Showing posts with label artists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artists. Show all posts

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Good Art, Problematic Creators

Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column discusses the renaming of the John W. Campbell Award. We might also mention (although Doctorow doesn't) other similar controversies recently arising in the SF/fantasy world, such as the renaming of the Tiptree Award and the retiring of the H. P. Lovecraft bust as a trophy for the World Fantasy Award.

Campbell Was a Fascist

A panel at a recent Chessicon (which I participated in) addressed the quandary of how to deal with the works of an author whose personal life and/or beliefs violate our contemporary norms. Do the creator's flaws as a human being negate the value of his or her art? One all-too-recent example outside the realm of literature whom we discussed was Bill Cosby. If not aware of his real-life transgressions, wouldn't we still consider his comedy and TV programs worthwhile? And what about the other actors, innocent of wrongdoing, who suffer when reruns of those programs are made unavailable? Similarly, when a certain deceased editor is credibly accused of immoral conduct, would it make sense to boycott volumes edited by that person when the editor isn't alive to suffer, but innocent authors whose stories appear in those volumes are?

I recently heard a podcast reacting against (as I understood the part I heard) a movement to demote Paul Gauguin from the artistic canon because, as shown by his behavior in Tahiti, he was a pedophile and a racist. Should we deal with problematic authors, artists, filmmakers, actors, etc., differently depending on whether they're alive or dead, and if the latter, how long ago? It's understandable that a reader (viewer, etc.) may not want to give his or her money to living creators guilty of reprehensible behavior or known to hold beliefs the reader considers repellent. In cases of long-dead authors and artists, they're unable to either benefit or suffer from audience response to their works. What about recently deceased objectionable creators? Some audience members may object to giving money to such people's estates, but why? More often than not, the heirs are probably innocent of the dead person's offenses.

Concerning creators who lived so long ago that nobody now alive can be harmed or benefited by our treatment of their works, I see no problem with separating the art from the artist. The former can be great even if the latter was a terrible person. Of course, any individual or group has the right to boycott an artist's work as a form of principled protest. Moreover, the issue of actively honoring a problematic creator by naming an award after him or her is a different, more complicated question. In general, however, it seems to me that if we rejected the work of all artists who were flawed or immoral, we wouldn't have much of a canon left.

Doctorow puts it this way:

"Life is not a ledger. Your sins can’t be paid off through good deeds. Your good deeds are not cancelled by your sins. Your sins and your good deeds live alongside one another. They coexist in superposition."

Likewise, the sins of creators who are or were deplorable human beings coexist alongside their accomplishments as artists. Neither cancels out the other.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Here Be... Cookies, To Turn A Phrase, and Ivanka Trump

Periodic reminder:
European law requires us (the authors of this blog) to remind European visitors that Google, host of Blogger, places cookies on the devices of all visitors. We (the authors) have no control over the cookies that Blogger/Google places on your devices, and if you visit this blog, we assume that you consent to the cookies.

Talking of European cookie law:
The law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP recently wrote about European proposed e-privacy rules that may be adopted early in 2018.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=27f712c9-a547-4253-8a9e-566518dbfe29&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-01-13&utm_term=

Honestly, I do not believe that the authors of this blog have any access at all to visitors' data, email addresses or anything else (unless you leave a comment, and mostly, you don't).  There does seem to be a visitor counter at the very bottom of the blog page, and according to the above referenced law firm, visitor counters do not require the consent of visitors.

On "60 Ways..." not to leave your lover but "To Turn A Phrase":
In an interesting article about how he advises clients on creating unique and memorable trademarks, Nexsen Pruett refers to "Figures of Speech or 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase" by Arthur Quinn.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a95e16c3-9634-4602-929a-982ac0f267a8&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-01-13&utm_term=

Read Nexsen Pruett's blog if you are thinking of getting a trademark (mine is Space Snark and I did not take this expert's advice).  I'm thinking of buying the late Arthur Quinn's paperback.  However, it is short and expensive, and Google Books helpfully reveals quite a lot of the content (very interesting content on use of misspelled words),  Pages 12-24 consecutively and in full, for instance.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Figures_of_Speech.html?id=jjfAJwB6FoUC

And a search of "And" reveals "To And or Not To And" pages 1 to 9 inclusive. It's a mystery to me how Authors Guild lost that lawsuit, and this is totally lawful.
https://books.google.com/books?id=XFLFiE2kn1QC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Last but not least,
I bought an Ivanka Trump dress last week. It was marked down at T J Maxx, and was well made, flattering, and a modest length. I cannot say the same about the length, of a Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP law firm's article about artists piling on Ivanka Trump because their artwork shows on her home's walls in the background of her selfies.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a40e7d1-2a79-4216-b364-505f79e9d2fa&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-01-11&utm_term=

If the late Prince and his music publishers could not prevail in the Dancing Baby case for his music playing in the background of a home movie, it's even more likely to be fair use for whatever one has permanently displayed on ones walls to be in the background of personal photographs.

It might be a different matter if the lady were taking high quality photos of just the artwork and selling prints, but she is not doing that.

The legal blogger (Ms Pillsbury) makes excellent points about Fair Use as regards background images in non-commercial social media type posts on Instagram.

Authors might extrapolate something to consider before taking photographs to promote their own books if there are prominent and clear images of more famous authors' works in the background. It's not cool to use--or tag-- another author's name (without permission) to promote oneself.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry