Look Homeward, Angel

Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

Can you go home again? Every artist has peaks and valleys -- more often, troughs of despair. In tagging the recreated Keith Haring mural in NYC is his former collaborator Angel Ortiz (a.k.a. L.A. II a.k.a. Little Angel) looking forward? Or is he clinging to a past moment in order to explain his disappointment in his overall accomplishments? The pathos that seeps through the NYT story could be a product of the reporter's intention to highlight a point of view, or it could be a sad reality that Angel doesn't quite get it. Studying his tags on the Keith Haring image -- are they a contribution, a defacement, a desperate plea for recognition? Do you think they enhance, detract, play homage to Keith, or attempt to stand on his shoulders for another moment?

On the other hand, on whose shoulders did Keith Haring stand? Or does his estate stand now? Is it the artist or the machine that oppresses Mr. Ortiz?

Appropriation, collaboration, exploitation, merchandising. Haring was a very young man when he first began working with Ortiz. At 22, he was barely 9 years older than the teenager. His education may or may not have illuminated all of the ethical implications of collaboration, much less with one so young. Could he have predicted the impact that his meteoric rise would have on someone who came from such disadvantaged circumstances? Would he have approached it differently if he could? In truth, didn't more artists in the 1980's echo Haring's motifs than did Haring echo Angel Ortiz?

An artist has no right to recognition or appreciation, right? Ars gratia artis after all -- tag that!

My Picture Made in the Keith Haring Coloring Book

On another note, it is interesting that the Haring Foundation website warns against access by children, at the same time that their focus is continuing his work with children. So they have a separate kids site, which has some neat features, including this interactive coloring book in which I pay homage to LA II's tagging of the Keith Haring mural. But when you think about it, isn't it strange that Haring's work is childlike and appealing to children, while often being pornographic?

Little Angel Was Here: A Keith Haring Collaborator Makes His Mark

Flickr Slideshow of Pornographic Keith Haring Bathroom Mural

Keith Haring Aztec Artist Kids Flash Projects

Keith Haring Foundation

Plagiarism is Dead

Jonathan Lethem was interviewed by Terry Gross Monday on Fresh Air. He has a new book You Don't Love Me Yet in which he recasts plagiarism as "value-neutral." Issues of appropriation and attribution are not new in the arts, but have generally been given a context that allows for societal and legal assessment: students copy other works with the understanding that students are not assessed with the same expectations; "real" artists use appropriation as a means of commenting or elaborating on previous works. In today's mashup and mixdown culture, some are postulating that plagiarism of music and images is kind of over. But writers of scholarly or popular works are still held accountable for using their own original words.

Lathem is interested in creating a more communal approach to writing. His Promiscuous Materials Project puts his words out for others to adapt and adopt as they will. In his overview of this project, he states: "My thinking along these lines has been strongly influenced by Open Source theory and the Free Culture movement, and by Lewis Hyde's book, The Gift."

He points to the Wikipedia entry on Open Source Culture, which in turn points to a "mediography" on Open Source Culture. This list includes content related to Dangermouses' Grey Album, a the internationally-famous mashup of the Beatle's White Album and Jay-Z's The Black Album. The battle over the copyright issues related to this groundbreaking musical re-use collage was intense, and involved many heavyweights bound to put a stop to the whole thing. But in the end, all efforts faded under the sheer demand for the re-mixed content. For those who want to mashup, this battle was a triumph. For those who want to guard, is any rock and roll song really original anyway? For everyone else: if you make anything digital today, be prepared to share...