Arabelle Sicardi is a visionary young queer feminist, fashion and make-up expert, and writer (and occasional Jezebel contributor). She frequently collaborates with Tayler Smith, an equally visionary young photographer. When they saw that a photo project they’d worked on featured prominently—without credit—in an issue of The New Yorker, they were understandably pissed off.
In 2014, the duo photographed (above left) their friend Hari Nef, an increasingly famous trans model, as part of a collaborative art show called Most Important Ugly, which exhibited for four months at American Two Shot in New York City. Now, the duo are accusing a Yale graduate named Zak Arctander of taking their photo of Nef without permission (above right), adapting it, and including it in his MFA thesis without giving Smith and Sicardi the proper credit.
Smith and Sicardi first noticed the piece Arctander is calling “Cheeks” in a New Yorker profile of the 2015 Yale MFA photography students written by Hilton Als and entitled “The Freedom of Young Photographers.” The piece, above left, was credited as “Photograph by Zak Arctander,” though it is clearly Smith and Sicardi’s photograph of Nef, at right, with graphics added above. Smith and Sicardi are uncredited and, as Sicardi tells Jezebel, “[Arctander] never reached out.”
Zak Arctander is an accomplished photographer on his own—in addition to his Yale MFA, he holds a BFA from the University of Illinois-Chicago, according to Fraenkel Gallery. In 2014, he was featured in Vice Magazine’s annual Photo Issue with high-contrast, candid images of skateboarders, discarded Natty Ice cans, and distorted-looking normal humans doing slightly odd activities. They’re interesting photographs, though quite unlike “Cheeks.” In an accompanying interview, he told Vice,
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