His Minipops
April 28, 2017 10:20 AM   Subscribe

I feel like this person has created a career for herself off the back of my work. She may no longer be actively copying my work, but she’s still ripping the style, and would never have got to that place had it not been for copying my work in the first place. It feels wrong. I’m not happy about it. And I wanna be that pebble in her shoe. Minipops, these tiny pixelly versions of famous people, are mine. I’m proud of them and the many hours I put into them. Artist Craig Robinson busts a plagiarist.

Craig Robinson's FlipFlopFlyin site
39 Princes (one for each year of his career)
Minipops previously (though links all dead)
Flip Flop Fly Ball
Also, Lollipops
posted by chavenet (30 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
So Hansen Oldham has done a whole series of straight rips of Robinson's pieces, not just using his style. That's the damning thing that Robinson opens his blog post with. But Hansen Oldham's current work, and the stuff in the T magazine profile, are not copies, they are just done in a similar style. And I find it hard to credit Robinson's apparent argument, that he owns the idea of low-bit pixel art figures of famous people. Surely he was not the first to do it.
posted by grobstein at 10:39 AM on April 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


Yeah, I'm not buying the argument that just because her most recent work is not a straight up knock off, she deserves to be feted. She is clearly being sold to the public as a complete original-- as in this quote from the NYT:
"Hansen Oldham is enigmatic about her creative process and how she chooses her subjects, which are often a mix of pop culture, history and politics seen through a blithely cracked lens. The ideas seem to flow from her unconscious, not from some contrived post-textual analysis. "
So the whole schtick, at least according to that profile, is that she is an attractive, somewhat childlike woman who believes in ghosts (mentioned in the opening line of the profile for some reason) and who originated a wholly unique art style from her charming studio in Kentucky.
posted by loquacious crouton at 10:54 AM on April 28, 2017 [24 favorites]


Before I followed the link, I was ready for some gray area. I can imagine that pixel art renditions of public figures can be very similar without being a rip-off. I can also imagine that a particular pixel art style is going to be very similar to any other pixel art style (or cross stitch or mosaic style, for that matter.)

Then I actually followed the link. I was wrong to assume misunderstanding. What a completely shameless ripoff.

Shame on the cross stitch artist for hiding this in the language of "influenced by", and shame on the Times for not calling her on it.
posted by Cranialtorque at 11:04 AM on April 28, 2017 [8 favorites]


What Hansen Oldham is doing is twee and popular, so Pak doesn't even both engaging the substance of the issue and insteads calls outright copying "similarities."

Why has he not sued her? I'm not a copyright lawyer but is there a cause of action here? Her response makes it seem like he's just being a nuisance for pointing out that she wholesale copied his work, without permission or attribution.
posted by 1adam12 at 11:06 AM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


OK, ammending my earlier comment. Digging deeper, it looks like she did copy his work for some early exploratory projects. But those aren't the projects that are being shown in the Times or featured in an art show. It sounds like she saw some stuff she liked and copied it to learn, which most artists do at some point. But it doesn't sound like she is selling that stuff, that she has created original works in a similar style.

I take back my cries of "shame". Maybe shame on my for not reading deeply enough at first.
posted by Cranialtorque at 11:11 AM on April 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


As an aside, Elsa Hansen is Will Oldham's spouse.
posted by dobbs at 11:30 AM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Seems like someone thought they could copy my Minipops, and then when she had exhausted that resource, continue to copy my style.
And when she'd finished with that she'd mention my inspiration and continue to mention my inspiration. And then she followed it up by apparently NOT MENTIONING MY INSPIRATION. TO THE FUCKING NEW YORK TIMES! ABOUT HOW SHE STOLE MY REINTERPRETATION OF ROBERT FREEMAN'S HELP COVER WHICH I CLEARLY ATTRIBUTE LIKE I DO FOR EVERY SOURCE IMAGE.

I mean, I get it. I don't think its killing dude's brand more than acting like he invented 8-bit because his appropriative shit got ripped.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:30 AM on April 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


(Oh, damn. I see that's mentioned in the NYT.) Sorry.
posted by dobbs at 11:31 AM on April 28, 2017


I don't think its killing dude's brand more than acting like he invented 8-bit because his appropriative shit got ripped.

Hey now, you don't seem to fully appreciate the 10,000 hours he spent inventing pixel art, circa 2003.
posted by tocts at 11:50 AM on April 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


The NYT's response was extremely weak. That Minju Pak found the embroidery "charming" isn't actually relevant to the lack of actual journalism.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:55 AM on April 28, 2017


It's not just that Hansen Oldham wholesale ripped off Robinson's particular method of rendering famous people as pixel art. Her work also owes a lot to the specific presentation and selection of subjects in his Minipops project, that is, the omnivorous juxtaposition of musicians, actors, athletes, historical figures, and world leaders, all reduced to the minimum of recognizable components and depicted side by side. I think he's absolutely right to be frustrated and angry.
posted by theodolite at 11:56 AM on April 28, 2017 [9 favorites]


Part of the problem is that "rendering a bunch of famous people in sequence using a stylized facsimile of early video game graphics" isn't extraordinarily novel to begin with. She is no doubt ripping him off - that much is clear - but how much ownership he can claim over a style which is inherently appropriative is probably murky.

