Snap

OK, we give up. We've just been pointed to the tumblr who-wore-it-better and it wins the art lookalikes game hands down. It includes the name of the artist and title of the work with each photograph but, very kindly, it holds back on including the dates when the works were made. And you can submit your own problem copycats (looking at you Dane) or any other tight twosomes you find.
 
Image: left, Ai Weiwei Mei Le 2007 and right, Richard Long Red Slate Circle 1988 (thanks R, thanks B)

Pattern language

The Gordon-Walters-koru-is-fair-game industry probably started in earnest around 2010 (about 15 years after his death) and it's still going strong. The bizarre NZ flag competition we've just endured demonstrates that to perfection but there's still more. Last week a reader sent us an image of a painting by well-known American urban art guy Aaron Rose that incorporates the ‘Walters’ koru in the background. Rose did make a brief appearance in New Zealand back in 2012 when he curated a one-day exhibition of prints in Auckland. Maybe that’s when he spied the opportunity. And in another recent sighting, Wayne Youle’s design for a special kiwi collection for the Nespresso’s Grands Crus range. Nespresso explains, ‘ The image makes reference to an early Youle work, Simple Mathematics (2005), where the koru is in its most simple incarnation has the colour palette of Cuisenaire rods…” Gordon Walters was not available for comment.

Images: left, Nespresso Kiwi Collection and right, Aaron Rose Totem II (whisperer)
(Thanks R and thanks to you too S)

Spare the rod

Most art copycats attempt to slip under the that’s-not-your-idea-stop-it-or-pay-for-it wall and hope that their copy will be mistaken for a ‘version’, or even better a clever twist, on the original. That’s not for Jan of Otago whose house is featured in the latest Resene magazine, Habitat. 'Colour loving' Jan woke up one day to the realization that her house was 'not her’. What to do? What Jan did was to let her daughter Fiona have a go at brightening up the bathroom. The result? A triumph of 'unexpected colours”. Well unexpected if you haven’t seen one of Michael Parekowhai’s Cuisenaire sculptures that is. Checking out the art on other walls of Jan's house that seems kind of unlikely.
 
Ok, as someone once said, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and would you believe it that someone was a famous eighteenth century art collector Charles Caleb Colton. But there’s copying and copying. Right? Interestingly enough, Cuisenaire rods themseves are part of a case that is often quoted in copyright case law when trying to decide what is and what isn’t able to be copyrighted as art. In 1963 an Australian case, Cuisenaire vs Reed, decided that the main object of production had to be creating something that even if it was utilitarian was basically designed to appeal to the aesthetic tastes of the people who look at it. We’re drifting here. Should Jan send a cheque to MP for artistic services rendered? Probably. Flowers, chocolate, and champagne? Definitely. 
 
Images: top Michael Parekowhai's work The Far Side at Michael Lett and bottom Jan and Fiona brighten up the bathroom

One day in the old house on the hill

A: What’s that slithering sound?

B: I didn’t hear anything.

A: There it is again. It’s a kind of rustling

B: Oh, now I hear it. I think it’s getting closer.

A: Yes but what is it?

B: I’ll have a look (goes to the window)

A: Well?

B: It looks like a whole lot of women crawling up toward the house.
 
And that’s exactly what it was.

Images: American women do copycats of Andrew Wyeth’s painting Christina’s world

Side bar

We once promised we wouldn’t post any more versions of Gordon Walters’s paintings on OTN. But just when we thought we were out they pulled us back in. This time Walters has been tipped on his side to do the donkey work for the cover of a limited edition cassette tape by American musician Keith Fullerton Whitman. In fact it's more than that. The Walters painting has been ripped apart and pushed around like a piece of low-end clip art. The painting this mess is based on is in the Auckland Art Gallery’s collection. Let's hope someone there will chase them up and tick them off.
(thanks for pointing the way S)

Copycats

Wellington musicians make off with Ralph Hotere

Lookalike: Manet division

Seeing some people sitting under the trees by the Hutt River the other day sent us on a search for recreations of Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l'herbe lookalikes. There are thousands of them, here’s a sample.

Images: Top to bottom left to right, Hutt River, Bow Wow Wow cover, second row left H264 (check out their super-strange Lunch on the grass video here) and right boooooooom.com the home of recreating art, the New York art group 2F1K, random people on Flickr and finally, Dior

One day in the offices of Dr Seuss Enterprises

Director 1: I've been thinking that we need another Dr Seuss Fine Art Gallery out there in the world. Just having one here in Chicago and one in Sydney is small-time thinking, it lets down our collectors. 

Director 2: Do you think anywhere else will be interested? I mean, they're only reproductions, you know ... they were made after He died. 

D1: Ok, so He didn’t make them Himself, big whoop. He never liked the idea anyway. Frankly all this stuff about prints needing to be overseen by the artists or signed on the sheet is just professional nitpicking. What we need is some big-picture-thinking. How about stretching out even beyond Sydney. Is there anything like that?

D2: There's Wellington in New Zealand.

D1: You're kidding me?

D2: Absolutely not. Think about it. “Dr Seuss Galleries only in the USA, Australia and NZ". 

D1: Put that way I'm not so sure ... still, as the great Dr Seuss, God bless Him, would say “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” 

D2: So ... we’ll do it? 

D1: Why the hell not. But it’ll need a lot of publicity to kick it off. And that means a big time NZ art celebrity to open it. Anyone spring to mind? 

D2: Sally Ridge for sure, I checked her out on the Internet last week. 

D1: Last week? … probably left it too late. How about some big shot art museum person? 

D2: Yeah, I've got one of them too, the CEO of Te Papa. It's the national museum of New Zealand. 

D2: The CEO of Te Papa. Open a Dr Seuss reproductions gallery! Give me a break. He’d never do it. Not in a thousand years. 

But he did. 

Well it is Saturday and we assume you did all your brain stuff over the week. So here's a bunch of cute cats posing like paintings. More on Buzzfeed

Images: From the top: Mariano Fortuny Odalisque, John William Waterhouse Echo And Narcissus, Frederic Leighton Flaming June, Joseph Ducreux Self Portrait Yawning (click on image for full cuteness potential)