With Spike Lee’s latest film Oldboy hitting theaters this week the incendiary, Brooklyn-born filmmaker has been getting some serious PR – just not in the way he expected.
Recently a graphic designer by the name of Juan Luis Garcia has stepped forward and penned an open letter to Lee insisting that the poster compositions that he did for the agency promoting Lee’s film were stolen. According to him the agency paid him very little for the work, but promised him more if his designs were chosen. Months pass and his designs were in fact chosen but they then offered him an insultingly low sum for his work, telling him that the exposure is more important than the money.
Needless to say he saw through the sham and declined their offer. As a result he wasn’t paid at all, but was still allowed to keep the work and add it to his portfolio. He obviously wasn’t satisfied with the proposition but at least the whole ordeal had come to a close … so he thought.
On the left is Garcia’s work, on the right is the final poster.
Garcia was promptly threatened with legal action after a few of his Oldboy comps went viral, placing him right at the center of this debacle. Next thing he knows the official poster was launched, one so clearly and blatantly derivative of Garcia’s initial design you’d have to be senile (or Spike Lee) to not see the resemblance. To make matters worse, Lee used Mr. Garcia’s comps to promote the film on his official Facebook page, with copyright.
Lee using Garcia’s work to promote the film on Facebook.
In response, Garcia, in lieu of taking legal action, confronted Lee directly, artist to artist, asking him to get in contact through his heartfelt and sincere open letter.
The Internet exploded with support for Garcia. Since Lee is so utterly adored in the artistic community, everyone was waiting for his response. Could he work some magic and preserve artistic integrity in time for the Holidays? That’s what everyone was hoping for anyway. Instead, we received this:
I Never Heard Of This Guy Juan Luis Garcia,If He Has A Beef It's Not With Me.I Did Not Hire Him,Do Not Know Him.Cheap Trick Writing To Me.YO
— Spike Lee (@SpikeLee) November 28, 2013
Lee delivers 140 grammatically and syntactically incorrect characters that dodge the issue and show little sympathy for an artist who just wants to make things right. The man that aspiring artists are supposed to look up to is hiding behind legality. Lee published stolen work and put his name on it, and he says the “Beef” is not with him?
Garcia clearly respects Lee, and the letter reads as someone who isn’t blaming Lee for what has transpired. Garcia made sure to note that this could quite possibly be entirely the fault of the ad agency and their dishonesty as the middleman, and he was probably right. Lee was not the bad guy until now. That Lee was unable to provide something even remotely resembling a genuine response is quite disheartening. We hope this all gets resolved soon.
To support Juan Luis Garcia, visit his wonderful website here.
10 thoughts on “Spike Lee Dismisses Artist Whose Work He Allegedly Stole”
The film distributor FILM DISTRICT was actually behind the choice of posters and even down to the edits for ‘Oldboy’. Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule had no real creative control in this project. So, in fact, the issue is on their hands and not Lee. The artist should’ve protected his work legally.
“The artist should’ve protected his work legally” – suppose he’s fair game then. Let’s see what else Film District can steal from him
Lee was a director for hire. Any legal issue with the poster and such should be taken up with FILM DISTRICT.
I suspect that if anything provably legally wrong had been done, the artist would’ve filed a lawsuit instead of drafting an open letter to a director online.
Did you give Lee an A+ for his twitter response as well?
Points for cleverness, but if you can’t see why Lee would be pissed at a guy who dragged his name through the public opinion mud despite not having enough legal basis to file a lawsuit, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Did you read the letter? Suing celebrities is pretty expensive and I think the artist would obviously not want it to have to come to that for many reasons. Also Lee’s “I never heard of him” defense doesn’t really work when you are putting his work up on your Facebook page.
Anyway Lee has taken the posters off his Facebook page and Garcia has removed his letter from his own website so I think the matter is sorting itself out.
I truly don’t mean to be an ass here, but either you three willfully neglected the final paragraph of this article or you folks simply didn’t read it.
“Garcia clearly respects Lee, and the letter reads as someone who isn’t blaming Lee for what has transpired. Garcia made sure to note that this could quite possibly be entirely the fault of the ad agency and their dishonesty as the middleman, and he was probably right.”
I believe Lee when he said he didn’t hire Garcia. That’s not his job as the filmmaker. But that doesn’t excuse him for delivering such an arrogant and flippant response.
If you think Garcia didn’t know Lee would be the public face associated with this wrongdoing, you’re not giving him enough credit. Lee is business savvy enough to realize this is the tactic of a desperate man with no legal basis to back up his claims in court, or he would’ve sued instead of “drafting an open letter.” Garcia either knew Lee would feel the wrath of public opinion regardless of wording, or he’s the most naive man alive. Why should Lee be courteous to a guy who went out of the way to attach his name to an alleged wrongdoing he had no part in?
If Lee didn’t want to feel the wrath of public opinion, he should’ve stayed silent and sorted the matter out in private. Or, at most, declared on Twitter: “I’m sorting the matter out in private.” What kind of message does Lee’s “Yeah this guy’s asking for help, like I give a shit” (words to that effect) send to all the people on Twitter who look up to him? Nobody knows the truth about the work Garcia did for Oldboy yet. That includes Lee, who really needs to learn to think before he lets his hands tweet away any more of his public respect