Making sense of art and design industries

By OlgaPatofzki

The Artist

Marius Sperlich is a 26-year-old photographer and art director based in Berlin, who takes provocative portraits and captures the human body from a close perspective. He is known for his unique art where he shows the human body with miniature scenes in an odd, but creative way. Making the viewers feel something, like discomfort. 

He’s also known for having a lot of naked women in the photos. He wants people to stop visualizing the female body in a sexualized perspective, as it´s just a home for women. It’s just a body and ”It should never be a canvas for the projection sexualized fantasies” Sperlich says. He uses a lot of time on his artistic work, and this is how he makes his income. He is known amongst the public and recognized officially as an artist. 

Earlier this year Chris Brown released his music video for his single “Wobble up”. Scenes from the music video are almost identical to Marius Sperlich´s pictures. 

The director, Arrad, is accused by several visual artists for plagiarism and copyright infringement. Arrad captured the essence and qualities of the artist’s original piece. And now the artists want to seek justice. But to just accuse Arrad and Chris Brown is wrong as a whole team of professionals was in on it. 

Inspiration VS. Plagiarism 

When you copy someone else´s art without giving credit or getting permission it’s a rip-off. They straight up stole the pictures, as they mimicked the pictures overall. Artist´s work hard to find their artistic identity, and these pictures got Sperlich´s signature written all over it. 

Inspiration is when you get various ideas from it, almost as a guide to creating something of your own. When you mix different ideas to develop your own personal style. This can help challenge yourself to expand your artistic skills. As Aristotle said “Imitation is natural to humans from childhood. We all learn from imitation”. But you should always give the creators appreciation. 

Artists need to put their work out there, as this is how they make a living. And when it’s online it drifts around the web and gets reposted, and that’s how the original source fades away. Some people may show their work as a tool for others to get inspired, for valid reasons. But if they don’t give any reference to their influence, then it’s stealing. It all depends on how you use the influence, because as soon as you´re done with your art, you have the copyright and the ownership.

No art is truly original at this time, because everybody gets inspiration, ideas, skills, thoughts, etc. of everybody else. But some originality and uniqueness are still what makes someone stand out.

With the hashtag #changeindustry, artists want to make it known to the public that this is something they struggle with, and that the injustice is harmful. It’s a big problem when big artists steal from smaller artists, and therefore making the hashtag viral is crucial.