The Cabildo has announced that it will withdraw the advertising poster for the Lanzarote International Film Festival, after the FCM denounced this Tuesday that it constitutes a plagiarism of a work by César Manrique, requesting its withdrawal and even warning with legal actions.
The Island Corporation authorized that poster without even requesting permission from the Foundation, which was created by César to maintain his legacy and which holds the copyright to his works. However, although they have now had to withdraw it, they defend that it was not a "plagiarism" but a "reinterpretation". They even compare the illustrator who made the poster with Manrique himself, pointing out that he also "reinterpreted none other than Picasso's Guernica".
"After the first consultations we consider that the facts are not even denouncable, since a reinterpretation of artistic works is very frequent in the art world without this implying plagiarism, which only takes place when it is intended to sell someone else's work as one's own or with some particular interest", the government group maintains in a statement. As for the author, the Minister of Culture has confirmed to La Voz that the poster was commissioned to the advertising company Pelaka, whose creative director is Sebastián Gil Maneiro. And according to the Cabildo, what he intended when using a work by Manrique without authorization was to pay him a "tribute" on the occasion of the centenary.
"The first Corporation thought it was a good idea"
"However, the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Pedro San Ginés, in order to avoid the confrontation, which is intended to be provoked at all costs, already gave instructions for it to be withdrawn", adds the press release, which despite that message again includes criticisms of the César Manrique Foundation. On this occasion, the statement puts these criticisms in the mouth of the Minister of Culture, Óscar Pérez, who states that "he does not understand how a cultural action to contribute to the tributes of the artist's centenary is vetoed by an entity whose objectives include the promotion of the artist".
"From the Department of Culture they clarify that it is a work by a graphic artist who made the poster without being given prior instruction and when he presented it, it was not censored either. The first Corporation thought it was a good idea that the designer wanted to contribute to the dissemination of Manrique's centenary", adds the note, pointing to the illustrator as responsible but admitting that they knew that he had used a registered work by César, and that therefore it is subject to copyright.
"Neither the author, nor the festival, nor anyone from Culture, nor myself saw any kind of problem", Óscar Pérez nevertheless pointed out to La Voz. "I myself am an author and my only training is artistic. I took it so for granted that no... It's that I'm sure that it shouldn't have created a problem. It happens because we are in Lanzarote and before an election, if not, this would not have happened", he added.
In its statement, the Cabildo also now asks the Foundation to authorize the use of other "images of César Manrique" to "various collaborators of the centenary". This refers to the people with whom the government group of the Island Corporation is counting on to organize its own centenary apart from the FCM.
