Last night Francesca and I went to see the artist Barbara Kruger speak at the San Francisco Art Institute. Kruger is known for, among other things, stark photo-and-text collages that appropriate the language of consumer culture to comment on it.

After the talk, Francesca (our resident art expert) gave Kruger a Creative Commons t-shirt and explained what it is we do.

“Oh, sounds like Lawrence Lessig,” Kruger said.

“He’s our chairman,” Francesca and I said in unison.

“Wow, if you have to have a hero, he’s as good as anyone I can think of,” she said. “Please tell him that I use his book to teach my grad school courses.”

Having endured and prevailed in a copyright litigation (over the image above), Kruger can appreciate the benefits of free culture.