Mike: I think you've partly nailed it for me.
When I was a much younger pup than now, I used to dis Warhol all over the place for his "appropriations." As I got older, I came to like his stuff more, because I felt that he had, indeed, brought "more to the party", as it were. Others still regard him as an art-house grifter.
I think Jim Krantz is being one hell of a good sport about this. Perhaps this is in part because he knows that any legal action on his part would likely result in more heat than light (except, of course, for the lawyers on either side of the dispute), and he's been in the business long enough not to be a dummy about this stuff, but I can grok his dismay.
And we can chase our own tails (and each other's) about just what constitutes "original" art, and where photography does, or doesn't, fit in all this, but I think Prince sort of snaps the limb he's been long crawling out upon. Yes, you could blame the vapidity of the art establishment for throwing money at this stuff, which I regard as bad art (my mother, a painter for most of her life, talked about good and bad art, as opposed to art and non-art), but I don't think Prince alone should be piled-upon for this stuff; there's enough blame to go around, at least if you're of this mindset.
(Yikes...have I become Hilton Kramer????)
- Barrett