Appropriation in Art
What does it mean to be creative? Appropriation has a long history in Art. Some see it as acceptable, while others view it as pure plagiarism. But what does an artwork do? What really is it’s purpose? Have all the good ideas gone? Is it still possible to be original and is it important? Can creating art actually be theft?  
Artists have always copied to develop skill, but how much is too much? Here you will be presented with a range of artists that have utilised appropriation from a pictorial sense, all the way to the conceptual. These artists explore themes of mass media, consumer culture and identity by constructing from familiar, everyday images and items. Some even challenge notions of authenticity and reproducibility. 1
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Pablo Picasso
Divine inspiration is a myth. Creativity can be nurtured and developed. Picasso once said “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” In this unit, students will develop an understanding that ideas can be borrowed, transformed, remixed and combined as a form of creative expression. Advances in technology are allowing people to make use of copyrighted content to build a culture of remixes and mashups, exercising reinterpretation and creativity in the process. Media can now be combined, retold and reinterpreted in many different ways. Remixing can be a creative tool to help develop artistic expression. Students will create their own art by appropriating or remixing existing material. How will this new content change the meaning of the old? How does it suit a different purpose? Where is the line between creation and plagiarism? What is the difference between a remake and a reinvention? How does remixing lead to greater creativity? 2
Appropriation refers to artists using pre-existing images or objects. This means borrowing, copying and altering images or objects that already exist. We can describe this as visual sampling. This has existed throughout art history and is even prevalent in music, TV, film, advertising, fashion etc. Look at the example below. Here Manet has used Titian as a departure point for his own piece.
Titian “Venus of Urbino” 1538
Edouard Manet “Olympia” 1863
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Artists have used each other to study, to learn and to use as inspiration and pay homage to. The Art Assignment’s video, “The Case for Copying” video illustrates this point very well. Another example is Raphael’s work. He was used as a model for Velázquez, which in turn inspired Francis Bacon. Each work show the ‘psychological depths of a man at the seat of the church’s power.’
Raphael “Pope Julius II” 1511-12
Diego Velázquez “Portrait of Pope Innocent X ” c1650
Francis Bacon “Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X” 1953
Diego Velázquez “Las Meninas” was also used by Pablo Picasso three hundred years later. Picasso has also created numerous paintings based on Manet’s “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe" (1863). Check out the video linked above if you would like further information. Diego Velázquez “Las Meninas” 1656
Pablo Picasso “Las Meninas” 1957
Pablo Picasso “Le dejeuner sur l`herbe (Manet) 6” 1960
Manet “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe" 1863 4
image link
If we jump to the early 20th century, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso use mass media in their work with their Synthetic Cubist collages. Just prior, they painted in a Cubist style by breaking down various perspectives. With these collages, they were reversing by building up. Hence the term “synthetic.” These were early appropriations of real world materials.
If inte reste read d, more on th Birth e of Co l l a ge an Mixe d d Me dia v Artsy i a by cli cking here.
Pablo Picasso “Glass and Bottle of Suze” 1912
Georges Braque “Still Life on a Table Gilette” 1914
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Marcel Duchamp “transformed” a urinal into a work of art. It caused a bit of an uproar. He labelled these transformed sculptures as readymades (3m30s video explanation). He didn’t “make” anything, but was asking viewers to see and ask the philosophical question of what art is and what the artist does. Does art have to be made by the hand of the artist? Is art the idea, the concept and/or the technical skill? Can art be pure theory? Essentially, what is art? The ready made defied the notion that art must be beautiful. Marcel Duchamp
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Marcel Duchamp “Fountain” 1917
Marcel Duchamp “In Advance of a Broken Arm” 1913
Marcel Duchamp “Bicycle Wheel” 1913
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World War 1 passes and now artists use art to not just describe the world as they see it, but to also access the human soul, spirit or subconscious. Max Ernst and Hannah Hoch associated with Dada (5m43s video) & Surrealism (10m17s video), appropriated images from magazines and objects to create bizarre or absurd artworks. These works are also known as photomontages. Salvador Dali and other Surrealist artists also explored sculpture through appropriation.
