It's ARTS smorgesborg day with a cross section of the hot topics that hit the feeds this week.
The big news was a new grant that is specifically directed at young artists, to assist them in developing their creative gifts. The Future Generation Art Prize is a competition that will recognize and award artists age 35 and under. The Victor Pinchuk Foundation will provide the winner with $100,000 and help from mentors like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Victor Pinchuk is a Ukrainian billionaire and art collector.
One of the goals is to "provide sustainable support for the future generation, by bringing the most promising of these young artists into a network that includes curators, critics, educators, scholars and some of the world's most celebrated artists."
Weren't we JUST talking about this? Apparently Victor Pinchuk decided to invest his money in artists and the future rather than spend it on a Warhol for his safe to enjoy. I applaud him and I applaud the distinguished artists that have agreed to mentor the emerging artists. Y'all think Mr. Pinchuk was listening to the DAMage Report the other day?
For those interested in participating in this new opportunity the online entries will be accepted from Jan. 18 through April 18. The winner and up to five finalists will be announced in December 2010. An additional $20,000 will fund artist-in-residency programs for up to five other special prize winners. Incidently the prize is higher than the prestigious $36,400 Turner Prize given by the Tate or the $50,000 Hugo Boss Prize sponsored by the clothing company and given by the Guggenheim. For more details go to: http://www.pinchukartcentre.org/
Other Grant news was the doling out of the NEA arts funds to various organizations across the country including over $4 million to the LA area. Nationwide, the NEA will distribute $26,968,500 to support 1,207 projects. This will be a life-saver for many organizations across the country and help keep their programs going. Nearly $27 million in grants was distributed by the National Endowment for the Arts to 1,207 projects.
A large part of the Arts chatter this past week has revolved around the Art Basel Party in Miami. This was apparently "the party" of the year with art from 267 galleries and 33 countries. The big poo-poo seemed to be directed at Sylvester Stallone who has been painting for many years. Snide comments demeaning "celebrity artists" and recommendations for him to keep his day job reinforced for me exactly how damn snobby the art world can be. Is there a rule somewhere that dictates who can and cannot create art? There was a time in our history that artists who explored many areas of the arts were held in the highest regard. Now if a "celebrity" dares to step out of their success box and try their hand at something else, they are bitchslapped for their audacity. I actually thought his paintings were intriguing. Apparently so did three buyers since he made $90,000 in sales. Go Rocky.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-new-artist-prize,0,5225032.story
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
DAMage Report - Character Assassination by Characters - The RedHat Lawsuit
"A Georgia jury has awarded $100,000 to a woman who says she was defamed because a character in the book The Red Hat Club had a mix of her own traits and other false characteristics that depicted her as a promiscuous alcoholic."
At first glance, this seems like a ridiculous lawsuit and potentially disastrous precedence in the publishing world. After all, don't disclaimers at the beginning of books count for anything anymore? And don't a large majority of authors base some parts of their characters on people they know or have encountered? It's called creative inspiration. And typically, while the seed of a character may have a real life prototype, the process of writing as well as the process of characters taking over their own stories, usually carries the character development far away from that initial inspiration.
Hell, I've had a number of writers, poets and songwriters use me as their muse in one way or another for their creative endeavors over the years. And no, they weren't all flattering. Not because the writers intended to insult or "defame" my sterling character (heh), but because the creation itself demanded the direction the story, song, poem, painting took. Even if they depicted me as slutty-mcslut, or dumb as a doornail - I wouldn't SUE them. (Bop them upside the head maybe and exact revenge with my OWN story.) Because... I am cognizant that most people would have no clue who the work was inspired by. And couldn't care less if they did know.
Author Karin Gillespie pointed out if the plaintiff, Ms. Vickie Stewart, was so concerned about being perceived as a slut and alcoholic - why didn't she just lay low? Now she doesn't have to contend with just her friends and former-friends viewing her with speculative glances, but a large portion of the world that WOULD HAVE remained ignorant of her affiliation with the book. Plus, fifty something going through her own harem of boytoys? Hello, I'll have some of what she's got please. (Okay - not really, but it sounded good.)
