Joy Garnett painted the artwork Molotov Man based on a photograph that Susan Meiselas had taken Pablo Arauz, who was taken part in the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua. When Garnett presented the work in an exhibition, she was hit with a potential lawsuit from Meiselas’ lawyer. Garnett believes that the Molotov Man had become a cultural symbol that should be appreciate by all, while Meiselas argues it is being taken credit of.
The claiming of Arauz’s image as a form of exclusive intellectual property just seems ridiculous to me. By threatening to sue Garnett, Meiselas was not so much protecting the context of Arauz’s of struggle in so much as protecting her own economic interests in the form of her claim to the intellectual property. Molotov Man, in becoming an icon, belongs to everyone and no one, meaning it should not be privatized