Irrespective of the context
in which unauthorised ‘copying’ of art concept is defined, the mystery that
shields identity of the forgers suggest that the plagiarists are some kind of
spirits or ghost artists.
Alleged copied painting with the original by Diseye Tantua |
Clearly, these forgers are artists too - who
dwell among their colleagues - but hardly get identified. Between artists who
are victims of plagiarism and the gallery outlets, where such copied art pieces
are exposed, there seems to be behind-the-scene ‘understanding’, after the
storm that is made known to the public.
As much as the role of digital medium is no
doubt culpable in aiding plagiarists’ skill, the internet, in recent years, has
also been assisting in amplifying unathorised
copy of artists’ works. In
contemporary art appreciation and appropriation, digital medium has double edge
roles in expanding an artist’s followership base and exposing the same artist
to the hostile world of plagiarists.
Copying other people’s work, in Nigerian art
landscape, is not exactly new. Quite a number of modernists such as Yusuf
Grillo, Kolade Oshinowo, Muraina Oyelami, among others, have been victims of
plagiarism in the 1990s through the last decade, when look-alike of their works
were found at some galleries, or intercepted at the point of sale in other
private and informal transactions. But in recent years, the digital outlets,
such as Facebook and Instagram have been exposing a new generation of
plagiarists.
Among the recent victims of such rape on
creativity is Diseye Tantua, who recently used the social media to expose an
unknown plagiarist. “I walked into an exhibition and found this shocking; a
painting I made in 2011,” the Port Harcourt-based artist posted on his Facebook page
with two identical paintings attached.
Again, like most similar cases, the identity of the artist, who copied Tantua’s work, would most likely remain a mystery forever.
Last year, sculptor, Bunmi Babatunde, alleged
that his successful Possibilities series has been copied by an unknown artist.
Recall that the original Possibilities sculpture series were among top sales at
auctions in Lagos and London a few years ago. In fact, one of the sculptures
gave Babatunde his world auction record at Bonhams sales in 2014. The work sold
for sold for (£31,250).
And when the plagiarised copies of
Possibilities were traced to a gallery based in Lagos Island (names withheld),
the initial steam of legal action against the gallery d later evaporated.
Apparently, the plagiarists are ghost
artists, who hide under the cover of art galleries. And for obvious reasons of
not ‘offending’ the galleries, perhaps, most artists victims of copied works,
according to investigations, either ‘negotiate” with the gallery for
“settlement” or “forgive” if the plagiarist artist is a known
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