Richard Prince, who is famous for profiting off the slightest appropriation of other's art, is back at it again. The artist exhibited screenshots of other people's Instagram photos at Frieze New York and sold the enlarged portraits for up to $100,000, reports PetaPixel.
Prince previously showed the photos at an exhibit entitled "New Portraits" at the Gagosian Gallery last year. Some art critics hailed the show as "genius trolling," but selling the photos for enormous sums of money is truly next level. Both shows featured 38 photos that were all used by Prince without the original poster's permission. The artist is able to get away with this only because he added a comment to the bottom of each photo, which qualifies as "fair use" of the original image.
The Instagram user @doedeere was one of the many people used in the show, and she recently took to the social media platform to say she will not be pressing charges. "No, I did not give my permission and yes, the controversial artist Richard Prince put it up anyway," she added on Instagram. "It’s already sold ($90K I’ve been told) during the VIP preview."
Prince may somehow avoid being sued this time around, but he has run into legal trouble due to his particular brand of art before. Most recently, he settled with photographer Patrick Cariou, whose photos Prince appropriated, after courts ruled that the changes fell under "fair use."
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