Also, need opinions - Is it kosher to use art by living artists in memes if they're just regular working class people? I feel kinda weird about this one because I think this painting might be pretty recent. Like yeah, recontextualization for comedic effect blah blah blah. I'd just like to hear y'alls thoughts.
It's an awkward thing. IP law is bullshit, creating scarcity where none exists... but because the entire enterprise of creation of art is happening within that framework, a lot of them have to participate within a system where they can only create a livelihood by selling art as an artificial commodity that they have monopoly rights over. And it's not fair to expect all artists to be revolutionaries who are fighting against that system.
Is it kosher to use art by living artists in memes if they're just regular working class people
I guess if you don't obscure their watermark (like in the OP) or provide a source to the original
Or yeah, as Nephew said below - as long as you honor their request you take the meme down. Matt Furie for example probably still hates most Pepe memes, but I'd imagine he doesn't mind the ones that aren't explicitly rightwing/racist lol.
Getting consent should probably be a default, but it probably depends on the content. One of my best friends is the guy with a perry the platypus stuffed animal as his head on a rollercoaster and I don't see him getting mad for people using it. If anything I saw it referenced here and mentioned it to him and he said he was humbled that it's still getting front-page action in some places. Then again, he made it to be absurd and shared on the internet. A painting might be a bit different in the eyes of it's creator...