Mr. Brainwash sued, which answers a different question stemming from Exit Through The Gift Shop

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/26/thierry-guetta-aka-m.html

Sean Bonner <http://seanbonner.com/> has been involved with blogs and
hackerspaces and art galleries and record labels of the punk rock variety.
Now he's on Twitter. <http://twitter.com/seanbonner>

[image: Run-DMC.jpg] [image: mbwinvite.jpg] *Above Top: Photo of Run DMC,
taken by Glen E. Friedman
Above Bottom: Invitation Thierry Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash used for his
debut exhibition 'Life Is Beautiful'*

Earlier this month I noted that Banksy had finally
spoken<http://boingboing.net/2011/01/11/banksy-speaks-about.html>about
the artist Thierry Guetta (aka Mr.
Brainwash <http://www.mrbrainwash.com/>) profiled in his now Oscar nominated
film *Exit Through the Gift
Shop<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00470MG06?ie=UTF8&tag=seanbonnerdot-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00470MG06>
*. Still, suspicions run fairly rampant that he either doesn't exist or is
merely the latest prank creation by Banksy <http://banksy.co.uk/>. Guetta
has now given sworn statements that the artwork is his own, as he's the
subject of a copyright lawsuit initiated by photographer Glen E.
Friedman<http://burningflags.com/>.
The two Run DMC images above should make that fairly obvious (as well as
several others after the jump).

Friedman is arguing that Guetta used, without credit or permission, his
iconic photo of Run DMC on invitations, artworks, merchandise and
promotional materials. The Hollywood
Reporter<http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/thr-esq/legal-drama-shadows-oscar-nominated-75550>broke
this story, connected some of the dots between many of the people
involved, and then suggested it's basically the same situation as the
Associated Press vs. Shepard Fairey case surrounding the Obama 'Hope' image.
It's not, and for number of reasons which I'll get to in a second.

First, those dots: Shepard Fairey appeared in Banksy's film about Thierry
Guetta, in fact he was the person who introduced Guetta to Banksy. Shepard
Fairey and Glen E. Friedman have collaborated on many projects together in
the past. And to disclose my connection to this, I previously co ran an art
gallery that worked closely with Fairey, Friedman and Guetta's cousin, Space
Invader. I met Guetta many times via the gallery, long before he became Mr.
Brainwash. Glen and I were both deposed in relation to Shepard's dispute
with the Associated press, and I consider both he and Shepard personal
friends.

Now that that is out of the way - the major difference between the two cases
is the use of an iconic image. In the Fairey v. AP case, Shepard used a
random press image that was not iconic in anyway and changed it
significantly. In fact the photographer who took the original image, Mannie
Garcia, has stated that he didn't even recognize that the 'HOPE' image which
he had seen for months while covering the Obama campaign was based on his
photo which says quite a bit about both how much Shepard changed it, and how
unremarkable of a photo it was in the first place.

In the Friedman v Guetta case, not only is the photo already famous and
iconic, it's arguably *the most* famous photo of Run DMC that exists. In
fact it was used as the cover image on a 20 year retrospective of photos of
the group. The argument could easily be made that Guetta used the photo
specifically for this reason, it was already iconic, very well known and he
used it in his artwork because of that. He wasn't just referencing Run DMC,
he was referencing the most famous photo of them. Additionally he used it in
several instances throughout his exhibition, never once crediting Friedman
as the creator of the original photo.

Shepard has argued that he believes what he did was covered by Fair Use
laws, and references many instances of artwork he's created non-fair use
works based on iconic images where he's worked with, and credited the
photographer involve (such as the collaborations with Friedman). The photo
of Obama by Garcia *became* iconic after Shepard used it, prior to that it
was not noteworthy. In the Guetta case, there's no question the photo was
iconic long before Guetta ever stepped onto the scene - and had been
registered and sold as artwork on it's own right by Friedman for years.

At face value the cases might seem similar and contradictory, but those are
in fact extremely important differences.

All that aside this case is interesting for many reasons. It should put to
rest the speculation that Mr. Brainwash is just a creation of Banksy's.
Should Friedman win the case, expect other artists and copyright holders to
come out of the woodwork as basically every piece of artwork by Guetta is
just a twist on an already well known image created, and uncredited, by
someone else. What will happen to the values of the Guetta/MBW works that
were sold at, as some have suggested, incredibly inflated prices to begin
with? I think this story is long from over, and can't wait to see what
happens in *Exit Through The Gift Shop 2*.

*Below: 20th Anniversary Run DMC image, with image by Friedman, followed by
several other works by Guetta using Friedman's image.*

[image: 20years.jpg]

[image: bwrecords.jpg]

[image: mbwspray.jpg]

[image: mrbrainwashRunDMC.jpg]



Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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