Max Ernst Hannah Hoch
Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali “Lobster Telephone” 1936
Meret Oppenheim “Object” 1936 Hannah Hoch “The Beautiful Girl” 1920
Hannah Hoch “Made For A Party” 1936
Max Ernst “Collage tire de Une Semaine De Bonte”” 1934
Man Ray “Gift” 1958
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Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was another American artist that explored sculpture and the ‘Surrealist technique of unexpected juxtaposition. Cornell's best-known works are glass-fronted boxes into which he placed and arranged Victorian bric-a-brac, old photographs, dime-store trinkets, and other found elements. The resulting pieces are dream-like miniature tableaux that inspire the viewer to see each component in a new light. Cornell often used the shadow boxes to address recurrent themes of interest such as childhood, space, and birds, and they represented an escape of sorts for their creator, who was famously reclusive” (source). He doesn’t create any of the objects as they are found. He simply arranges them. This artform is known as assemblage. Cornell also explored film by splicing and creating montages of various film clips.
Joseph Cornell “Untitled (Soap Bubble Set)” 1936
Joseph Cornell “Untitled (Tilly Losch) ” c. 1935
Joseph Cornell “Habitat Group For A Shooting Gallery” 1936
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Sir Edward Paolozi was a Scottish artist. His collages were credited for launching the Pop Art movement. He was the first to appropriate images from advertisements to create work representative of the shinier, happier lifestyles that were touted in American magazines and media. British Pop Art had a different tone, reflecting the reality gap that existed between the glamour, affluence and optimism represented by the USA, and the rationing and social hardship experienced in post-war Britain (source). He always described his work as surrealist art and, while working in a wide range of media throughout his career, he became more closely associated with sculpture.
Sir Edward Paolozi “Bash” 1971
Sir Edward Paolozi “Dr. Pepper” 1948
Sir Edward Paolozi
Sir Edward Paolozi “Meet The People” 1948 9
Recap: Everything we have seen so far has been primarily pictorial. The artists were still using the perception of visuals, though some are beginning to question this, such as Marcel Duchamp. He starts to bring the conceptual into the forefront. More artists will begin to do this. In the mid 20th century, appropriation begins to take on new significance. Robert Rauschenberg (4m20s video via MOCA) was an American painter and graphic artist, though he worked in several other mediums as well. He is known for his Combines of the 1950s, which married painting and sculpture. Jasper Johns was another influential artist at this time, and is often associated with the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Rauschenberg and Johns appropriated everyday objects into their sculptures and would become big influences with the upcoming Pop Art movement. Robert Rauschenburg
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns “Flashlight I” 1958
Robert Rauschenberg “Canyon” 1959
Robert Rauschenberg “Pilgrim” 1960
Robert Rauschenberg “Retroactive II” 1964
Jasper Johns 10 “Three Flags” 1958
America is now in its post World War 2 economic boom and people are optimistic. Consumer products are rife in supermarkets. Television, films and movie stars are popular and everyone wished to chase the American dream. Advertising communicates what to buy. With this new popular culture, Pop Art is born! Pop artists were referencing the world that people knew. Everyday items and celebrities were highlighted through scale and repetition. Boundaries between high art and low art were broken by such artists as Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton and Claes Oldenburg.
James Rosenquist “President Elect” 1960-61/1964
Check ou t the video A Guide to Pop Art (2m33s) via the Art Gallery of NSW by c licking here.
Roy Lichtenstein “In The Car” 1963
Richard Hamilton “Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? ” 1956
Andy Warhol “Marilyn Monroe” 1967
Claes Oldenburg “Floor Burger” 1963
Tom Wesselmann “Still Life #30” 1963
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An artist who has retrospectively begun to receive more critical acclaim is Sister Corita Kent. She was a nun and a contemporary of Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha. She took inspiration from everyday items and created positive message screen prints and drawings that combined corporate logos, slogans, scripture and excerpts from her favourite writers. She would tear, rip, or crumble an image she liked, then re-photograph it to appropriate in her own work. Corita Kent
Corita Kent “enriched bread” 1965
Corita Kent “for elanour” 1964
Corita Kent “that they may have life” 1964
See an excerp t from the docum entary “Becom ea Micros cope” (3m17 s) by click ing her e. 12
Robert Colescott
Through his artwork, Robert Colescott raises interesting questions about racism and sexism in America; he does this through lampooning art history by inserting black people into iconic paintings to recontextualise them.
