REVIEW OF A DESIGNED OBJECT AND THE POTENTIAL FOR IPO INFRINGEMENT
Select a designed object and highlight the key areas that may infringe copyright or require IP protection.
CJ HENDRY
For this week’s Workshop Challenge, I chose to focus on the artist and illustrator, CJ Hendry. She is a photorealistic pencil artist from Australia who now resides in New York, NY. Her works have been shown across the globe via massive installations putting her in a position of great demand. That doesn’t protect her however from the implications of copyright infringement or intellectual property challenges.
In 2018, Henry created a series of limited edition creations based on Polaroid phots taken by Andy Warhol. She sketched the Polaroids found in a Warhol coffee table book, then printed the sketches, then crumpled up the prints and then sketched those crumpled up prints. To distribute the series on a more mass level, she then created a set of limited edition t-shirt complete with an homage to Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup artwork by creating packaging resembling a tomato soup can.
From an outside perspective, one would imagine what could possibly shut down this production from a copyright perspective would be two-fold: one that potentially infringes on the original artwork copyright of Andy Warhol, and two: using a globally known brand for the purposes of marketing oneself for profit, that being Campbell’s soup.
A mere five hours from launching the limited edition collection for sale, Hendry received a cease and desist order from the family of Muhammad Ali, one of the likenesses photographed by Warhol and then illustrated by Hendry.
Due to the fact that the potential legal and financial liability, Hendry chose not to sell the limited edition t-shirts, but did give them away via another interesting artistic expression of copyright and intellectual property.
So, the question is what is art and how far can that art rely on the art or expression, in this case, likeness of another? Warhol used the iconic brand of Campbell’s soup to great success. I wonder if he was creating in today’s litigious society if he’d had been as successful. He made a tremendous amount of art leveraging the likeness of others: Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and countless others. It may also come down to those that appreciate (or not) the artist’s take on those brands, branded objects, and likenesses. For example, NIKE, Christian Louboutin, and creative visionary Jeff Staple — who partnered with NIKE to create a custom designed Pigeon Dunk basketball shoe which is now a collector’s item valued at about $25,000 —have all passionately supported and sought out partnerships with Hendry.
OTHER WORKS BY HENDRY
