Jeff Koons
Remix as Commodity Fetish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banality exhibition (1988)
discussed in anexcellent examination of Fair Use in Koons' work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"String of Puppies" (1988)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Koons' work is dervied from a photography by Art Rogers.

 

 

Koons and his lawyer argued that the artist believed “the mass production of commodities and media images has caused a deterioration in the quality of society, and this artistic tradition of which he is a member proposes through incorporating these images into works of art to comment critically on both the incorporated object and the political and economic system that created it.”

 

The court accordingly disagreed with the artist’s line of argument, pointing to the fact that the copied work must be, at least in part, “an object of the parody, otherwise there would be no need to conjure up the original work.” The court noted that if the point was to parody society broadly, Koons did not need to use copy Rogers’s work specifically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The court relied heavily on the precedent set in Rogers v. Koons to find that the sculpture is, “at best, a parody of society at large, rather than a parody of the copyrighted ‘Odie’ character.”