jancou in Weinmayr 2019
y new work
for over a decade, due to the time she now spends pursuing litigation around
her existing oeuvre.[53](ch11.xhtml#footnote-473) In 2011, she strikingly
demonstrated that an artist need not give up control when her work enters the
commercial art market and turns into a commodity for short-term profit. She
made probably one of the most important stands in modern art history when she
‘de-authored’ her work Cowboys Milking (1990), after it was put up for auction
at Sotheby’s with the consequence that the work could not be sold as a Cady
Noland work anymore.
Swiss-born dealer Marc Jancou, based in New York and Geneva, had consigned the
work to Sotheby’s a few months after having purchased it for $106,500 from a
private collector.[54](ch11.xhtml#footnote-472) Jancou was obviously attracted
by the fact that one of Noland’s works had achieved the highest price for a
piece by a living female artist: $6.6m.
At Noland’s request, on the eve of the auction, Sotheby’s abruptly withdrew
the piece, a silkscreen print on an aluminium panel. The artist argued that it
was damaged: ‘The current condition […] materially differs from that at the
time of its creation. […] [H]er honor and reputation [would] be prejudiced as
a result of offering [it] for sale with her name associated with
it.’[55](ch11.xhtml#footnote-471) From a legal point of view, this amounts to
a withdrawal of Noland’s authorship. The US Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990,
VARA, grants artists ‘authorship’ rights over works even after they have been
sold, including the right to prevent intentional modification and to forbid
the use of their name in association with distorted or mutilated
work.[56](ch11.xhtml#footnote-470) Such rights are based on the premise that
the integrity of a work needs to be guaranteed and a work of art has cultural
significance that extends beyond mere property
value.[57](ch11.xhtml#footnote-469)
Noland’s withdrawal of authorship left Jancou with ‘a Cady Noland’ in his
living room, but not on the market. In an email to Sotheby’s, he complained:
‘This is not serious! Why does an auction house ask the advise [sic] of an
artist that has no gallery representation and has a biased and radical
approach to the art market?’[58](ch11.xhtml#footnote-468) Given that Noland is
a long-standing and outspoken sceptic with respect to speculative dealing in
art, he somewhat naively wonders why she would be able to exercise this degree
of power over an artwork that had been entered into a system of commercial
exchange. His complaint had no effect. The piece remained withdrawn from the
auction and Jancou filed a lawsuit in February 2012 seeking $26 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 and copyrighted by Prince.
Noland, on the contrary
rating, Stealing, Gleaning, Referencing,
Leaking, Copying, Imitating, Adapting, Faking, Paraphrasing, Quoting,
Reproducing, Using, Counterfeiting, Repeating, Translating, Cloning (London:
AND Publishing), pp. 91–133.
Biagioli, Mario (2014) ‘Plagiarism, Kinship and Slavery’, Theory Culture
Society 31.2/3, 65–91,
Buchloh, Benjamin (2009) ‘Pictures’, in David Evans (ed.), Appropriation,
Documents of Contemporary Art (London: Whitechapel Gallery), originally
published in October 8 (1979), 75–88.
Buskirk, Martha (9 December 2013) ‘Marc Jancou, Cady Noland, and the Case of
the Authorless Artwork’, Hyperallergic,
Butler, Judith (2001) ‘What is Critique? An Essay on Foucault’s Virtue’,
Transversal 5,
Cariou, Patrick (2009) Yes Rasta (New York: powerHouse Books).
Chan, Sewell (1 July 2009) ‘Judge Rules for J. D. Salinger in “Catcher”
Copyright Suit’, New York Times,
Coleman, Gabriella (2014) Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblow
kstein and Anja
Schwarz (eds.), Postcolonial Piracy: Media Distribution and Cultural
Production in the Global South (London and New York: Bloomsbury), pp. 121–34,
Lorey, Isabell (2015) State of Unsecurity: Government of the Precarious
(London: Verso).
Lovink, Geert and Ross, Andrew (eds.) (2007) ‘Organic Intellectual Work’, in
My Creativity Reader: A Critique of Creative Industries (Amsterdam: Institute
of Network Cultures), pp. 225–38,
Marc Jancou Fine Art Ltd. v Sotheby’s, Inc. (13 November 2012) New York State
Unified Court System, 2012 NY Slip Op 33163(U),
Mauk, Ben (2014) ‘Who Owns This Image?’, The New Yorker 12 February,
McLuhan, Marshall (1966) ‘Address at Vision 65’, American Scholar 35, 196–205.
Memory of the World,
Muñoz Sarmiento, Sergio and Lauren van Haaften-Schick (2013–2014) ‘Cariou v.
Prince: Toward a Theory
t
interview for twenty-four years: ‘Noland, an extremely talented artist, has
become so obsessed with her old work that she’s been unable to create anything
new in years. She admits to Thornton that ‘I’d like to get into a studio and
start making work,’ but that tracking the old work has become a ‘full-time
thing’. Cait Munro, ‘Is Cady Noland More Difficult To Work With Than Richard
Prince?’, artNet news, 10 November 2014,
[54](ch11.xhtml#footnote-472-backlink) Martha Buskirk, ‘Marc Jancou, Cady
Noland, and the Case of the Authorless Artwork’, Hyperallergic, 9 December
2013,
an-authorless-artwork/>
[55](ch11.xhtml#footnote-471-backlink) Marc Jancou Fine Art Ltd. v Sotheby’s,
Inc., New York State Unified Court System, 2012 NY Slip Op 33163(U), 13
November 2012,
[56](ch11.xhtml#footnote-470-backlink) ‘The author of a work of visual art —
(1) shall have the right — (A) to claim authorship of that work, and (B) to
prevent the use of his or her name as the author of any work of visual art
which he or she did not create; (2) shall have the right to prevent the use of
his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a
di
ent
any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work
which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation, and any
intentional distortion, mutilation, or modification of that work is a
violation of that right, and (B) to prevent any destruction of a work of
recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of
that work is a violation of that right’, from US Code, Title 17, § 106A, Legal
Information Institute, Cornell Law School,
[57](ch11.xhtml#footnote-469-backlink) Buskirk, ‘Marc Jancou, Cady Noland’.
[58](ch11.xhtml#footnote-468-backlink) Ibid.
[59](ch11.xhtml#footnote-467-backlink) Jancou’s claim was dismissed by the New
York Supreme Court in the same year. The Court’s decision was based on the
language of Jancou’s consignment agreement with Sotheby’s, which gave
Sotheby’s the right to withdraw Cowboys Milking ‘at any time before the sale’
if, in Sotheby’s judgment, ‘there is doubt as to its authenticity or
attribution.’ Tracy Zwick, ‘Art in America’, 29 August 2013,
[60](ch11.xhtml#footnote-466-backlink) It might be important here to recall
that both Richard Prince and Cady Noland are able to afford the expensive
costs incurred by a court case due to th
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