Advertisement or art?

An Upper West Side advertisement by a New York real estate firm borrows from the aesthetic popularized by Barbara Kruger's art, below, in the 1980s. "My work was always about questioning the power, the ownership of images," the artist says. (By Lucy Hogg)

Blake Gopnik writes about advertisements that "borrow" imagery from art. What caught his eye was this condo ad that looks an awful lot like something Barbara Kruger might have made. I think advertising should borrow from art lots more. We're assaulted with advertising all the time so why not make it artful instead of the often usual vacuous fare.

Harnett points out that an artistic style cannot be copyrighted. "I wouldn't say we stole her work, or anything like that." Reached on the phone, Kruger turns out to be fine with Harnett's "loan." "This guy has nothing to worry about from me," she says. "My work was always about questioning the power, the ownership of images." She can hardly assert exclusive access to her own imagery and at the same time continue to question the very concept of ownership. Her work has become a test case of sorts for how images circulate through our culture, making a jump from art to ad she'd never have predicted.

Read the article here.