All posts tagged: Elvis Presley

Collaboration without Consent

So, when two artists do it together, it’s a collabo, right?

(That’s a fancy abbreviation for collaboration, for those of us who are sequestered on the inside of coolness.)

And when one artist smacks their stuff over top of another artist’s piece, that is a sign of disrespect right? Diss.

How about when one artist deliberately puts a piece on top of the work of another artist and subsequently a NEW piece of art is created by it?  Serendipity?

Who the heck knows these things?  And who the heck put this Audrey Hepburn head on top of a 19th century “call-girl” body by the artist Imminent Disaster?

Breakfast at Disaster (photo Steven P. Harrington)
Breakfast at Disaster (photo Steven P. Harrington)

It sort of looks good though, right? This stuff can only happen on the street, by the way – where the rules seem to be rather unruly, and completely ineffective anyway.  As soon as you try to write a definitive statement about the rules of the street, you will suffer street-hotdog heartburn. Don’t even.

For example, you don’t find people bringing their handy Bob Ross Master Paint Set into the Francis Bacon show at the Met just to brighten up the pieces, do you?

Now that I mention it, did you see the arrows on that Bacon piece?

Francis Bacon "A Piece of Wasteland"

"A Piece of Wasteland" by Francis Bacon

Holy Canoli! Do you see what I see?

Do you think street artist Jef Aerosol went to see the show and smacked it up with some of those red arrows when the security guard was eyeballing the Miss Cataract’s 8th Grade Art Appreciation Field Trip? He seems pretty sneaky.

Probably not, but that would be a new twist wouldn’t it?

Les mythiques
Creative Commons License photo credit: kikozbi1

Francis Bacon has been dead for a while, so if somebody started doing their art on top of his art, that would be kind of like Natalie Cole doing a duet with her father Nat King Cole on that record, “Unforgettable”.  As long as it’s a “tribute” can it really be called “desecration”?  It’s rumored that on Frank Sinatra’s final “Duets” album he didn’t even sing with half of his other halfs.  They just sang by themselves and mailed his studio a disk.  Two alive artists making art together, separately.

And let’s not even talk about Jim Morrison’s grave.

Jim Morrison's Grave Graffiti, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Jim Linwood

Back to the “Breakfast at Disaster” piece at the top. Is this fine art?  Street Art?  Street Art 3.0?  Non-permission-based Art, Hybrid, Mashup, Sampling, Bootleg, Marbled Bundt Cake Art?

Damn, son, somebody better get some labels up in here!

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