Plus she's got celebrity on her side, and the art world doesn't really care about originality; it cares about narrative.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:02 PM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


This is so interesting to me - I've been following Andy Rash's Iotacons for a bunch of years now, and occasionally making plans to crochet some of his designs (not for sale, just for family). He got a lot of exposure when he did a bunch of Star Wars icons back in 2010, and regularly posts people's creations that use his designs.

So I think it's definitely appropriation that Oldham is using his designs without attribution, but I'm not sure I would call it plagiarism. That's just semantics, though. It's still stealing.
posted by Mchelly at 12:13 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wow, yeah. This — meaning Mr. Robinson's crusade, which some here seem ready to sign on to — is not cool at all.

Just to be explicit about what others have pointed out, all of the images he's presented as evidence of plagiarism are from this single piece, which is presumably what Ms. Hansen Oldham calls her "first exploratory quilt". It's not exactly daylight robbery for an artist to spend some time copying another's work while they develop their own style.

If she were trying to pass that particular piece off as her own invention, or if she were making money off it, that could theoretically be a problem. But she's not. She seems totally upfront in acknowledging that that one piece is highly derivative of his art, but she says that the rest of her portfolio is original work drawing on other influences and he's given no evidence to contradict that.

Let's say he's understandably hurt that she hasn't acknowledged more that she's working in a style that he (speaking charitably) pioneered. Let's also go ahead and say she's understandably a little prickly at being accused of plagiarism for what most would call homage. Great, everyone feels heard. Now... can we maybe call off the internet hate machine before someone decides to destroy her life as a hobby?
posted by emmalemma at 12:26 PM on April 28, 2017 [13 favorites]


I'm having some fierce deja vu right now - artist A copies/is influenced by artist B, artist B is already a re-interpreter/remixer and/or wants to claim ownership over an entire genre, artist A might be getting more attention than artist B due to familial connections in the NY art world.
posted by thecjm at 12:29 PM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


I like both. My friend also made a well reviewed video game (I'm on the far left) in a not dissimilar style, and I wouldn't be surprised if he saw the minipops, but wouldn't feel like he needed to mention them as an influence, it's a widely practiced art style at this point. I also had a The Young Ones video game as a kid with similar icons, so even the idea of pixelly real world characters isn't a new one.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:43 PM on April 28, 2017


The style being copied is much more specific than just "celebrities rendered in pixelart." The bodies are head-on but the heads are turned to the side, the figures are thin and lanky, facial features aren't depicted but fashion accessories are, etc. I can't think of a "Nintendo, Atari" game that looks quite like it. (Kentucky Route Zero is the closest game, perhaps, but even it uses a recognizably different style.) I think it's fair for Robinson to call it his own. And even Oldson's current work is a direct imitation of his style.
posted by painquale at 12:43 PM on April 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


If somebody enters your house through a window while you are not home, and leaves with your TV set, they have not "remixed" your TV.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:12 PM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


If somebody enters your house through a window while you are not home, and leaves with your TV set, they have not "remixed" your TV.

Apples and handgrenades.

This is more a case of entering your home and taking a picture of your TV, then going home and cross stitching it. Your TV is right where you left it.
posted by MissySedai at 1:29 PM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


More like taking a picture of your TV, which is on a pedestal in your front yard under a big neon sign that says "LOOK AT MY TV." Then cross-stitching it.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:32 PM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


"I made this."

MeFi's own. Come back, we miss you.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 1:41 PM on April 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


But then they cross the line by cross-stitching some other popular TV models and getting featured in NYT just for shamelessly stealing your whole TV idea.
posted by emmalemma at 1:42 PM on April 28, 2017


Cross stitching pixel art is absolutely transformational. It's a subversion of the idea that nerd culture and computers and video games are inherently masculine by applying it to a domestic craft that is rarely acknowledged as art. Because art is what men do.

Her work is obviously influenced by his. But through her medium, she imbues an entirely different level of meaning that simply cannot be present in his work.
posted by politikitty at 4:09 PM on April 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


Cross stitching pixel art is absolutely transformational. It's a subversion of the idea that nerd culture and computers and video games are inherently masculine by applying it to a domestic craft that is rarely acknowledged as art. Because art is what men do.

