Barbie dolls in blenders. Campbell's-style soup cans filled with "Cream of Dealer" and "Curator's Live." Mickey Mouse hanging from a noose. Bart Simpson in a chair, his hands tied behind his back.
It's disturbing, introspective stuff, taking familiar trademarked and copyright material and remaking it into images their owners would never want unleashed on the public.
SAN FRANCISCO
Artists have always borrowed from popular culture, encouraging audiences to rethink the ways they look at the world around them.
But in an age where corporate branding assails the senses from every angle, artistic commentary is drawing legal threats, particularly from corporations seeking to protect their images.
These legal complaints led to the creation of "Illegal Art," a provocative exhibit of nearly 70 works on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery.
The traveling show opened in New York last November and appeared in Chicago. It moves to Philadelphia, its last stop, in October.
Carrie McLaren, the curator, said the threat of lawsuits has hovered over some of the show's artists, who fear that a growing climate of stone-fisted copyright ownership is stifling creativity.
"When we get to the point where we're policing things to such an extent that you can't borrow a fragment . . . and when you prevent artists from being able to comment on things, you're shutting down art," she said. "You're hampering freedom of expression."
In "Food Chain Barbie," color photographs of Barbie Dolls in vintage 1950s and 1960s blenders and milkshake containers, artist Tom Forsythe seeks to expose one corporation's efforts to sell "an impossible beauty myth" to children.
In 1999, Mattel, which manufactures Barbie, accused Forsythe of copyright and trademark infringement after he posted his Barbie photographs on the Internet. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later denied the toymaker's request for a preliminary injunction.
"Cannibull's" soup cans were created by Enrique Chagoya, who is taking aim at the business of art itself.
Artist Diana Thorneycroft says her drawings of hanging and bound cartoon and TV characters reflect how society often ignores the way violent images can affect children. Fearing legal repercussions, she recently removed the drawings from an exhibit in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Other works on display include Michael Hernandez de Luna's computer-crafted 33-cent stamps of Viagra and Prozac, authentic looking enough to fool postal workers who actually delivered the letters. De Luna's laser-printed images also tweaked pharmaceutical companies.
Corporations have to be vigilant to protect images they cultivate with consumers, said Robert Andris, a lawyer with Ropers, Majeski in Redwood City, Calif., who specializes in copyright, trademark and patent litigation.
"A lot of large companies have this obligation to police. It's the inherent tug-of-war in intellectual property," Andris said, between trying to encourage artistic creativity and protecting existing creative works.
Those Viagra postage stamps appear ripe for a trademark infringement claim, Andris said.
But such a view is an overreaction, says Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which strives to defend people's rights as they extend to the world of new technologies.
Most corporations draw the line at commercial misappropriations of copyright works, but artists are more interested in commentary, or parody, and should enjoy fair use protections, she said.
"When you see these Barbie-in-a-blender images, they're not saying that Mattel is selling Barbies in a blender. They're commenting on the image Mattel is trying to create and how out of sync with the real world that is."
More images from the exhibit are on the Web site at: http://www.illegal-art.org
