaye version, eh?
Posted by jherman at 9:42 AM
November 13, 2007
Overlooked and Undersung
It is a delicious irony of life in New York to ride the subway during the morning rush hour with Dave Frishberg's "Quality Time" playing on your iPod (listen here). Another irony, not so delish, is to miss what's in front of your eyes. Like walking past the art gallery in the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth Avenue without seeing the show.
Talk about quality time, "Jim Dine Selected Prints, 1996-2006" gives you as much as you please. It's in the heart of Manhattan (between 34th and 35th Streets) and a helluva lot less crowded than the subway. Cheaper, too. Admission is free. Oh, did I say Dine's prints are a wow?
Among other things, they offer an eyeful on the not small matter of prevarication, which some would submit is the issue of our time. Have a look at the portraits of Gepetto's boy. There are a handful, and they come in all sizes.
Pinocchio may not resemble the current occupant of the White House. His nose is longer, for one thing. He's also made of wood, although that's a debatable difference, and he pays for his lies. Most of all, Dine personally identifies with Pinocchio. I doubt he feels that way about our prevaricating prez.
In any case, precisely why crowds are not packing the gallery is a mystery to me. Maybe it's because the art critics have overlooked it. There hasn't been a single review of the show, despite the fact that Dine is an acknowledged master. Some of the prints have been exhibited elsewhere -- in Minneapolis, for instance -- and you know how New York critics hate to be second in line.
Or maybe it's because Dine's work sells, thank you very much, but usually not at auction, and so doesn't go public with humongous prices. Indeed, maybe that's the most important reason.
Dine is among the most commercially successful artists in the Pace Wildenstein stable -- which is saying a lot, given the stable. But without humongous prices to attach to his name, Dine is old news, or worse, no news. No matter how much they may deny it, the critics are artworld functionaries. Money impresses them maybe more than art.
Yes, this is a rant.
For a serious discussion of the show, go to Jed Birmingham's Q&A with Jim Dine at the Bibliographic Bunker.
Anyway, have a look at another of Dine's Pinocchios. He calls it "Red Enamel Pants." I call it "What Is He Staring At?"
Full disclosure: Straight Up's staff of thousands is a part-time media consultant to the CUNY Graduate Center, which operates the gallery.
Here's what else you need to know: Jim Dine Selected Prints, 1996-2006 is on exhibit through Dec. 8 in the Amie and Tony James Gallery at 365 Fifth Ave. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 6 p.m. (212) 817-7394.
Posted by jherman at 11:38 AM