Artist sells other people’s Instagram photos for $90,000!

Posted by: admin , May 28, 2015

Controversial painter and artist Richard Prince has caused a stir by taking screenshots of other people’s Instagram photos and selling prints without their permission.
Prince’s work was displayed in New York as part of his ‘New Portraits’ exhibition, where he blew up the photos, printed them on canvas and sold them for $90,000 a piece!
Prince defended his actions by saying he made “transformative” changes to the photos, which included removing comments and adding strange comments of his own underneath the photos.
According to the Washington Post, Prince has been re-photographing other people’s art since the 1970s.
However, Prince relies on “transformative” changes, which resulted in him winning a court case in 1998 after he was sued by French photographer Patrick Cariou. In that case, he re-photographed Cariou’s images of the Jamaican Rastafarian community and ‘transformed’ them by adding things such as paint splotches and guitars…
Many of Prince’s current pieces were reportedly taken from the Suicide Girls Instagram account.
Suicide Girls founder Selena Mooney (known as Missy Suicide) confirms that Prince did not get consent but that instead of suing him, they will sell prints of his ‘transformations’ for $90, with proceeds going to charity and that they’ve obtained the same consent he obtained from Suicide Girls.