A website that came under fire for allowing its artist community to sell shower curtains, pillows, and other products printed with Māori ancestral portraits and other cultural images has since removed most of the material. Fine Art America and the artists responsible received multiple complaints from NZ and due to the power of social media, the images vanished in less than 24-hours.
The power of social media and a strong response by Māori has seen the sale of these ancestral portraits as products online stopped in less than 24-hours.
Toi o Tāmaki curator Nigel Borell says, "it just reminds us that we need to be, in 2016, just as vigilant about copyright and misappropriation as we were ten, fifteen, twenty years ago when it was the hot issue, it reminds us that it is still important today."
About 15 Lindauer portraits, now out of copyright, and an image of a preserved head, uploaded by two different artists, were being sold online globally through the Fine Art America website.
"I think that there's always a moral obligation to remember that they are portraits and images of people they're not fictional people they're real people,” says Borell.
Edward Fielding, the artist selling the moko mokai image, told Te Kāea that he did not intend to offend, but also felt he was being made the scapegoat for the Lindauer images. He received multiple aggressive emails from Māori in NZ. Fielding wouldn't comment any further and hung up the phone.
"I think ignorance is bliss and the one thing you can't do is you can't un-know something when someone tells you that that's offensive of that we do have a lineage to that person. Regardless if you live in Whakatane or San Francisco.”
Fine Art America has been contacted for comment but Te Kāea is yet to receive a response. Efforts to contact the artist responsible for uploading the Lindauer images were also unsuccessful.