Who Owns Images? Art Press Editorial on Appropriation and Copyright

In an editorial for Art Press, Catherine Millet examines the ongoing disputes over image ownership in contemporary art, arguing that the reuse of images is not new but has become more contentious with photography's expansion. She references James Harvey, the designer of Brillo boxes, whose authorship was overshadowed by Andy Warhol. Millet discusses how legal frameworks struggle with artistic appropriation, citing Florence-Marie Piriou's notion of 'flair artistique.' She contends that denying originality in works that appropriate photographs undermines the ready-made tradition established by Marcel Duchamp, where the artist's intention lies in selection rather than creation. Millet criticizes court rulings that compare photographs to artworks inspired by them, noting that material differences—like Jeff Koons' polychrome wood sculpture or Hucleux's pencil drawings—affect perception differently than photographs. She also addresses Gianni Motti's transformation of war photos into landscapes, which challenges the informational role of photography. Finally, she invokes Marie-José Mondzain's view that our relationship to images is archaic, suggesting that attacks on contemporary art for lacking originality defend values that art has long considered obsolete.