I guess this is a small essay in boundaries of creative ownership.
Today I went to see the excellent exhibition of Olafur Eliasson at the MCA (go see it). It was very good, got me thinking a lot about my own art.
There was a small “art piece” was consisted of about a billion white lego pieces and the “audience” was free to “create” their “own” art piece.
I made a small camera out of the lego pieces. I was very excited. Yet I was not allowed to document “my” “own” art work. I wanted to take a photo, but I was (very kindly and nicely) informed that I was photography was not permitted.
At what point did Mr. Eliasson take ownership of my creation. When it was enabled by his creation? When he thought of the art piece to freely allow people to create structures using lego pieces?
So, I destroyed my lego camera, the one that I very proudly created. I was not going to enable the enabler if I was not allowed to bask in the glory.
So… I took this photo. By the same measure of Olafur Eliasson claiming artistic authorship on those lego pieces, surely I too can claim artistic authorship of this unique image.
And I’m calling it “Wild Fire”.
