04/14/2006
Pierson and Doonan: Artist vs. Window Dresser — Part 2
Last month I posted about an email that had gone out from the Cheim & Read Gallery in New York regarding the appropriation by Simon Doonan of Jack Pierson
Simon Doonan has responded to Cheim & Read, in a piece in this week's New York Observer. Doonan says he had no prior knowledge of Jack Pierson's work, a revelation that flummoxed Pierson when they spoke on the phone for the first time.
"I try to appease him by telling him that I am constantly meeting people who live in New York and have never heard of Barneys and—worse still—people who have zero awareness of me, my work, my three books, my Observer column or my endless America’s Next Top Model appearances. I tell him that people are very busy and distracted and not to take it personally, and to remember that art—his milieu—is now competing with an enormous amount of other cultural clutter, not the least of which are celebrity and SHOPPING."
Apparently that wasn't enough for Pierson, as Doonan soon received the email from John Cheim, the gallery owner, "cc’d to an extensive list of fancy-pants New Yorkers, everyone from Philippe de Montebello to “Ingrid Sichy.” (sic):
"A few brave souls leap to my defense, one suggesting that Jack Pierson’s desire for a monopoly was the equivalent of Marcel Duchamp trying to sue a urinal company."
Doonan says he's become the "Typhoid Mary" of the art world now, forgives both the gallery and Pierson for their vitriol, but rails against those who hold the art world up on a pedestal, particularly those working in what he calls the "post-skill movement."
"Underlying the whole debacle is the horribly flawed idea that artists are somehow at the apex of our society. According to this ridiculous thinking, artists are somehow innately superior to us window dressers, or to coffee-shop waitresses and strip-club fluffers. Being an artist is not just a job or vocation, but something holy and infinitely worthy. In this topsy-turvy retarded world, the option to place a monopoly on a found object would automatically fall to an artist over a window dresser. Should that window dresser bump into an artist prowling the same wrecking yard, he should quietly step aside so that the artist can have first pick. For reasons too obvious to state, this idea does not go over well with me."
Next move, Cheim & Read. Can't we all just get along?
How Did I Become the Typhoid Mary of the Art World? [ny observer]
(via modern art notes)
Previously
Jack Pierson vs. Simon Doonan: Art Heist? [tr]
Posted 10:57 AM EST by Andy in Art & Design | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Relax Jack I saw the show it was great but appropriation has been going on for a while and the ties of fashion and art are irreversable at this point.Be flattered.
Posted by: paul Sorrentino | Apr 14, 2006 11:28:57 AM
Wasn't Jamie Reed doing this stuff 30 yrs ago when he designed the Sex Pistols' record covers & asst. promo materials?
Posted by: hadassah weinreb | Apr 14, 2006 11:32:26 AM
Seriously, aren't we all taking ourselves a little too seriously. Believe me, out here in the boonies, Barney's, Jack Pierson, and Simon Doonan....you don't even exist.
Posted by: Bill | Apr 14, 2006 12:06:27 PM
Pierson once put up a show using Edward Hopper paintings along with his signage. Do you think one had anythhing to do with the other? Or maybe Pierson, unable to copy Hopper's skill and originality, (or anyone's) opted to just display the Hopper originals. Well at least that's honest.
If you can't be good, be famous.
Posted by: slem | Apr 14, 2006 12:15:21 PM
doesn't seem very original from the little i can make out here--the contemp art crowd is way too cloistered. it's alittle arrogant to think that someone has copied somthing that is a copy to begin with... thanks for the excerpts--it's fun to watch the cat fat.
Posted by: Dan | Apr 14, 2006 12:27:00 PM
u city folks sure are a tight wound bunch.
Posted by: Mike p | Apr 14, 2006 12:34:23 PM
I'm familiar with Jack Pierson's photography but not his signage art. Doonan is correct about there being too much cultural clutter out there to be aware of it all. How could anyone keep track of the source of every blip on the art world radar? In fact, I question the originality of Pierson's mixed-font signage art. I know I've seen that sort of thing long before. If you had a catalog of every art school BFA show from the last 15 years, I'm sure that sort of thing would pop up more than a few times.
Posted by: Tom | Apr 14, 2006 12:36:32 PM
Pierson's "letter" work is a copy of a style that has been around long before his own work. He is being quite pretentious in his statements. Someone needs to get over themself and possibly .....create art?
Posted by: Patrick | Apr 14, 2006 12:43:30 PM
"if you don't pay me $1,000,000 in ransom you're daughter will be killed" I think I have seen the exact same thing in dozens of old B&W movies with cut out letters from newspapers and magazines. To call this original or even clever is silly. It's like most performance art: it's a lack of talent described as talent by critics with no talent propagated (sp?) by art schools filled with untalented teachers.
Posted by: PSMike | Apr 14, 2006 1:01:52 PM
simon seems to have a better grasp of theory and design history than jack does. and a sense of humor. and his nod to jack's gallery's bid for PR is great. "shut up, johnny ray."
i think simon wins this one.
