NEW PUBLIC ART SCANDAL
British comedians, photographers say artist used images without permission
People walk past the art installation SNAPSHOTS in the 4th Street S.W. underpass, which appears to feature blurred photos of U.K. comedians used without their permission.
A public art installation in downtown Calgary will be coming down after a social media firestorm revealed several British comedians and photographers discovered their pictures were used in the project without permission.
Bisha K. Ali, a standup comedian based in London, says the public art installation called SNAPSHOTS — a series of enlarged, blurred photos along the 4th Street S.W. underpass — includes not just a photo of her but also several other U.K. comedians she matched with photos in a comedy festival brochure in Edinburgh two years ago.
“Morally, this is not right,” Ali said when reached by Postmedia at her home in London.
“This is an artist using the work of other artists and portraying it as their own. Artists are supposed to support each other.
“We’re all a bit confused,” Ali added. “It is funny in a way. But, at the same time, it’s just not cool.”
After a firestorm of angry social media posts from local and international artists, the City of Calgary issued a statement Tuesday saying it had contacted the Calgary artist, Derek Besant, who now wants the installation taken down.
“As part of the city’s investigation, we have been in contact with the artist,” said Kurt Hanson, general manager of community services.
“The artist has said that we should remove the installation. We will be doing this and are considering our next steps.”
Ali first heard about the installation late Sunday when an old Canadian friend reached out to her saying he was certain he saw her likeness among the blurred images as he walked along 4th Street S.W.
The project, put up in October 2015, was commissioned by the city to Besant for $20,000.
Besant did not return Postmedia’s messages Tuesday.
But according to an article published in Avenue magazine in December 2015, Besant says the photos represent 20 people selected randomly from pedestrians he met at the underpass.
“We encounter all these different groups. They’re certainly concentrated in that one corridor,” Besant told Avenue.
“It’s a real cross-section of the city.”
On top of the blurred images are also text fragments with messages, many depicting them as vulnerable or homeless, including: “I own nothing,” “I sleep outside,” “I am hungry,” and “I am alone.”
According to the City of Calgary Public Artwork website, “the project attempts to position everyone as a cross-section of the mix of people who depend, one way or another, on this route into and out of the downtown sector, the architecture of passage.”
But British photographer Andy Hollingworth told Postmedia that one of the photos in the installation was taken by him for a comedian he has worked with since 2011. He added it was used without his consent and that he would like to be compensated.
“The artist involved could have taken their own images of local people to create genuine impact, to tell a truthful story. Did they have very little time, so lifted images from the same source in order to fulfil the criteria for their generous public commission?” Hollingworth said.
“The comedians and photographers involved have a clear right to be compensated in a manner that reflects the exposure, misrepresented opinions and fees involved in this project.”
U.K. comedian Sofie Hagen also confirmed her image was blurred and used without her consent.
“Finding out that your face has been hanging in an underpass in Calgary for two years is strange, to say the least. ($20,000) is a lot of money for what is basically, as it seems right now, stealing,” Hagen told Postmedia.
“The photographers should be compensated, in this instance. As for me, I’m just absolutely desperate to hear from Derek Besant himself. I would love to know why he did this, why he picked us and how he thought he would be able to get away with it?”
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he, too, is concerned, questioning the purpose of the city’s public art program.
“As soon as I saw that, I flipped it to city administration and said: ‘Investigate. Investigate. Investigate,’” Nenshi said. “So, we’ll see what comes out of that investigation.”
The mayor added that “the time really is ripe” to have a thoughtful conversation about the goals of the city’s public art program.
“When you think about $20,000 for this kind of art installation, it went to a local but world-renowned artist.
“But I also go … what would $20,000 have done to the career of an emerging artist? What could we have done with that? I think those are the questions we really need to ask.”
Coun. Sean Chu said he is outraged not just at this latest public art scandal but with what he sees as a repetitive failure of the entire program, adding that he will demand at next Monday’s council meeting the city’s entire public art program be scrapped.
“This just keeps happening with public art. Don’t we do any vetting? What is our process?
“We need to nuke this entire program and just start from scratch.”
The Bowfort Towers unveiling near Canada Olympic Park last summer caused much controversy over the $500,000 price tag and criticism from Indigenous groups.
The piece, a quartet of steel beams cradling rocks, is supposed to be representative of Blackfoot culture because of the use of the number four, which represents the four seasons, four stages of life.
However, many in the Blackfoot community raised concerns about the towers looking too similar to traditional burial structures.