Emanuel Leutze “Washington Crossing the Delaware” 1851
Jan Van Eyck “The Arnolfini Portrait” 1434
Robert Colescott “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page From an American History Textbook” 1975
Robert Colescott “Natural Rhythm” 1976
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John Baldessari incorporated text and photography into his canvases. His work appropriates images combined with the associative power of language and also utilises juxtaposition (video definition; 35s) by taking images out of their original context. Baldessari has worked in paint, photography, film, sculpture and more. He will most likely be remembered for his “dot” work, where he places a dot sticker over people’s faces.
John Baldessari
John Baldessari “Prima Facie (Second State): Exhilarated” 2005
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John Baldessari “Two Profiles, One with Nose and Turban; One with Ear and Hat” 2006
John Baldessari “Frames and Ribbon” 1988
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Martha Rosler uses juxtaposition. She is well known for her “Bringing The War Home” series. From issues of Life magazine, Rosler played with war images and domestic interiors. These works sought to reunite the two apparently separate worlds to imply connections between the industries of war and the industries of the home. They were also used to protest the Vietnam War.
Martha Rosler
Martha Rosler “Gray Drape” 2008
Martha Rosler “Cleaning The Drapes” 1967-72 15
Dara Birnbaum is an American video artist who gained prominence in the 1970s for her work that included feminist themes that also challenged the gender biases of television. She has a famous work of art entitled “Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79).” In this work, she cuts, repeats and deconstructs the moment the woman changes into a super-hero. With this she subverts the original meaning and the role of the woman. Dara Birnbaum Dara Birnbaum Video still from “Technology/ Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79)”
Check out Jac k Goldst ein’s M GM video f rom 19 75 and how it recont extuali viewer ses ’s expe ctation s. (appro x 2min ) click h ere
Notable video artist From Artsy: Starting in 1966, the two pioneering media artists Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut began to collaborate on a series of video-based works in which images and sounds had been electronically distorted; these video-films were early examples of appropriating and manipulating mass media footage as a form of cultural criticism. Their source material included clips from Beatles concerts, television commercials, news footage, and a conference featuring President Lyndon B. Johnson. Their approach was based largely in improvisation and experimentation, with undertones of humour and irony. Paik said that this newfound medium “will enable us to shape the TV screen canvas as precisely as Leonardo, as freely as Picasso, as colourfully as Renoir.”
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Since we are on the topic of video, let’s jump ahead a few years. Christian Marclay’s work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. One of his most interesting works is his 24 hour film epic “The Clock” that tells the actual time. It collages glimpses of clocks from thousands of film clips. It was unveiled in 2010. He’s also done a video entitled “Telephones” (video link) in 1995 where he also collaged movie clips of people on the telephone. An interesting fact about this film is that Apple approached Marclay to use the concept for a commercial, with Marclay turning them down. Apple went ahead and copied it anyway. They debuted the commercial at the Oscars. You can view the commercial here.
Christian Marclay
Video stills from “The Clock”
Watch an excerpt of “The Clock” by clicking here.
Check out “The Clock Explained” by clicking here
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With the examples we have seen, we can trace a development of appropriation moving from the pictorial to the conceptual. In the late 1970s and early eighties, changes were occurring. Previously, artists were regarded as independent creators of objects and meaning (source). New theories however about the impossibility of originality began to emerge. The act itself of interpretation was now more important than the act of creation. What emerged was how artists could reconfigure existing works to create other meanings. An exhibit was held in 1977 in New York entitled “Pictures.” The artists in this exhibition explored boundaries between images and reality, originals and reproductions. Many of these artists are now known as the Pictures Generation. A retrospective was also held in 2009, which included the work of Sherrie Levine, Barbara Kruger, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman, amongst others. These next artists further blur the answers to what appropriation is and what originality means. These artists challenge notions of authenticity and reproducibility.
Cindy Sherman is a socially critical photographer known for her work where she “recreated” imaginary film stills of typical female characters (where she also acts as the model). She explored ideas of identity and societal roles in her later work.
