I was checking out John LeKay's wikipage and I found this 1990-1991 work
Ring a Ring of Roses
Which made me think of this Jake and Dinos Chapman work from 2003,
Death
What do you guys think? Is it plagiarism? I don't recall LeKay launching complaints against the Chapman brothers, though he did launch them against Damien Hirst (see here for more background on this.) Why would he do that? Surely he would know about the Chapman brothers piece if he knew about Hirst, they're both Saatchi favorites, and Death exhibited at the 2003 Turner Prize show.
For the record, I don't think this is plagiarism. In fact, I think I would be incredibly hard pressed to call plagiarism in any work of art (here I mean sculpture, performance, painting, installation, video, not indie films or mainstream films, but art films.)
What do you call it when a Mondrian pattern makes it on a designer dress, appropriation or plagiarism? If it's the former, then the plagiarism accusation has very little weight.
I'll be writing some more about plagiarism and intellectual property in art. Stay tuned!
