Is the CAC on the wrong side of art?

When I heard the rumor last week that Shepard Fairey’s Supply and Demand will be in Cincinnati next year, I contacted the CAC with my concerns regarding Fairey’s practice “appropriating” works by artists who he simply neglects to attribute. To date, the CAC has not responded to my inquiry.

I hope the CAC intends to address these issues. That Supply and Demand is scheduled to travel to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh before arriving in Cincinnati will not wipe clean the problems Fairey brings. Warhol celebrated the copy. Fairey is no Warhol In fact, up to this point Fairey has cloaked himself in a willingness by the public be ignorant of his “lifting” of art. Is Raphaela Platow, Director of the CAC counting on the same kind of protection? Also, if the CAC plans to present him as a “street artists,” they should know there are a number of street artists who have issued challenges to Fairey and his work….challenges he has up to this point ignored. I presented this discussion in an earlier post.

Despite the loud cries of disdain for Fairey from much of the art world, Ms. Platow insists, “He has made a successful move into museums.” Successful? Really? As the Director of the CAC, Raphaela Platow should be the city’s leading advocate for contemporary art and artists. A blind eye to Fairey’s "lifting" of art and a deaf ear to the protest by artists puts her advocacy into question.