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Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman “Untitled Film Still #21” 1978
Cindy Sherman “Untitled Film Still #13” 1978 18
Sherrie Levine is an artist that reproduced by borrowing and copying works with little or no alteration of significance through photography to highlight ideas of authenticity and originality. With this, she is critiquing male artists and adding a feminine interpretation. She is well known for her “Walker Evans” photographs. Walker Evans photographed the Great Depression in America, and Levine photographed these actual photos from a catalogue and presented them as her own work. Obviously, it raises issues regarding intellectual property rights and plagiarism. Sherri Levine
Walker Evans “Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife” 1936
Sherri Levine “After Walker Evans” 1981
Sherri Levine “Fountain (After Marcel Duchamp: A.P.)” 1991
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Barbara Kruger is most famously known for her silkscreen prints where she places slogans over black and white photographs that she finds in magazines. Her work was influenced by her early work as a graphic designer. Her work is informed by feminism and critiques consumerism, desire and culture. Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger “I shop, therefore I am” 1987
Barbara Kruger “Untitled (Not Stupid Enough)”
Barbara Kruger “Untitled (We don't need another hero)” 1986
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Richard Prince
Richard Prince is perhaps the ultimate appropriation artist and one of the most controversial. His work relies heavily on the work of others. His mass-media images redefine ownership and authorship. He is well known for his “Cowboys” series from the early 1980s (and ongoing) where he re-photographed Marlboro ads and cropped out the text, representing an ideal masculine figure. Some argue, how real are the images used in the media itself? In 2014, he debuted his “New Portraits” series, where he displayed Instagram images of strangers. His only change were the comments made underneath.
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Richard Prince “Untitled (cowboy)” 1989
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Richard Prince “Untitled (portrait)” 2014
Watch “Why R ichard Prince is takin g your Instagr am ph otos - a then se nd lling th e m ” (appro x 3min ) via BBC Tr ending here 21
Since we are on the topic of copying, Elaine Sturtevant (simply known as Sturtevant) is another American artist that became famous for copies of other artists’ work. She was a painter, sculptor, photographer and had skill with film. She mastered these skills to produce her copies or “repetitions” of her chosen artists. She wished to explore authenticity, artistic celebrity, ownership and the creative process. In most cases, she copied artists before they became famous. Today, nearly all the artists she copied are considered iconic. She did receive criticism for her “work,” was dismissed and some even applauding her. She sought the participation of the artists she copied. She actually used Andy Warhol’s screens to reproduce his Flowers print! She titled hers “Warhol’s Flowers.” Invention or plagiarism?
Sturtevant
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(Andy Warhol’s work)
Sturtevant “Warhol Flowers” 1969-70
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Now let’s move internationally by looking at Chinese artists. Several of these artists use images from the Cultural Revolution juxtaposed with kitsch and advertising images from the West. By using this juxtaposition and a Pop What w as China’s Art sense, they create new contexts that make statements on a changing communist country influenced by the Cultur al Revolu West. tion?
via BBC (2m16 s) click he re
Sheng Qi
Sheng Qi “BMW” 2006
Sheng Qi (pronounced “Chi”) rose to prominence in the mid 1980s under the collective performance group Concept 21. Several of his works focus around issues of identity, sexuality and communication. Sheng Qi left Beijing in 1989 in protest of the Tiananmen Massacre. He cut off his pinky finger in protest and left it buried in a flower pot whilst in exile in Europe. This is also echoed in several or his artworks.
Sheng Qi “Most Wanted” 2008
Sheng Qi “My Left Hand in Black and White” 2010 23
The Luo Brothers trio use propaganda, kitsch items from the Cultural Revolution as well as chubby babies. Their work is meant to serve as a barometer of the socio-economic and cultural change in China, rather than a critique of either Communism or Capitalism.’ (source) Luo Brothers
Luo Brothers “Welcome to the World famous Brands No. 3” 2003
Luo Brothers “Welcome! Welcome! (Crawling Baby)” 2008 24
Yu Youhan is a key figure in the Political Pop movement. He began his Mao series in 1989 where he created portraits of Mao’s everyday life. His work also includes decorative aspects from folk art. His paintings represent China’s history, as well as his own. His work merges a hybrid with Monroe and Mao and often uses other Western artists as inspiration. His career work is rather diverse and is considered the father of abstract painting in China. Yu Youhan
Yu Youhan “Mao’s Birthday” 1994
Yu Youhan “Untitled (Mao Marilyn)” 2005 25
Wang Guangyi uses propaganda imagery alongside capitalist logos. A main exponent of Political Pop, Wang repurposes historical images of Chinese propaganda, mashing them up with branded symbols, texts, and other imagery from Western advertisements. This series of works were grouped as his Great Criticism. He created them from 1990 and ended them in 2007. He became convinced that his international success would compromise the original meaning of the works.
