Parody as Fair use? Matter knows what time it is.

While searching for images of Herbert Matter's work, I stumbled across this article discussing a Swatch advertising campaign that reused/recreated some of Matters famous pieces for the Swiss National Tourist Office.  This got me thinking about the fine line that is often walked when parody is used in advertising and how relatively common this practice appears in advertising.

Matter original on the left

In this side by side comparison we can see that the Swatch ad appears to use the same background image with a recreated foreground image of the head wearing the visor and a new arm with watch inserted.  To anyone familiar with the original, the connection will be obvious.  But there is enough change in the piece to set it apart as a parody rather than a duplication.  And according to the article, the artist working on this Swatch campaign, Paula Scher, contacted Matter's estate and Matter was credited in the work.  In many parodies this is not the case.

 

 

In some cases it may not be a specific work of art that is parodied, but a very distinct artist's style.  In the below examples we see Lipton and Volkswagen clearly capturing the style of Salvador Dalí.  Since no work is being exactly copied, this seems like a much less risky form of parody.  Only the style is being used so no copyright laws come into play.

On the other end of the spectrum is the parody where the original art, or a large portion of it, is recreated and added to or superimposed with other imagery.  This is still seen quite commonly, but seems like a much more risky use of the concept of parody as fair use.  A choice examples here are this advertisement for a dating service using da Vinci's Mona Lisa and this ad for a cleaning product using Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.

 

I suppose no discussion of parody in advertising would be complete without mention of the image most reused in advertising,  da Vinci's The Last Supper.  This image has been used in advertising of everything from restaurants to rat poison.  Even the SF Folsom Street Fair, a leather fetish festival, which is probably about as far from church approved as you can get.

Resources:
Parody or Plagiarism, by Paula Schrer
Advertising inspired by Famous Painters, at designer-daily.com
Marketing Masterpieces, at owni.eu