Bob Dylan's Gagosian Paintings May Be Plagiarized From Photographs

It's almost too funny to be upset about, but it looks like Bob Dylan straight out copied photographs for an exhibit of his paintings at New York's Gagosian gallery, titled "The Asia Series." What was originally billed as a "visual journal" of Dylan's travels through Asia has since backtracked into a "visual reflection," after Dylan fan site Expecting Rain uncovered blatant examples of line-for-line mimicry, prompting a mild NYTimes expose.

Dylan seems to have taken from photographers high and low: Leon Busy, Henri Cartier Bresson, Dmitri Kessel and even Flickr user Okinawa Soba, who announced to the merriment of all on Expecting Rain, that Dylan actually incorporated one of the Photoshop edits Soba used to alter the photograph. Ironically, that last and worst example of Dylan's shamelessness is also the only one likely covered under fair use.

Let's be honest, the Gagosian gallery is partly to blame here for giving an amateur artist valuable real estate. Is Dylan's musicianship great enough to withstand the odd plagiarism charge? Yes. But his artwork is essentially unknown, and as such, the Gagosian should have known better than featuring 18 examples of what's turning out to be Bob Dylan: The Paint By Numbers Edition. According to ArtInfo, this wouldn't be the first time a Gagosian artist found himself in court for photo-to-painting intellectual theft. In one of those weird poetic twists, the painter who copied the photographs in that case (and eventually lost in court), is Richard Prince, author of the text for Bob Dylan's Asia Series catalogues.

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Comments

[mnjlib]

06:21 PM on 10/19/2011

The video is about another topic, both are disturbing. It's hard for people to question an icon, but the truth is, Dillon may not believe what we have built him up to be in our minds. Truth hurts.

[1962azimuth]

04:25 AM on 10/17/2011

The summary of this episode, surely, is that Mr Dylan made exact copies of other artists' work (merely changing the medium) and pretended they were his sole work. He and the Gagosian stand to gain a great deal of money from this pretence; the Gagosian, we recall, were caught out in a court case in 2008 exhibiting images by Richard Prince which plagiarized Patrick Cariou's work.
This is nothing more or less than cheating; it is disgraceful and underhand. It is immaterial whether any clearance were got from Magnum or any other agency - a credit should appear prominently to the artists concerned.
It is also immaterial what Mr Dylan did in the 1960s, whether he copied songs, whether Vermeer used a camera obscura, or the bizarre range of opinions people on this board have of copyright and intellectual property. He is misleading the public - and doubly so, by pretending the images are in some way current - the photographs are between 50 and 90 years old, and the attitudes, the practices, the clothes, hairstyles, etc are wildly inaccurate if held as authentic representations of Asia today (as keenly observed by Mr Dylan on his travels).
Perhaps the exhibition catalogue should read: 'Dylan's PA spent an afternoon downloading from Google images and making feeble tracings from inkjet prints and colouring them in. Then Mr Dylan signed the images, making sure the PA checked that the spelling was correct.

[dalegood]

07:14 PM on 10/02/2011

Bob Dylan doesn't care what any of us think about what he does, whether in the world of painting or music. He did not try to hide the fact that he was painting from photographs that were not his own. He had to know that people would track down the originals. He even said that he paintsvfrom photographs. He didn't change the paintings from the photos to suggest that he was creating something original. Dylan once said that most performers need to be loved by their audience but that he never felt such a need. He said that just because people like his music doesn't mean that he owes them anything. He said that he is no more effected by a crowd cheering than by one booing. He said that you have to be very careful not to be too influenced by the cheering or the booing. When asked on 60 Minutes about how proud he must feel about the Rolling Stone magazine naming his song Like a Rolling Stone the best rock song, he said that he doesn't pay attention to that kind of stuff ("you're on their list this year and off it next year.") Bob Dylan is a very different kind of public figure in this world. He doesn't even care if you like his voice, though he does sing the following on a current albums: "Some people say I have the blood of the land in my voice." That is a beautiful thing.

[Bucket-Of-Love]

06:32 PM on 10/06/2011

For an artist, the primary audience is always oneself. This, of course, is not to say that artists don't wish to connect with others, and when that connection is made it may indeed be part of a meaningful dialogue. But artists primarily are concerned with pursuing the intense vision they possess.

Dylan has always been true to himself. This is reflected by his ability to immerse himself in whatever he's creatively involved with. It may include changing his style, taking on personas, writing material that doesn't pander to an audience, of course his uncompromising singing style, and above all his unflinching writing of lyrics and verse.

[greenlass]

10:41 AM on 10/02/2011

Bob likes money. Joni called him out to his face while on tour together - see Renaldo and Clara.

Shills for Victoria's Secret. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ad_report_card/2004/04/tangled_up_in_boobs.html

Fine artists have always done studies of other masters' works. In the case of Van Gogh, he was doing that as he developed his abilities, and moved on to develop his own style. Also, Van Gogh made no secret of his debt to and admiration of Millet, among others.

It's cheesy of Dylan to do this. If he must, he should make it clear that he's inspired by the work of others (who lack anywhere near the visibility he has, and therefore are immaterial to him, and to Gagosian.)

I don't disagree as to the significance of Dylan's music. I do, though, abhor people who have power, then exploit those who do not, and profit by it. As an artist, he should know better. As a person, he should be ashamed.

