In the previous blog bit I drew attention to a new Bounty Hunter tee that looked eerily similar to a tee that Kaws had created for Neighborhood and Original Fake last year. In the post I said that the Kaws illustration had been hand drawn, and by implication the Bounty Hunter tee was perhaps a little guilty of ripping off his original artwork.

Yes, the Kaws piece was hand drawn just like I recalled (check it out at his honeyee blog here). What I missed was that both the Kaws art and the Bounty Hunter tee draw their imagery from the same pre-existing publicly recognisable image, as you can see from the pic above. (Thanks to SheOne next door for digging it up). What I was missing was familiarity with this common outside reference point.


Both works are appropriations, so it's hard to consider one as being more authentic than the other. Of course Kaws is all about appropriation, and here he subverts  this symbol or authoritarian intimidation by crossing out the eyeball in his customary style.


So put this similarity down to either coincidence or an oversight. Anyone who has picked up a Neighborhood mag or saw the pics of Hikaru playing at the launch of Neighborhood's HOODS store in Hong Kong recently knows how close these compatriot labels are. Perhaps if anything it was a little slack of BxH to drop such a similar tee within a year of the Neighborhood/Original Fake release.


This little episode raises an interesting question. In a world where meaning is  'inter-textual', i.e. where it is dependent on so many shared references for it to be intelligible, where does authorship begin and end?


Bow tie wearing academics use the word 'postmodernism' to talk about this problem. When most people commonly use the word 'postmodern' they're usually talking shit (just like how almost everyone you will ever hear use the word 'deconstruction' is also coughing bollocks. 'Deconstruction' is not the same as 'analysis'. It's not about breaking down a text to summarise what's in it. It's actually about investigating the underlying unspoken assumptions that lie outside the text, but which determine how it can be interpreted.).

To generalise the ungeneralisable, 'postmodernism' describes a world where nothing is original and where nothing original can possibly come into being, such is our over-saturation of ideas, images and media.

In truth, there is no one thing or idea which is definitively 'postmodern'. The few people in the world who actually know what the word really means can't even agree on its true meaning. Is a postmodern world completely cold and depthless, where all surfaces are blank and superficial. Or can postmodern reproduction be ironic in a humorous or meaningful way?

Fortunately you don't have to answer any of these questions. The world's most brilliant tweed-jacketed minds are writing footnotes to these questions as we speak.

Before this becomes a mid term assessment paper that gets handed in two days late let's get to the point of what all this has to do with creative authorship.

Even if nothing was actually original. Even if, like these two tees, everything is derived from other exterior reference points.... so what?

We've all been saturated by a dizzying surplus of stimulus and information ever since the day we were born and we heard that machine that goes 'bing'. Every day you encounter a world saturated in more surplus meaning than you can ever absorb. And it's probably always been this way.

Even if (and I mean "if") this meant that originality was impossible, does it mean that art becomes redundant? Of course not. People have been hailed as great artists no matter how 'postmodern' they are (i.e. whether they have a scanner or not).

The theory is all rhetorical. If people enjoy viewing an image or are impressed by it or the story behind it, they will call it art and hail the author as an individual 'artist'. After all, 'art' and 'artist' are only words, and words are used cheaply.

Just because an image, a film, a song, a novel or whatever is structured by the formalities of genera or because it relies in some way a greater body of work to be understood and enjoyed doesn't make it a lie.

Duplication and appropriation is not something that corrupts creativity. The most productive learning period for any person is during their infancy. Why? Because you are free to imitate without inhibition.

'Originality' doesn't make 'good' art. You can have pretensions about your originality and still be mediocre (or just plain terrible). Example. Here in Australia where I live, the local film industry tends to make films that try hard to be original in a 'quirky' or eccentric way. Many of these films are widely considered vain indulgent crap, and to be of far lesser value than films that stay true to the established conventions of narrative and plain good 'ol fashioned story telling.

'Authorship' isn't the be all and end all. What is crucial, however, what does make a difference between 'good' art and 'bad' art, is the conviction and integrity of the artist. If you are just doing things by the numbers without devoting your effort, your time, your money- your whole life- completely to your art, chances are it won't produce much that is inspiring or that people are moved by. If you don't really, really have to give a shit about it, why should anyone else?

How do you measure the conviction or integrity of an artist through their work? Really, you can't, in any fair or rational way. It's a judgment we all make, and will continue to draw regardless of how 'inter-textual' we feel everything is on the day. You've already made similar judgments about the creative value of everything you've seen and read on this website, because making these judgements is what people do, regardless of how viable academics believe these judgments and distinctions to be.


So in the end you'll make an opinion about the relative merits of the Kaws tee and the Neighborhood tee. Was the Bounty Hunter tee made to mean something? Does it have a purpose? Does it bring something to the brand? Or was it made simply because it was the easy thing to do?

- Anthony