Copyright 1977-79

Resembling a paperweight, this engraved blue pearl granite copyright symbol articulates a conundrum: is the stone itself copyrighted, or is it a seal conferring copyright on a different work? Perhaps it is both.

Poet–artist Richard Tipping frequently plays with dualities of meaning in his work, stretching the boundaries of written expression and ‘giving weight to words’, as he has said. Copyright reflects the intermedia nature of his quick-witted ‘word works’, underpinned by a belief that nothing is sacrosanct. With its irreverent humour, Tipping’s practice finds sympathies with those of the Fluxus artists who sought to expand the definition of what art can be.