The Calgary artist behind the public art that used photos of British comedians without permission and prompted an international incident this week has apologized and offered an explanation.
Derek Besant’s $20,000 piece, installed along the Fourth Street underpass in downtown Calgary two years ago, involves a series of images of people’s faces, blurred out with words overtop of them.
This week, a U.K-based comedian named Bisha Ali noted — to her surprise — that one of the photos appeared to be a picture of her, and that several others appeared to be of her fellow comic colleagues.
The common thread was that all the comedians had been involved