Wang Guangyi
: Side note ot an Though n Ai tion artist, appropria “Han Jar Weiwei’s ocated with C Overpain 95 ” from 19 Cola Logo is a great example!
Wang Guangyi “Great Criticism - Coca Cola” 2006
Yu Youhan “Great Criticism -Disney” 2005
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Since the 1980s, Japanese artist Yasumasu Morimura has been photographing himself into iconic images from art history, mass media and popular culture. His photos celebrate, satire and explore their influence. He is often compared to Cindy Sherman (see page 17). He uses make-up and costumes to transform himself. Yasumasu Morimura
Yasumasu Morimura “Self-Portrait - After Marilyn Monroe” 1996
Yasumasu Morimura “Portrait (Van Gogh)” 1985
Yasumasu Morimura “A Requiem: Red Dream / MAO” 2007
Yasumasu Morimura “An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo (Collar of Thorns)” 2001
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John Stezaker (British) is primarily a collage artist. His work appears surreal by appropriating pre-existing images such as postcards, film stills, and commercial photographs. In the collage series Marriage (2006), Stezaker juxtaposed portraits of classic film stars to create newly formed disjointed characters. ‘Stezaker splices and overlaps famous faces, creating hybrid ‘icons’ that dissociate the familiar to create sensations of the uncanny. Coupling male and female identity into unified characters, Stezaker points to a disjointed harmony, where the irreconciliation of difference both complements and detracts from the whole.’ (source)
John Stezaker “Marriage (Film Portrait Collage) XLV” 2007
John Stezaker “Blind I” 2006
John Stezaker “Marriage VIII” 2006
John Stezaker
John Stezaker “Marriage I” 2006
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Hank Willis Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist and explores issues of identity, history, race and class. He addresses issues that are often overlooked in our culture. Amongst other things, he has appropriated print images from 1968 (an important year in the Civil Rights Movement) to strip them of their context by removing the text and logos to showcase cultural stereotypes and the way the media perpetuates them. He is well known for his Unbranded project.
Hank Willis Thomas “Something To Believe In” 1984/2007
Hank Willis Thomas “Smoking Joe Ain’t J’Mama” 1978/2006
Hank Willis Thomas “The Johnson Family” 1978/2006
Question: How would you compare the approach/work of Hank Willis Thomas to that of Richard Prince (page 20)? What are the similarities and differences?
Check out “Hank W illis Thoma s: Unb randed | ARTIST PROFIL ES” (3m 40s) via MO MA he re. 29
Jeff Koons’ work is characterised as Neo-Pop. He is a very successful American painter, illustrator and sculptor. Similar to the work of conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp, who we looked at earlier, Koons strips his objects of their purpose and shows them strictly as art. His embrace of bad taste, kitsch and mixing them with high art has made him a very collectable artist. Like Claes Oldenburg, Koons often shows everyday objects like inflatable toys. His balloon dog sculptures are very well known. Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons’ Banality series of sculptures included characters as well as images. It spurred several copyright infringement cases, and Koons has lost several, with the most recent result in 2017 (pictured). Koons argued fair use as he transformed something from 2D to 3D.
Art Rogers “Puppies” 1985
Jeff Koons “String of Puppies” 1988
In 2013 , “Balloo n Dog (Orang e Sculp ture)” sold fo r $52 m illion, making it the m ost expens ive pie ce of a by a liv rt ing art ist!
Jeff Koons “Hulk Elvis I” 2007
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Like Sturtevant (page 21), Deborah Kass walks a fine line between homage and brazen appropriation. She copies the signature styles of iconic male artists. Like other artists mentioned here, her work explores pop culture, art history and the self. Her appropriated work critically comments on the historical dominant position of male artists in the art world. In some of her earlier work, she also combined images from Disney animations with slices of paintings from other artists. Deborah Kass
Deborah Kass “My Spanish Spring” 1991
Deborah Kass “Before and Happily Ever After” 1991
Deborah Kass “Vote Hilary” 2015
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Glenn Brown is a British artist. Starting with reproductions from other artists' works, Glenn Brown transforms the appropriated image by changing its colour, position, orientation, height and width relationship, mood and/or size. Despite these changes, he has occasionally been accused of plagiarism (source). In 2000, Glenn Brown was nominated for the Turner Prize and was accused of plagiarism by the Times newspaper. Brown’s work referenced a science fiction novel cover by Anthony Roberts and the case was settled out of court. Brown did not win the Turner Prize.