Posted by: jennie | Apr 14, 2006 1:27:15 PM
The trouble is that it is "found" art. To claim an exclusive right to "found" items is to say that you are the only one with the ability to appreciate what was found.
I'm going to copyright pictures that I've taken of the Empire State Building and sue every tourist that does the same.
Posted by: rod | Apr 14, 2006 1:27:36 PM
Good point, Rod.
Posted by: Patrick | Apr 14, 2006 1:40:25 PM
I do agree with Cheim & Read that Doonan's work is formally inferior, but I totally agree with Doonan's position. Chelsea hates it when advertisers or the fashion industry or any mass cultural body plays off there ideas, but they have no problem appropriating pop culture into their work(Barbara Kruger, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Alex Bag, the list is endless)...its a double standard.
I also think that art no longer serves a greater good, it's so undemocratic, it's only for rich kids who go to art school and the parents who pay too much for it.
Posted by: Mike | Apr 14, 2006 1:40:43 PM
This type/text technique has been around for over a hundred years (at least since the 1800s). There is nothing new, only reinterpretation. Get over it already!
Posted by: vstill | Apr 14, 2006 1:49:59 PM
***According to this ridiculous thinking, artists are somehow innately superior to us window dressers, or to coffee-shop waitresses and strip-club fluffers.***
similar to ransom notes -- they've been around for awhile....yet, this contra-art -- dada inflection of art on a pedestal -- i recall walking by the barney's windows and being impressed by the ingenuity, wit, and humor from time to time....appropriation and looking the other way -- a fine line. i've been all four and don't look any differently at their personal talent if it exists.
Posted by: ricardo | Apr 14, 2006 2:27:17 PM
It really doesn't matter whether Pierson is a janitor, a hack-copier of others, or a great artist. Doonan still doesn't answer the question, "did you copy his work?" Instead, he just sidesteps it by bringing in a a totally-off-point jab at the hoity-toity rich, art world, which is an odd ploy for someone whose job is to sell $20,000 dresses to unhealthily skinny rich girls.
Posted by: Ozone Dude | Apr 14, 2006 3:14:21 PM
Why can't somebody invent a font of mixed fonts? Why bother with cut and paste ransom notes?
Posted by: slem | Apr 14, 2006 3:16:04 PM
SLEM: It's been done (as is the point of this discussion). See "Ransom" at your local favorite type foundery.
Posted by: Kurt | Apr 14, 2006 3:19:29 PM
Ozone Dude, if you read the entire article in the New York Observer (linked to at the beginning of this blog posting) Doonan states he didn't copy the Pierson work, nor has he ever seen any of Pierson's work in regard to this style. Andy stated in his original posting on the story that "it is obvious Doonan is a fan of Pierson's work", but that was a rather unfair assumption being this style has been around for some time long before Pierson's original pieces in this "genre". So, one can't assume that everyone who uses this style is copying or even knows who Pierson is. I remember a Mexican restaurant in Boston in the early 80s who used this style in the sign on their building. It's not original to Pierson...and there can't be any argument about that.
Posted by: Patrick | Apr 14, 2006 3:59:00 PM
This is usually a first semester assignment in any typography class. It's just silly for Pierson to think he owns it. For God Sakes, the poor graphic designer of the Tomato Soup can should have been paid millions by the Warhol estate. Art is theft, or cancer as once David Carson once lectured.
Posted by: randy | Apr 14, 2006 4:01:06 PM
meeeeee-OW! kitty's got out her claws and smells some cat scratch fever! FYI to Jack & Simon: i mean - honestly. just grow up and find something to do besides argue over who appropriated whom first.
Posted by: resurrect | Apr 14, 2006 6:24:26 PM
Touche' Patrick. But it still doesn't explain Donnan's hypocritical, off-point banter about the art world, considering what he does for a living.
Posted by: Ozone Dude | Apr 15, 2006 2:30:47 AM
So...three years ago, my BF and I put our names over our bed using a variety of fonts/colors/sizes letters rescued from a sign junkyard.
Imagine our surprise this morning when, reading this, we found out BOTH these bozos ripped us off LOL
So do I get a Barney's gift certificate? And why was Simon Doonan in our bedroom? Should we look for Adler pottery crumbles in our sheets?
Jeesh...
Posted by: Becks07 | Apr 15, 2006 11:09:58 AM
pierson should be flattered, and simon should just admit he borrowed pierson's "look". ultimately, that tangent of pierson's work was never interesting or innovative. now if simon rephoto'd one of pierson's photos we'd have a grand debate.
seems that the gallery and pierson are just after some free clothes from barney's.
Posted by: A.J. | Apr 15, 2006 4:20:50 PM
Ozone..... Donnan isn't part of THAT art world, so how can he be hypocritical? He is merely pointing out the absurdity of someone in that art world putting down what he does for a living (as a window dresser) when THAT art world, according to him, started to create the type of art he and other window dressers have incorporated in their own work long before. Remember, it were people in THAT art world that started mass emailing copies of their letters to others in THAT art world in regards to Donnan's store displays. That's the whole absurdity of this entire issue. Donnan is only defending himself.
Posted by: Patrick | Apr 18, 2006 10:40:29 AM