Yeah, I'm kind of on her side here. It looks like she saw the cool 8-bit graphics, and thought "you know what medium is perfect for that? Cross-stitch!" and then further transformed it by putting cross-stitch pieces on an actual quilt, which is like two levels of medium changes. And then she didn't even sell that quilt, that was just first quilt, which she really liked and then she went on to go from there.

One of the first things you do in most art classes is copy other people's art until you start learning how it work and making your own. I've never even heard of someone getting upset about it, as long as you're pretty clear about it, which she seems to be.
posted by corb at 11:11 PM on April 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


HOW SHE STOLE MY REINTERPRETATION OF ROBERT FREEMAN'S HELP COVER WHICH I CLEARLY ATTRIBUTE LIKE I DO FOR EVERY SOURCE IMAGE.

I mean, I get it. I don't think its killing dude's brand more than acting like he invented 8-bit because his appropriative shit got ripped.


Alongside Robert Freeman's take on his The Beatles: Help!, I wonder what J.-P Goude thinks about Robinson's Grace (again)? Will the fact that they're so small, and not used for an actual album cover, save him from the kind of thinking Jay Maisel had about Andy Baio's 8-bit Miles Davis cover (previously)?
posted by progosk at 3:08 AM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


This story about a Michelle Obama mural has been playing out in Chicago recently.
posted by lagomorphius at 4:24 AM on April 29, 2017


That Michelle Obama mural thing is orders of magnitude worse, mainly because of the plagiarist's Twitter freak out where he among other things obliquely called the artist he stole from a "Mere Doodler" and insisted the murals he makes with other people's work are more artistically pure somehow. If he had gone with "She should be thanking me for the free exposure she's getting" that would have been more honest than what he went with.

For what it's worth I think this guy is overreacting. If the works she's selling/profiting from are similar only in style and not substance there's no story here. The subject of his ire has admitted freely to his influence, just not to his satisfaction. As has already been said, recreating this style and building off it in cross stitch is transformative. It's like a photographer freaking out because he finds a painter who started out painting recreations of his photographs and now paints original works that still reflect his photographic style.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:00 AM on April 29, 2017 [4 favorites]


There's a lot about the state of the world in this story. None of it good.
posted by bongo_x at 1:51 PM on April 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


I like her work better than his. And I think her work is better than his, objectively. She took a style and elevated it, transformed it. Her work also has much more narrative and meaning than his.

And I think what politikitty said is really worth noting:
Cross stitching pixel art is absolutely transformational. It's a subversion of the idea that nerd culture and computers and video games are inherently masculine by applying it to a domestic craft that is rarely acknowledged as art. Because art is what men do.

Her work is obviously influenced by his. But through her medium, she imbues an entirely different level of meaning that simply cannot be present in his work.


And it's not just the medium itself that becomes in a way a feminist critique or feminist transformation of his work/style. It's also the types of themes and narratives she chooses to portray in her work. His original figures, as far as I can see from his website, do not really stand together in a clear message the way hers does. I'd go as far as to say that some of them are pretty male-gazey, and the types of characters he selects are... what a male from the 90s would be interested in or think of as worth focusing on. The narratives and themes she chooses to convey in her art come across as very different.

Would he, for example, be able to come up with her buffy thru buffy piece? (I don't think so.) Or her medusa/willow smith piece. Or eve and eve.
This is his version of Kanye (from his archive here). This is her version of Kanye.

Side by side, when I really consider their artwork, I'm not interested in his art but I'm interested in hers. She says things that he does not. Her medium is also very much an inseparable part of her message, overall. It's not just 8-bit art (which Craig Robinson did not invent); it's 8-bit art cross-stitched, and pieced together as part of a quilt-tableau that comes to mean more than the sum of its parts. It is taking a traditionally masculine art style and placing it within a traditionally feminine art medium. If I did not know much about both artists and just viewed their work side by side, I would consider her work a critique and thoughtful subversion of his.
posted by aielen at 3:15 AM on April 30, 2017 [3 favorites]


It's not just 8-bit art (which Craig Robinson did not invent); it's 8-bit art cross-stitched, and pieced together as part of a quilt-tableau that comes to mean more than the sum of its parts.

She's commenting on 8-bit art, sure, but I think it's worth reflecting on what is added by using his style (which really is uniquely his) instead of some other 8-bit style. What would be lost in her art by making the figures look like Zelda characters or Q-Bert? Something would be lost, I think... but what would be lost are the strong aesthetic decisions that were present in the original art. I don't think she's subverting him or commenting on indie artists who make pixel art. Rather, she's using his strong aesthetic choices to comment on similar things that he was.

It's completely consistent to prefer her art and think that she's improved it while also thinking that she's done him a wrong by lifting his style. Like a good novel that steals someone's font.
posted by painquale at 12:19 PM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


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