Rembrandt “A Boy In Fanciful Costume” c.1633
Glenn Brown
Anthony Roberts “Double Star” book cover
Glenn Brown “The Loves of Shepherds” 2000
Glenn Brown “Joseph Beuys” 2001
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NOTE: As we come towards the end, it should be mentioned that Richard Pettibone is generally considered THE artist that paved the way for appropriation art in the 1980s. He raised the questions of ownership, and the nature of originality. As you have seen, these questions are still being debated even today. He replicated miniature scale works by newly famous artists and usually incited controversy. He has appropriated Warhol, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Marcel Duchamp and others. He usually signs the original artist’s name, as well as his own. Again, we have the question; How important is originality in a work of art? Is viewing a copied painting by Pettibone the same as viewing the original? Why or why not?
Pettibone in his studio (image source)
Now let’s take a look at current street artists. How are they continuing to appropriate or remix? Everyone knows this poster, which was created by Shepard Fairey in 2008. However, this poster was involved in a court case for copyright infringement. The original photo was by Associated Press freelance photographer Mannie Garcia. They sued for compensation. Fairey claimed it was fair use. What do you think? The parties settled out of court in January 2011, with details of the settlement remaining confidential. When Fairey counter sued, he said he used a different photo. He actually lied and tried to hide the error by destroying documents and fabricating others, which is what got him into legal trouble (criminal contempt). On February 29, 2012, Fairey pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to two years of probation, 300 hours of community service, and a fine of $25,000. (Wikipedia source) 33
Shepard Fairey’s work is also a brand. He has disrupted the distinction between fine and commercial art. He has repeatedly appropriated various images and raises the question of what is derivative and what is transformative? Look at the various examples below.
Shephard Fairey
Shephard Fairey “Greetings from Iraq” 2005
Ranger Naturalist Service: Yellowstone National ParkArtist unknown. Circa late 1930s
Political power comes from the barrel of a gun - Artist unknown. 1968
Shephard Fairey “Guns and Roses.” 2006
Shephard Fairey “Nouveau Black” 2006
Koloman Moser “Ver Sacrum” 1901 34
Banksy (British) is probably the most popular street artist in the world. He has been able to remain anonymous and hide his identity for years. His work utilises satire and subversion. His often humorous works generally use a stencil technique. His works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world and has resulted in a growth in interest in his work, as well as several imitators. (If you like Banksy, also check out the work of Blek le Rat)
Banksy “Rage, the Flower Thrower” 2005
Banksy “Sale Ends” 2007
Banksy “Napalm Girl” 2004-5
Banksy “Girl With Balloon” 2002
Banksy “Show Me The Monet” 2005
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Some other street/urban artists and other current artists you may be interested in: D*Face is a contemporary British street artist best known for his distinctive graffiti, stickers, and posters placed in various cities around the world. Featuring recurring imagery of celebrities and punk iconography, D*Face’s oeuvre is characterised by his bright, graphic aesthetic and focus on consumerism and the ways in which it shapes everyday life. (source)
Swoon is a contemporary American street artist best known for her illustrative portraiture. Her work is often politically motivated. Swoon’s large-scale images are printed on recycled newspaper and glued to the sides of urban architecture using wheat paste—an inexpensive and convenient form of mass distribution. Marcel Duchamp (source)
FAILE is a street art duoTheir unique artistic practice involves a frenetic collaging of appropriated materials—graphic novels, Asian and American culture, typography— that references the work of Pop artists like Richard Hamilton or James Rosenquist. As FAILE, they covered building exteriors with pioneering techniques in wheat pasting and stencilling, citing Shepard Fairey as an influence, before expanding their repertoire to include paintings, collage, prints, and sculpture. (source)
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Kostas Seremetis is highly influenced by comic book art, animation cartoons, graffiti art of the 1980s, Greek mythology and contemporary masters. He is known for using the comic book popular pulp characters as typography in order to express a visual language in media such as paintings, collage, sculptures and films. (source)
Ron English is a contemporary American artist, best known for his conflation of pop culture brand imagery. English's practice involves the idea of culture jamming, or the shifting public perception of corporate agendas, through modification to mainstream brands and iconography, as seen in his frequent combination of Marilyn Monroe with Mickey Mouse. He often brings together two or more recognisable iconic images into abrupt juxtapositions, creating uncanny, Pop Art collages. Some of the artist’s bestknown images include MC Supersized, an obese reimagining of McDonald's famous clown. (source) KAWS is an American graffiti artist and designer known for his toys and paintings. Pop Art and culture permeate his cartoonish Companion series of figurines. Having started as a graffiti artist in New York in the early 1990s, KAWS began reworking advertisements in his distinctive style. Gaining both street accreditation and more recently gallery exhibitions, his work can be found in various collections. In 2017, KAWS worked together with Nike to produce an Air Jordan 4 shoe and Uniqlo to produce a Peanuts inspired T-shirt, continuing to blur the boundaries between fine and commercial art. 37
