FRANCIS A. WILLEY’S “BLINDNESS”
THE SURPRISING STORY OF A SINGLE FRAME OF FILM
THE YEAR WAS 2006.
Dismayed by the ways in which the world was “blind to compassion and love,” artist Francis A. Willey wanted to make a portrait of someone who couldn’t see. Is this temporary blindness a choice — willful, liberating, and somehow necessary? Or is it imposed, enforced, or inflicted by external forces? Francis knew he needed to collaborate with someone who could hold and convey this complex set of questions.
At the time, Myspace was the largest social media networking site in the world, and Deviantart was a popular online community for artists and art lovers. In this virtual space, Francis met the “incredible, genderfluid artist with a beautiful soul” who became the subject of “Blindness.”
From the moment he developed his film from the shoot, Francis saw that he had something special in that frame. He describes it as that feeling photographers dream about, that “rush of pleasure, excitement, adrenaline” that happens when the final image exceeds the original vision they had for it.
Francis scanned his film and shared the image (accompanied by his original piano score) online. The rest, as they say, is history. “Blindness,” Francis reflects, “blew up in ways that were overwhelming and exciting.”
The image was widely shared, commented on, and questioned: What message was Francis trying to convey? Who was the intriguing, androgynous subject?
Francis refused to offer black and white answers to questions that live in shades of grey, hoping “to leave some essential mystery intact.” Francis wanted — still wants — “Blindness” to be engaged with and interpreted in various ways.
The old adage applies: Be careful what you wish for.
Francis was offered his first international exhibition in Berlin during Fashion Week 2007. He exhibited 17 pieces, “Blindness” among them, at A-B Projekt Galerie, a sort of art-gallery-cum-fashion-showroomcum-dance-party meant to attract couture houses and famous figures. Francis’ show, Vision of the Ghost, attracted a lot of attention, becoming fashionable in its own right. Designer Alexander Mcqueen became a fan.
And so it began. After Francis returned home to Calgary, Alberta, a woman ventured into that Berlin gallery, claiming to represent “one Francis A. Willey’s interests abroad.” She left with every single piece from Vision of the Ghost, save “Blindness.” She was never seen again. (Francis had loaned “Blindness” to a new colleague in Berlin; later, when Francis inquired about it, that person claimed not to have it.)
The Berlin exhibition is now scattered all over Europe. Currently, Francis knows the locations of nine of the original seventeen pieces. An art collector–dealer bought eight pieces from a Craigslist ad, subsequently reselling four. Francis connected with the person who purchased those four, but the conversation ended abruptly when Francis informed him that the pieces he owns were stolen.
Berlin was a hint, a harbinger, of the story to come. On a 2012 excursion to New York City, friends contacted Francis to congratulate him on “making it” in that epicentre of art and culture. “Blindness” appeared on a magazine cover and was on exhibition in Brooklyn.
THERE ARE OVER 800,000 EXAMPLES OF UNLICENSED USES OF “BLINDNESS.”
IS THIS KIND OF TEMPORARY BLINDNESS A CHOICE — WILLFUL, LIBERATING, NECESSARY? OR IS IT IMPOSED, ENFORCED, OR INFLICTED BY ANOTHER?
But it wasn’t Francis’ “Blindness.” Iranian artists ICY and SOT, having found Francis’ “Blindness” either online or on a poster advertising the Berlin show, had made a graffiti stencil of it and claimed it as their own. (They have subsequently removed it from their website, but not before giving interviews about it and showing their stencil on CNN.)
Versions of this story recurred at an alarming rate. People repeatedly contacted Francis to share sightings of his work in other contexts “by” other artists. Introduced to the reverse image search engine Tineye, Francis says he became a veritable “Internet sleuth, collecting all the different iterations of ‘Blindness’ that [he] could find.” He’s become a curator of the thefts, with three galleries on his website — Appropriations, Homages, Memes — showcasing examples from his collection of copies. He is planning a future show and/ or book entitled Stealing Blindness.
No one ever contacted Francis to ask permission to use his image; in many cases, he would simply have granted it. No one paid him a licensing fee. And no organization or artist ever credited him as the original artist. While Francis says, “It would be wonderful to make money from ‘Blindness,’ especially so that I could surprise the person who sat for the photo with a whole handful of cash,” he’s not bitter, angry, or litigious. His attitude is more bemused incredulity.
“Blindness” has been lifted as is or manipulated (cropped, colourized, contorted) and used for sundry purposes the world over: book covers, album art, movie posters, graffiti art, advertising, and fundraising campaigns. It has been used in virtually every realm: art, commerce, sex, religion, education, medicine, and tourism. KODAKONE, an image rights management platform with which Francis now works, has detected roughly 800,000 examples of unlicensed uses of “Blindness.”
In most cases, Francis doesn’t object to how his image is used, although he says, “ethically, morally, I wish they’d have asked my permission, and I wish they’d at least cite me—properly credit me as the artist.” When I ask Francis if there are any copies of “Blindness” that he loathes, he’s quick to respond, “Yes, the blatantly, grossly misogynist ones. Those I could live without.”
Happily for Francis, “Blindness” is more often used to promote something positive. He explains, “All I’ve ever wanted to do with my art is to help people. If ‘Blindness’ has helped in some way — helped raise money for blind children, increased the profile of an international diabetes association, inspired someone to sign up for a Women’s Studies class — that makes me happy.” Ultimately, he wants “Blindness” to be a positive force in the world.
When asked what he thinks makes “Blindness” so popular, so desirable that people want to make it their own, Francis muses, “I think people respond to the combination of strength and fragility embodied here.” This robust vulnerability, admirable and immensely difficult to capture on film, leads Francis to share another memory, another turn in the story of “Blindness.” In 2011, a devastating house fire claimed almost everything Francis owned. The one item he salvaged from the ashes, unscathed? His single 35mm film negative of “Blindness.”