The Art Newspaper has a complicated story about a work of art created by two artists—and owned by the child of one of them—that seems to have been copies multiple times by Chinese craftsmen. The untitled work is not a forgery: multiple copies are on public display but not attributed to the artists Don Wakefield and Joseph Glickman. The question is whether the works violate the artist’s rights. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t tell us how widely the work was shown or why it may have been copied. It does delve into the question of who made the copies and how much they cost:
said that the sculpture was acquired at a sculpture park in Beijing during the Olympic Games in 2008, but declined to reveal the exact source of the piece, or the identity of the craftsman. It was one of nine works made by the Chinese craftsman, three of which were bought by Olenicoff. […]
A Beijing-based stone-carving company estimated that to make a single copy of Wakefield’s sculpture based on a photograph would cost $1,250, with the price dropping to $950 per unit for three. According to Wakefield, to make an original, unique work today of the kind he and Glickman made in 1992 would cost around $35,000.
Sculptor Finds Alleged Copies of his Work in Corporate Collection (The Art Newspaper)