Smurfs. (source)
A living legend of graffiti art scene whose work is known throughout the world, Richard Mirando, better known as SEEN, became active on the streets of New York City at the time when graffiti was not as fashionable as today. He started by creating subway graffiti in the early seventies and came to prominence thanks to his vibrant lettering and masterful depictions of massmedia cartoon characters like Wonder Woman, Hulk and the
Joe Fleming is a Toronto-based painter. He isn’t considered an appropriation artist, but some of his work includes what appears to be cartoon characters, though they tend to run off frame. His paintings have a decidedly sculptural pull, representing the artist’s experimentation with form, texture, materiality, perspectival confusion and possibility.
DAIN combines the visual language of graffiti with collaged old portraits of Hollywood glamour stars. Crossing genres and often working single pieces back and forth between the street and studio, DAIN combines wheat pasting, silkscreening, spray paint, collage, and acrylic. His process begins with a black-and-white photo that he layers with old advertisements, printed fragments, logos, and miscellaneous smaller images. He then begins adding paint; his unmistakable trademark is the “circle and drip” around the eye of his subjects. DAIN views his work as a confrontation between the destructive gestures of graffiti and the femininity of his Hollywood subjects. (source) 38
Joyce Pensato is best known for her charcoal drawings and wall paintings of cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Felix the Cat, and Homer Simpson. Starting from drawings of the characters' basic forms, Pensato grinds, slashes, and sands her surfaces to create altered, mutilated versions given names such as Abominable Snow Mickey or The Donald. (source)
Mr. Brainwash is a French street artist known for his large-scale installations and prints of celebrities like Madonna, Kate Moss, and Marilyn Monroe. His practice of subverting cultural iconography and appropriation borrows from Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Bansky. He is perhaps best known for his role in Banksy’s documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop” (2010), which features Mr. Brainwash’s rise to success in the street art scene. (source)
George Morten-Clark studied animation for three years and this can be seen in his works. These works are large and bold canvases of oil and acrylic within a contemporary abstract form. He takes his inspiration from films, music, his travels and pop imagery. (source)
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SIDE NOTE: CULTURAL APPROPRIATION
Cultural appropriation (or cultural misappropriation) is the adoption of elements of a minority culture by members of the dominant culture. Cultural appropriation can include using other cultures’ cultural and religious traditions, fashion, symbols, language, art and songs. It is often viewed as disrespectful, or even as a form of desecration, by members of the originating culture. Who has the right to deal with this subject matter? Several celebrities have come under fire. Dressed as a geisha, Katy Perry was criticised in 2013 at the American Music Awards for appropriating Japanese culture. Victoria’s Secret and model Karlie Kloss were criticised when she wore a Native American headdress in 2012. In 2016, Beyonce was criticised for appropriating Indian culture in Coldplay’s video for “Hymn For The Weekend.” Both Elvis Presley and Eminem have been criticised for borrowing from black culture. When does an artist have the moral authority to borrow another culture’s art form, especially when they are not of that culture; and to profit from it? Where is the line between appreciation and appropriation? Toronto artist Amanda PL’s work uses bright colours associated with an indigenous style popularised by Native Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau. She received a lot of criticism prompting a gallery to cancel her exhibit. Morrisseau
Amanda PL
Picasso was influenced by African art, especially masks. Did he steal or use them as inspiration? Nevertheless, it all raises interesting questions! 40
SINGAPOREAN BASED ARTISTS Andre Tan acts as a filter to channel multiple disparate images from all that he sees around him into singular visions upon canvas. Cartoon superheroes, advertising copy and real-life photographs are distilled into attention-grabbing tableaux of the bold and the beautiful, which function as eye-catching retablos for the worship of mass consumption and popular culture. (source)
Leo Liu Xuanqi’s work is an ongoing reflection of personal identity embedded within popular culture. In his “Vessel” series, he plays with the idea of the common man and his identity in this brandconscious world. He explores the tension that arises in simple everyday life at the crossroads of globalisation. (source)
Billy Ma (Booda Brand) is a painter, sculptor, designer and illustrator. He was born in Taiwan and raised in Canada and now resides in Singapore. Drawing from contemporary themes, Billy seamlessly and naturally combines eastern and western aesthetics into his artwork. Many influences derive from spirituality, socio-political issues and a sardonic 41
sense of humour.