But at the heart of this and one of the reasons the writing industry is concerned is that this may have created a precedent. Given our lawsuit crazed society, it could spell trouble for authors. Both plaintiffs and defense lawyers say they know of no other successful libel cases in Georgia brought against works of fiction. And there are countless books out there with characters based on real people.
"It’s very common for writers to draw on historical, cultural facts from the world they live in and place them in novels to make them seem as real as possible..." Ruppersburg, a paid expert witness for the defense, said "from the first sentence, the first paragraph of (The Red Hat Club), it presented itself to me as a work of fiction."
As the Romantic Times Book Review remarks "This case sets a bad precedent. Now anyone with a grudge against an author can claim libel if they see even a semblance of themselves in a work of fiction. Authors will have to worry not just about their characters that ARE based on real people, but accidental resemblances, too."
BUT to take the OTHER side of the issue - the author of The Red Hat Club, Haywood Smith, set herself up to fail.
She not only did incredibly idiotic things such as keeping the names of the character's neighbors the same as Ms. Stewarts, she also included over 35 identifiable traits and incidents that could easily be tied to the plaintiff. In her OWN essay "Creating Memorable Characters" she advises writers to "Borrow from life, then embellish it all you want (disguising the people you use sufficiently to avoid problems, of course)."
Writers DO have to take some responsibilities. Especially if they think there is even the slightest chance that one of their characters might be recognizable by the person who inspired it. And for goddess sake, don't do what Smith did and email a writer friend confessing that the "slut" character in your story is suing you. That was a nice piece of key evidence for the plaintiff.
At first glance, this seems like a ridiculous lawsuit and potentially disastrous precedence in the publishing world. After all, don't disclaimers at the beginning of books count for anything anymore? And don't a large majority of authors base some parts of their characters on people they know or have encountered? It's called creative inspiration. And typically, while the seed of a character may have a real life prototype, the process of writing as well as the process of characters taking over their own stories, usually carries the character development far away from that initial inspiration.
Hell, I've had a number of writers, poets and songwriters use me as their muse in one way or another for their creative endeavors over the years. And no, they weren't all flattering. Not because the writers intended to insult or "defame" my sterling character (heh), but because the creation itself demanded the direction the story, song, poem, painting took. Even if they depicted me as slutty-mcslut, or dumb as a doornail - I wouldn't SUE them. (Bop them upside the head maybe and exact revenge with my OWN story.) Because... I am cognizant that most people would have no clue who the work was inspired by. And couldn't care less if they did know.
Author Karin Gillespie pointed out if the plaintiff, Ms. Vickie Stewart, was so concerned about being perceived as a slut and alcoholic - why didn't she just lay low? Now she doesn't have to contend with just her friends and former-friends viewing her with speculative glances, but a large portion of the world that WOULD HAVE remained ignorant of her affiliation with the book. Plus, fifty something going through her own harem of boytoys? Hello, I'll have some of what she's got please. (Okay - not really, but it sounded good.)
But at the heart of this and one of the reasons the writing industry is concerned is that this may have created a precedent. Given our lawsuit crazed society, it could spell trouble for authors. Both plaintiffs and defense lawyers say they know of no other successful libel cases in Georgia brought against works of fiction. And there are countless books out there with characters based on real people.
"It’s very common for writers to draw on historical, cultural facts from the world they live in and place them in novels to make them seem as real as possible..." Ruppersburg, a paid expert witness for the defense, said "from the first sentence, the first paragraph of (The Red Hat Club), it presented itself to me as a work of fiction."
As the Romantic Times Book Review remarks "This case sets a bad precedent. Now anyone with a grudge against an author can claim libel if they see even a semblance of themselves in a work of fiction. Authors will have to worry not just about their characters that ARE based on real people, but accidental resemblances, too."
BUT to take the OTHER side of the issue - the author of The Red Hat Club, Haywood Smith, set herself up to fail.
She not only did incredibly idiotic things such as keeping the names of the character's neighbors the same as Ms. Stewarts, she also included over 35 identifiable traits and incidents that could easily be tied to the plaintiff. In her OWN essay "Creating Memorable Characters" she advises writers to "Borrow from life, then embellish it all you want (disguising the people you use sufficiently to avoid problems, of course)."
