Artist Sarah Morris Sued For Plagiarism

Sarah Morris an American artist who lives part of the year in Britain, exhibits with the White Cube gallery in London and is represented in the Tate Modern’s collection has been accused of plagiarism. The multimillion-pound claim was formed in a group action by six international Origami artists . They have stated that Morris has copied their work by taking the patterns from published works blowing them up and changing the colours.

Morris who lives in both New York and London, has been presented with a lawsuit by the  Spain, Italy, Japan and American Origami creators.. They have alleged that Morris’s body of abstract work entitled “Origami”, which consists of a series of 38 works  are “coloured-in copies of their intricate origami representations of hummingbirds, grasshoppers and other animals, birds and insects, produced using the centuries-old Japanese craft of paper-folding” says,their Their lawyer, Andrew Jacobson, who describes them as “some of the most renowned origami artists in the world today”.

The federal lawsuit for copyright infringement, will take place in Oakland, California, The case  alleges that  24 works have been copied from works have been exhibited and sold without obtaining permission and crediting them. They claim that Morris has “created confusion” over the authorship of their designs and damaged their professional reputations.
Morris’s origami paintings sell for more than $100,000 (£68,000). Origami, as an art, has millions of enthusiasts worldwide. The designs by origami artists involved in the lawsuit, Manuel Sirgo Alvarez, Noboru Miyajima, Nicola Bandoni, Toshikazu Kawasaki and Jason Ku are easy to find in books, magazines and on the internet.

Morris who was born in 1967, has been making complex abstract paintings and films. These works, based on different cities, are derived from close inspection of architectural details combined with a critical sensitivity to the psychology of a city and its key protagonists. Morris began her career making graphic paintings that adapted the dramatic, emotive language used in newspaper and advertising tag lines. Morris executes her city-based paintings in household gloss on square canvases, employing rigorous, all-over grids in vivid colours that reference architectural motifs, signs or urban vistas. Morris associates these colours and geometries with a city’s unique vocabulary and palette, and, most importantly, its dynamic. The grids have become increasingly disorientating, with layered internal space and vortex-like structures shifting the picture beyond the reality of the canvas as a two-dimensional object. In her film work, Morris both seduces and alienates the viewer, employing different kinds of cinematography, from documentary recording to seemingly set-up narrative scenarios. In her film Los Angeles (2005), for instance, Morris explores an industry fuelled by fantasy and examines the trenchant relationship between studio, producer, director and talent.has made a name turning out abstracts painted with household gloss. The Tate included her in its Triennial Exhibition of British Contemporary Art 2003 and in the special project supporting Britain’s Olympic bid. She is represented by the White Cube Gallery in London, whose artists include Damien Hirst  himself involved in a number of unsuccessful plagiarism cases over the years.

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