REMIXING MATERIALS
You can also create by appropriating or remixing by playing with materials and objects. We have already looked at how Marcel Duchamp did this with his readymades, alongside Surrealist Meret Oppenheim and Joseph Correl with his assemblages. Pablo Picasso also did it as evident with his work “Bull’s Head” (1942). We can even consider Louise Nevelson’s wooden sculptures, which she gathered from trash piles and then assembled into new narrative contexts.
Meret Oppenheim
Joseph Cornell
Pablo Picasso “Bull’s Head” 1942
Louise Nevelson “Black Wall” 1959
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Have a look at some of the other interesting ways artists have remixed materials. Jason Mecier creates 3-D mosaic portraits of his favourite pop culture icons. Each portrait is created from discarded objects and junk such as broken sunglasses, make-up, gum wrappers, jewelry, deodorant, shoes, and other items.
Thomas Deininger creates mind-bending optical illusions in his found object sculptural assemblages. He uses photographs and materials from popular culture, including Barbie dolls and trolls, and has re-created famous paintings by 43
Diego Velázquez and Vincent van Gogh. Juan Alcazaren, based in the Philippines, creates assemblages from found objects.
Freya Jobbins, contemporary Australian artist based near Sydney, practices assemblage, installation, collage and printmaking. She has some interesting work that involves plastic doll parts.
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Brian Jungen is a Canadian artist of Swiss and Dane-Zaa ancestry. He manipulates consumer products to address consumerism and globalisation. His work also addresses many misconceptions regarding First Nations identity.
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CULTURE JAMMING
Culture jamming is a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It is a form of subvertising, which spoofs or parodies advertising. Guerrilla Girls “Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get Into the Met. Museum?� 1989
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MASHUP
A mashup is an end-product that integrates elements from two or more sources. This is easily evident where people mashup songs and movie trailers. You can watch Toy Story 3: Inception, Harry Potter vs The Hunger Games, Scary Poppins recut and horror movie The Shining recut as a comedy. However, with a simple google search, you can view various mashups in art as well. Several of these examples also fall under fan art. Here are a few examples:
Watch “Fan A rt: An Explos ion of C reativit Off Bo y| ok | PB S Digit a Studio l s” (10m ) by click ing her e.
Terra-cotta Characters by Lizabeth Eva Rossof Spiderman Samurai toy
Superheroes Reimagined as 16th Century Paintings
Hero-Glyphics by Josh Lane
Illustrator Reimagines Iconic Artists as Modern-Day Hipsters
source
FINN THE HU-MAN - MASTERS OF THE OOONIVERSE
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Resources / Links Stop Copying Me - Appropriation in Art (video) The Case for Copying” (The Art Assignment - PBS Digital Studios) (video) What is appropriation? via Khan Academy The Pictures Generation via Khan Academy How to Deal With the Idea of Appropriation In The Art Room (article) Copyright and the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (video) The Art of Copying: Ten Masters of Appropriation (article) When Does an Artist’s Appropriation Become Copyright Infringement? (article)
Robert Rauschenberg
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Jasper Johns