Writers DO have to take some responsibilities. Especially if they think there is even the slightest chance that one of their characters might be recognizable by the person who inspired it. And for goddess sake, don't do what Smith did and email a writer friend confessing that the "slut" character in your story is suing you. That was a nice piece of key evidence for the plaintiff.
DAMAGE Research - Character Assassination by a Character
A Georgia jury has awarded $100,000 to a woman who says she was defamed because a character in the book The Red Hat Club had a mix of her own traits and other false characteristics that depicted her as a promiscuous alcoholic.
The Nov. 19 jury award for plaintiff Vickie Stewart was far less than the minimum of $1 million in damages sought by her lawyer, Jeffrey Horst, according to the Fulton County Daily Report.
Stewart had contended novelist Haywood Smith, a childhood friend, had created the character SuSu with looks that resembled hers, with the same job as a flight attendant, and with similar experiences involving a second, conniving husband. But Stewart says she did not have other traits of the character, including a propensity to engage in casual sex and drink at work.
The jury did not award attorney fees to Stewart, and did not rule for her on an invasion of privacy claim against Smith and her publisher, St. Martin's Press. The defendants were represented by Peter Canfield of Dow Lohnes.
Canfield told the Fulton County Daily Report that the jury found for Stewart on the defamation charge because "they were essentially instructed that, in Georgia, modeling a fictional character after a real person is a strict liability offense."
"Under that standard, as the jury was instructed on Georgia law, a whole host of authors that we all know and are highly esteemed would be considered serial tortfeasors," he said. They include authors such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Irving, he said.
Both plaintiffs and defense lawyers say they know of no other successful libel cases in Georgia brought against works of fiction
"The Red Hat Club," released in 2003, hit No. 15 on The New York Times' best-seller list. Smith, who lives in Hall County, has since written other novels, including a sequel to "The Red Hat Club" titled "The Red Hat Club Rides Again."
...provided 39 "identifiable" traits common between Stewart and SuSu, including that both have red hair, green eyes and freckles and both smoke and have a smoker's cough. Both Stewart and SuSu are compulsively late and both had neighbors named Ed Johnson and Ellen Beaumont.
"We put on the stand people who knew Vickie pretty well who immediately recognized SuSu as depicting Vickie Stewart's life," Horst said. "But they said they didn't know if these other things were true, like whether she drank on the job or had sex with stud puppies."
"These people, who are Vickie's friends, could not distinguish fact from fiction," Horst said.
Another key piece of evidence was an e-mail Smith sent to a writing colleague who provided Smith with advice on her manuscripts. In the e-mail, Smith told the colleague that she had received an e-mail from the woman who was the basis for her fictional "slut" and that the woman was threatening to sue her.
During this month’s trial, an associate dean and professor of English from the University of Georgia testified that modeling fictional characters after real people was commonplace in literature.
Dean Hugh Ruppersburg cited Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby and Flannery O’Connor’sGood Country People as but a few examples of authors basing their characters on real people.
"It’s very common for writers to draw on historical, cultural facts from the world they live in and place them in novels to make them seem as real as possible," the professor said.
Ruppersburg, a paid expert witness for the defense, said "from the first sentence, the first paragraph of (The Red Hat Club), it presented itself to me as a work of fiction."
Asked whether it might be difficult for readers to separate the real Vicki Stewart from the SuSu of the novel, the professor said that shouldn’t be the reader’s job.
"The reader’s job is to decide whether he or she believes that individual character behaves like a credible human being," Ruppersburg said.
Dean Hugh Ruppersburg cited Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby and Flannery O’Connor’sGood Country People as but a few examples of authors basing their characters on real people.
"It’s very common for writers to draw on historical, cultural facts from the world they live in and place them in novels to make them seem as real as possible," the professor said.
Ruppersburg, a paid expert witness for the defense, said "from the first sentence, the first paragraph of (The Red Hat Club), it presented itself to me as a work of fiction."
Asked whether it might be difficult for readers to separate the real Vicki Stewart from the SuSu of the novel, the professor said that shouldn’t be the reader’s job.
"The reader’s job is to decide whether he or she believes that individual character behaves like a credible human being," Ruppersburg said.
