Jessica Lack looks at contemporary art that makes massive natural disasters its subject matter.

Los Angeles has a new Museum to the Holocaust. I like how the bone/plant like structure is built into the landscape.

In case you haven't heard already, Richard Prince has lost the first round of his claim of fair use in appropriating the images of others. There will be an appeal. Overall, I'm against the idea that someone could take a body of artwork by another artist and through minor levels of defacement claim it as their own artwork. In my mind advertising is different. It had a different intended use, whereas art thrives on the ambiguities it calls forth. Any art made from it would rely on those same ambiguities to varying degrees. In Prince's case he relied on the other artist's work far too much, essentially pantomiming the original photos. It just isnt enough to call it new work. Lastly, Prince is essentially an artistic vampire... that's fine but why prey on another fine artist? Sure Picasso did this all of the time but he didn't lift photographs, mildly deface them and call them his own. Photography is easy to appropriate so I believe using them in such a way invites a legal decision if one isn't careful. I also believe Prince knew this was the likely outcome and saw it as a way to keep what I call his "relevant pirate" reputation up to date.