[Snides]

01:09 PM on 09/30/2011

Hey Bob!
Vincent Price called.
He wants his creepy face back.

[nycagnes]

01:21 PM on 10/03/2011

Oh yes, I thought the same thing.

[Bucket-Of-Love]

06:36 AM on 09/30/2011

What counts are the songs that Dylan wrote. This other stuff is boring, mundane and unimportant.

Posers think they understand what makes themselves tick. Dylan, however, doesn't understand how he gets to the end result:

"And he would stand, tapping away at a typewriter. He would always say, 'What do you think of this?' And I wouldn't understand the thing at all but I loved it. So I went, 'OK, I'm gonna figure this one out.' So I read through it and I gave back my interpretation of what I thought it was about. He said, 'Oh, that's pretty fuçking good. See now, a bunch of years from now, all these people, all these ässhøles are gonna be writing about all this shït I write. I don't know where the fuçk it comes from. I don't know what the fuçk it's about. And they're gonna write what it's about." - Joan Baez recounting her experience while living with Dylan in the early 60's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkyGqrfPf4Q

[turlockgirl24]

05:09 AM on 09/30/2011

Bob how could you.....

[Bucket-Of-Love]

05:04 AM on 09/30/2011

You won't understand Dylan by looking for consistency in him. Dylan, like most humans, is complex and conflicted. Dylan just happens to be less attached to a likeable, consistent, sellable persona.

Joan Baez, who was involved with Dylan from 1962-1965, said:

"Bob seemed to ignore whatever was coming towards him. He could literally...turn his back & play a whole song, play two songs...and it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference in the magnetic draw. It's as though the public wasn't even there, he's just gonna do what he gonna do. And he has to keep moving...and if you ever work with him, if he did the song the night before as a waltz, tonight he's gonna do it in 2/4 time just to fuçk you up, you know?...With somebody who moves like that -- I now see it, that it's very unique & it's admirable, & it's a pain in the äss if you're trying to work w/him. Or it's a pain in the äss if you're expecting something else from him."

"If everybody really listened to his own conscience and really acted upon what he thought was right & wrong, rather than being so hopeless passive, which I think just about everybody is -- I think it's probably the main disease, is the passivity where we will listen to whatever anybody else says. It's Daddy, and Mommy, and schoolteacher, and Sunday_school teacher, and President."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkyGqrfPf4Q

[rlpl02]

04:40 AM on 09/30/2011

There was a woman in one of my classes that plagiarized constantly. Where one instructor got onto her, another one who never checked anything praised her for her brilliance.

[m320753]

04:38 AM on 09/30/2011

it's quite riduculas to think he didn't plagerize ideas or a line or 2 from an old record what counts is what he did with it when he incorporated it in a classic DYLAN song. he was interviewed on 60 minutes a while back and the interviewer i think TOM BRADLEY? asked bob how do these verses come to you and how do you think of them. dylan replied some songs come to me in 10 minutes and i don't make them up they enter my brain and the words fall on the paper. seriously who could think up a verse fromIT'S ALRIGHT MA
darkness at the break of NOON
shadows even the silver SPOON
the hand made blade / the childs BALLOON
to understand yoou know too SOON
there is no sense in trying.

dis illusioned words like bullets BARK
as human gods aim for their MARK
make everything from toys that SPARK
to flesh-colored Christ's that glow in the DARK
it's easy to see/ without looking to far
that notmuch/ is really sacred
rhymes that go on for a few minutes is not something you can plan. it just happens to me a lot

[Bucket-Of-Love]

06:18 AM on 09/30/2011

In the film, No Direction Home, Dylan says something to the effect that he doesn't know how he wrote the material for which he's most known & describes the person who wrote that material as someone other than himself.

Yet, Dylan's intention in It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) is clear. He expresses his "anger at hypocrisy, commercialism, consumerism, warmongers & contemporary American culture...Dylan has stated that [it's] one of his songs that means the most to him." (Wikipedia)

As relevant today as when first written:

[edited]
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despite their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

And if my thought-dreams could been seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1nSKmh507E

[m320753]

03:28 AM on 09/30/2011

plagarism or not he accurately portrayed the photos in respectful manner. with dylan's power in the entertainment field hand written partial pages of songs are fetching well over $100,000 one handwritten lyric has sold for over $239,000. to think i had the oppurtunity to buy some of his memorabilia at a hotel/casino in atlantic city 15 0r 20 years ago for a couple of hundred dollar for a note he sent to his manager's daughter: i believe and a stage wor leather coat verified as one he wore for abou $1,500 still has me kicking my self in the butt

[Atilla the Hun]

03:05 AM on 09/30/2011

How does it feel....When he took from you, eveyrthing he could steal.

[Mitzy]

01:28 AM on 09/30/2011

Steal a little and they'll put you in jail, steal a lot and they'll make you king.

[wstep1964]

11:29 PM on 09/29/2011

You know somethings happening but you don't know what it is .do you Mr. Jones?

[grapost]

10:55 PM on 09/29/2011

Joni Mitchell has accused Dylan many times of plagiarizing alot of his early protest songs. Their is a website that shows comparisons between Dylan's lyrics and protest songs from the 30's and later that are very similar. It occurred too many times in too many songs for it to be coincidental.