Thread: Cultural Differences Between Americans and Russians

I am quite sure that the first painting constitutes a criminal copyright infringement.

Difficult to say -- "satirical intent" and "parody" are often (but NOT always) a defense against copyright infringement, and I think it's clear that both of the Birk paintings have satirical intent. For example, I would assume that in Liberation of Baghdad, he intended to compare the Bush administration's portrayal of the war with [ominous music] SOVIET PROPAGANDA!!!

On the other hand, "parody" by nature assumes that the audience is generally familiar with the source being copied, and I doubt that the Volkov painting of Minsk is known to most Americans. So it would be difficult to prove unlawful "plagiarism" of Dali's The Persistence of Memory...



...because the work is universally known and every viewer immediately understands that the artist does not intend to present his parody as a completely original work. But the "average American viewer" of Birk's work would not realize that Liberation of Baghdad is "quoting" heavily from someone else's work. (However, if Birk presented a framed print of Volkov's original side-by-side with his own painting, that might be a successful defense against plagiarism.)

On the third hand, IANAL, so my analysis might be totally wrong.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

For example, I would assume that in Liberation of Baghdad, he intended to compare the Bush administration's portrayal of the war with [ominous music] SOVIET PROPAGANDA!!!

On the other hand, "parody" by nature assumes that the audience is generally familiar with the source being copied, and I doubt that the Volkov painting of Minsk is known to most Americans.

There are several level of message. Most people will take it serious. Some will find that it is too cheesy to be serious. And very few will recognize the reference. Most probably the effect of all levels together is what was intended. This kind of art is called "postmodernism" even though this term is a bit old-fashioned (new-fashioned term is "trolling" ).

I suspect that most works of Birk have such hidden references to poorly-known pieces of art of different times and cultures. So his fans can train erudition and search for deeper sense.

But technically it can be a plagiarism, yes.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

There are several level of message. Most people will take it serious. Some will find that it is too cheesy to be serious.

I agree that, considered by itself, Liberation of Baghdad might be taken seriously in a GO-USA! way by some jingoistic people. But when seen side-by-side with The President's Dream, that "too cheesy" quality and the general sarcasm become more obvious.

As a more general observation, I would point out that in a domestic US context, some people's criticism of the Iraq War was hopelessly entangled with and colored by their anger over the 2000 election -- in other words, the war had to be evil not simply -- and perhaps not even primarily -- because many innocent Iraqis were killed, but because BUSH AND HIS PLUTOCRATIC RETHUGLIKKKAN NEO-NAZIS ILLEGALLY STOLE THE ELECTION AND GORE SHOULD'VE BEEN PRESIDENT ARGGH BARRGLE GAAAAH!!!!!!!! And analysis of "Bush's War" was sometimes colored by other factors that had nothing at all to do with the pertinent question "Will this invasion of Iraq, in the long run, tend to improve stability in the Middle East?" (The gay columnist/blogger Andrew Sullivan, for instance, was an early supporter of the war, but turned completely against it with rather suspicious suddenness when George Bush endorsed the idea of a Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage.)

Whether any of this applied to Birk, I can't say, because I don't have a clue about his general political views. But it's important to consider that his paintings supposedly about the Iraq War may have been, on an underlying level, paintings about the Bush Administration. (Of course, this also applies to supporters of the war -- some of whom may have been reluctant to criticize the war policy because they supported Bush's election in 2000 and did not want to ally with Gore supporters, or because they didn't want to be associated with "9/11 Troofers", or whatever. But in short, issues not related to "Does this war make sense as foreign policy?" affected their opinions on the war, too.)