During his cross-examination of the professor, plaintiff’s attorney Jeffrey Horst showed the witness an essay Smith wrote titled "Creating Memorable Characters."
Smith wrote, "Borrow from life, then embellish it all you want (disguising the people you use sufficiently to avoid problems, of course)."
***There are a few requirements to joining the Red Hat Society, Mack explained. You must be at least 50 years old and willing to have a good time. http://www.northjersey.com/community/70595812.html
Smith wrote, "Borrow from life, then embellish it all you want (disguising the people you use sufficiently to avoid problems, of course)."
***There are a few requirements to joining the Red Hat Society, Mack explained. You must be at least 50 years old and willing to have a good time. http://www.northjersey.com/community/70595812.html
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
DAMage Report - When Does it Become No Longer About the Art?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aVVV8IsOLCOs
"An Andy Warhol painting of 200 dollar bills was sold for $43.8 million at a New York art auction by London-based art collector Pauline Karpidas, more than 100 times what she paid in 1986."
The recent auction at Sotheby's has the investment and art world all aflutter. The auction brought in an unexpected $134.4 million which was more than expected but less than their May 2008 record of $362 million. Those numbers are somewhat mind-numbing aren't they? The auction this week brought in almost as much as the 2009 NEA budget of $155 million. Last year the auction brought in more than the $265 million requested for 2010 for arts programs for the United States. That's a whole lot of dollars being traded for investments and not for art.
Because really, it is no longer about the art is it?
There is a humorous irony that Warhol's painting of 200 one dollar bills, making art of commerce, is no longer ART really, but a trading commodity, no different than gold or pieces of paper with the heads of presidents printed on them. His name is what has value, not the piece. It was bought by an anonymous buyer and will be locked away until such time as the buyer decides to auction it off for a profit. It is unlikely that it will hang on a wall for the aesthetic value or appreciation for what the artist was trying to say with the painting. All of that has become inconsequential in the world of who can accumulate the most one dollar bills.
The artists, their estates, their descendants are all divorced from the reality of these works. In most cases, even the art world doesn't benefit. There are exceptions, as will probably be the case with this particular Warhol because the seller, Pauline Karpidas, who paid $385,000 for the painting at a 1986, is a patron of the arts and will probably funnel at least part of her $43 million profit back into supporting the arts. But given the state of arts and arts education world-wide, it is pretty safe to say that most of the money trading doesn't find its way back into support of the arts.
The question for you is, if you had $43 million that you could either buy a painting with or donate to arts programs to sustain the future of the arts, what would you do? Invest in the painting to make more money down the road, or invest in the future?
"An Andy Warhol painting of 200 dollar bills was sold for $43.8 million at a New York art auction by London-based art collector Pauline Karpidas, more than 100 times what she paid in 1986."
The recent auction at Sotheby's has the investment and art world all aflutter. The auction brought in an unexpected $134.4 million which was more than expected but less than their May 2008 record of $362 million. Those numbers are somewhat mind-numbing aren't they? The auction this week brought in almost as much as the 2009 NEA budget of $155 million. Last year the auction brought in more than the $265 million requested for 2010 for arts programs for the United States. That's a whole lot of dollars being traded for investments and not for art.
Because really, it is no longer about the art is it?
There is a humorous irony that Warhol's painting of 200 one dollar bills, making art of commerce, is no longer ART really, but a trading commodity, no different than gold or pieces of paper with the heads of presidents printed on them. His name is what has value, not the piece. It was bought by an anonymous buyer and will be locked away until such time as the buyer decides to auction it off for a profit. It is unlikely that it will hang on a wall for the aesthetic value or appreciation for what the artist was trying to say with the painting. All of that has become inconsequential in the world of who can accumulate the most one dollar bills.
The artists, their estates, their descendants are all divorced from the reality of these works. In most cases, even the art world doesn't benefit. There are exceptions, as will probably be the case with this particular Warhol because the seller, Pauline Karpidas, who paid $385,000 for the painting at a 1986, is a patron of the arts and will probably funnel at least part of her $43 million profit back into supporting the arts. But given the state of arts and arts education world-wide, it is pretty safe to say that most of the money trading doesn't find its way back into support of the arts.
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