Given the power of the Internet, if you steal someone’s work it’s almost inevitable you’ll be outed for your crimes eventually. And that’s exactly what happened when one Canadian artist stole a series of images for a $15,000 commission.
Two years ago, Artist Derek Michael Besant created an exhibit after being commissioned to make an underpass “more neighborly” as part of an enhancement project.
It was alleged that Besant visited the tunnel, engaged in conversation with passers-bys and took their portraits for the installation. In his own words, he said he “didn’t want to decorate anything,” adding, “I wanted it to reflect something about the site. I thought the context of the place was more critical to address than putting a picture of something [unrelated] in there.”
The final result, entitled “Snapshots,” consisted of 20 large photographs, each a blurred portrait with a quote layered over the top. Besant then began indulging in magazine interviews in order to promote the exhibition, talking fondly of the different types of people he had met. It wasn’t until one of the subjects featured in the project had a friend contact her, that it emerged something was wrong.
U.K. Comedian Bisha Ali took to Twitter after her Canadian friend had flagged what she believed was a picture of her.
https://twitter.com/bishakali/status/935256003020578816
https://twitter.com/bishakali/status/935256226102960128
https://twitter.com/bishakali/status/935256581293461505
https://twitter.com/bishakali/status/935257404626882560
Despite the blur, Ali recognized the photo to be a headshot of herself. Doing some digging into the project, she was shocked to discover the photo had been used as part of the $15,000, government-funded project. It only got worse for Besant when it materialized that Ali knew a number of the other subjects, also fellow comedians, from the photos. Since then, Comedian Sofie Hagen has also confirmed one of the portraits to be a photo of her; it had been minorly altered, and used without her knowledge or consent.
https://twitter.com/bishakali/status/935258308251930624
https://twitter.com/SofieHagen/status/935491384286629889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpetapixel.com%2F2017%2F12%2F06%2Fartist-stole-photos-15000-public-art-installation%2F
https://twitter.com/SofieHagen/status/935290168650665984
Further investigation reveals Besant had lifted almost the entirety of the images featured in his exhibition from the program of the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a series of comedy shows, which explained why Ali was familiar so many of the faces.
Such controversy erupted that Calgory Mayor Naheed Nenshi ordered an investigation. Following a request from a presumably embarrassed Besant, the installment has, as of last week, been removed. He has since apologized, saying he believed the photos to be ““already out in the public domain,” and seems to have taken down his website.
Lead image by Adrianna Calvo.
[via PetaPixel]
he was paid 15k to take a doz pics and had to swipe them online ? boy that's lazy.
My thoughts exactly
Even if they were in the public domain, this seems like a terrible idea for your own art exhibition.
Why does the article keep referring to Besant as an "artist"? They meant to write "con artist", perhaps?
Im not sure why they need to spend that kind of money in the first place. Calgary is full of talented photographers and graphic design people. Crowd source an idea on Facebook and Instagram. Find a few local photographers. Reach out to the city for people to be "models" for shots. Pass everything over to a local graphic designer. Print it off and be done. Literally the most expensive part would be the city workers installing it once its done. Instead they spent $20k for this guy to copy other peoples work plus another $10k + to install it.
While I agree, I don't ever want to stop people from spending that kind of money on photography. its too expensive to do professionally to pay people hobby prices.
I never said pay them hobby prices.
So we shouldn't pay for art anymore now that it can all be crowdfunded?
Crowd sourced not crowd funded. Crowd sourced means you let the public (which are paying for it anyways through taxes) come up with ideas. From there you pay local photographers. You pay local people to have their pictures taken. You pay local graphic designers to make the "art".. Everyone makes money and you dont run into issues like this where some guy gets paid $20k to find some images online and put some words on it.
Being paid 15K for that? Even if he'd actually done the work, that's kind of crazy. There's much better uses for that cash.
I want to comment on this but I am too busy working on my next project for the bus shelter at the end of the street....what the heck?! My right click isn't working!