Why Eric McNatt sued Richard Prince.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
A decade ago, Eric McNatt made aportraitof Kim Gordon forPapermagazine.
He was paid $100.
I knew McNatt when we were much younger, but I hadnt seen him in decades.
I did for almost 15 years make a living as an editorial photographer.
But those days dont exist anymore.
That is just what he did with the portrait of Gordon after McNatt posted it on Instagram.
Princes exhibitions of these metaworks at Gagosian in 2014 and Blum & Poe in 2015 were called New Portraits.
The Gordon piece sold for $90,000.
I lost my shit, McNatt said.
Kim Gordon was basically stabbing me in the heart with that post, he said.
That hurt a lot.
McNatt decided to sue.
Everyone involved here is still an outsider punk kid in their own mind.
Gordon and Prince were friends; he made the cover of the Sonic Youth albumNurse.
Downtown people see themselves that way forever, somehow in it together as outsiders, whatever their personal fortunes.
Maybe thats why it felt so bad.
Prince is doing his small part to leave a legacy of litigation around American copyright.
Princes best work can be childish and hilarious and also austere and wistful.
A post shared by Richard Prince (@richardprince_official)
It certainly felt that way to McNatt.
I was really interested in what the public perception of the litigation would be, Davis said.
I was pleasantly surprised when that did not seem to be the reaction.
Reading the case over now, years pass in a blink.
Too many people are spending too much time on this, the judge said at one point.
By 2018, the parties had already discussed settlement.
Apart from that, much of their narrative was persuasive, though little of it felt good.
He also felt the stakes grow as the years went on.
He turned 50; the pandemic came; his computer had to be forensically examined.
Ive been poor my whole life.
What am I going to lose?
He had to look at every job hed ever done over decades.
Even though it was difficult, I could really see how my life shaped itself, he said.
Who would he be now?
As the case ground on, he began photographing for nonprofits, and he took on teaching at FIT.
This work made him feel happy and creative again.
In late 2022, the judge wrote an extensive analysis of the case.
The only real input by Prince was he said that he wanted to make them more fun.
I did not decide as a matter of law that Princes use was not fair.
That would be a jurys job.
Gordon was on the witness list.
Wealthy art collectors and dealers would parade in.
Princes Kim Gordon piece had been purchased by a collector and sometime actor named Alexander DiPersia and/or his mother.
The caption wished Prince congrats.
In my mind, this icon of appropriation art has finally been held responsible.
Would a trial have splashed more publicly?
Defendants would have had an even harder time trying to spin the outcome as just another favorable settlement.
Sadly, this is the world we live in now.
This is a very pro-art victory, I believe, Cravaths Davis said.
You will be rewarded for your original creations.
There is a line there.
Fair use is an exception to copyright not the other way around.
Of course, none of this had to happen.
All you have to do under that system is ping the originator of this work.
And Im sure everyone would have been happy.
But thats boring, and Richard Prince would never.
Artists and lawyers alike love mess.
And people will always think of new things.
Thats what copyright is designed to protect.
Its not a field thats ever going to be boring.
But did this case matter?
Im sure its a case thats going to be cited, Ray said.
But does it answer any questions we have about fair use?
None of them do.
Thats the nature of the beast.
McNatt had to hire a financial adviser for the first time in his life.
Journalists like to say that people should never seek emotional satisfaction from the courts.
What if were wrong?
I know that I moved the dial on this, McNatt said.
It might have been an inch.
It might have been two inches.
It was important for me for there to be something to build on for the next person.
