catcher in Weinmayr 2019


-513)

## Authorship Replaces Authorship?

In 2011, American artist Richard Prince spread a blanket on a sidewalk outside
Central Park in New York City and sold copies of his latest artwork, a
facsimile of the first edition of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in The
Rye.[14](ch11.xhtml#footnote-512) He did not make any changes to the text of
the novel and put substantial effort into producing an exact replica in terms
of paper quality, colours, typeset and binding, reproducing the original
publication as


nger’s name but his own. Prince also chose a very limited
circulation figure.[16](ch11.xhtml#footnote-510) It is also far from
conventional plagiarism, because hardly any twentieth century literature is
more read and widely known than Salinger’s Catcher. So the question is, why
would Prince want to recirculate one of the most-read American novels of all
time, a book available in bookshops around the world, with a total circulation
of 65 million copies, translated into 30
languages?[17](ch11.xhtml#footnote-509)

Prince stated that he loved Salinger’s novel so much that ‘I just wanted to
make sure, if you were going to buy my Catcher in the Rye, you were going to
have to pay twice as much as the one Barnes and Noble was selling from J. D.
Salinger. I know that sounds really kind of shallow and maybe that’s not the
best way to contribute to something, but in the book-collecting


es figures,
and affiliation to commercial galleries are evidence that he has been ascribed
artistic authorship as well as authorial agency by the institutions of the art
world.[30](ch11.xhtml#footnote-496)

Coming back to Prince’s appropriation of Catcher in the Rye, his conceptual
gesture employs necessarily the very rhetoric and conceptual underpinnings of
legislation and jurisdiction that he seemingly
critiques.[31](ch11.xhtml#footnote-495) He declares ‘this is an artwork by
Richard Prince, © Ri


6 million in
damages from Sotheby’s.[59](ch11.xhtml#footnote-467)

From an economic perspective, both artists, Noland and Prince, illustrated
powerfully how authorship is instituted in the form of the artist’s signature,
to construct (Prince’s Catcher in the Rye) or destroy (Noland’s Cowboy
Milking) monetary value. Richard Prince’s stated intention is to double the
book’s price, and by attaching his name to Salinger’s book in a Duchampian
gesture, he turns it into a work of art authored an


the language of piracy we call the books in the
collection ‘unsolicited collaborations’.[82](ch11.xhtml#footnote-444)
Unsolicited indicates that the makers of the books in the Piracy Project did
not ask for permission — Richard Prince’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’ is one
example.[83](ch11.xhtml#footnote-443) Collaboration refers to a relational
activity and re-imagines authorship not as proprietary and stable, but as a
dialogical and generative process. Here, as feminist legal scholar Carys Craig


r
remains an anonymous ghost. Equally there is no financial profit to be made,
as long as the pirate version is not pointed out to readers as an extended
version. Such act is also not framed as a conceptual gesture, as it is the
case with Prince’s Catcher in the Rye. It rather operates under the radar of
everyone, and moreover and importantly, any revelation of this intervention or
any claim of authorship would be counterproductive.

This example helps us to think through concepts of the authoritative


Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 113–38.

Genette Gérard (1997) Paratexts, Thresholds of Interpretation (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).

Goldsmith, Kenneth (19 April 2012) ‘Richard Prince’s Latest Act of
Appropriation: The Catcher in the Rye’, Harriet, A Poetry Blog,
of-appropriation-the-catcher-in-the-rye/>

Gordon, Kim (18 June 2012) ‘Band Paintings: Kim Gordon Interviews Richard
Prince’, Inte


https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=&an=richard%252520prince&tn=catcher%252520rye&n=100121503&cm_sp=mbc-_-ats-_-used)

[20](ch11.xhtml#footnote-506-backlink) Kenneth Goldsmith, ‘Richard Prince’s
Latest Act of Appropriation: The Catcher in the Rye’, Harriet: A Poetry Blog,
19 April 2012, princes-latest-act-of-appropriation-the-catcher-in-the-rye/>

[21](ch11.xhtml#footnote-505-backlink) In 1977 Douglas Crimp curated the
exh


empt to challenge J. D.
Salinger’s notorious protectiveness about his writing. Salinger sued the
Swedish writer Fredrik Colting successfully for copyright infringement. Under
the pseudonym John David California, Colting had written a sequel to The
Catcher in the Rye. The sequel, 60 Years Later Coming Through The Rye, depicts
the protagonist Holden Caulfield’s adventures as an old man. In 2009, the US
District Court Judge in Manhattan, Deborah A. Batts, issued a preliminary
injunction indefinitely ba


books/02salinger.html>

‘In a settlement agreement reached between Salinger and Colting in 2011,
Colting has agreed not to publish or otherwise distribute the book, e-book, or
any other editions of 60 Years Later in the U.S. or Canada until The Catcher
in the Rye enters the public domain. Notably, however, Colting is free to sell
the book in other international territories without fear of interference, and
a source has told Publishers Weekly that book rights have already been sold in
as many as a


tate will not sue. In addition, the settlement
agreement bars Colting from using the title “Coming through the Rye”; forbids
him from dedicating the book to Salinger; and would prohibit Colting or any
publisher of the book from referring to The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger, the
book being “banned” by Salinger, or from using the litigation to promote the
book.’ Andrew Albanese, ‘J. D. Salinger Estate, Swedish Author Settle
Copyright Suit’, Publishers Weekly, 11 January 2011,


ing, Referencing, Leaking, Copying,
Imitating, Adapting, Faking, Paraphrasing, Quoting, Reproducing, Using,
Counterfeiting, Repeating, Translating, Cloning (London: AND Publishing,
2014).

[83](ch11.xhtml#footnote-443-backlink) Richard Prince’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’
forms part of the Piracy Collection. Not the book copy priced at £1,500, just
an A4 colour printout of the cover, downloaded from the Internet. On the shelf
it sits next to Salinger’s copy, which we bought at Barnes and Noble for £2

 

Display 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 ALL characters around the word.