Week 8: Appropriation

Image of the week

These are various versions of appropriations of Mona Lisa originally painted by Leonardo da Vinci

Appropriation within painting, and more generally within art, is the re-use of pre-existing images create new images with little or no change. A key point here is the painting has recontextualized the original image and the "new" version of the image carries with it distinct messages. I chose this image from a website i came across because it lends the idea from the painting and i want to expand my topic on appropriation so here we are.

1967

Andy Warhol , Marilyn [on blue ground] ,1967

Andy Warhol is known for his stylization of imagery derived from brands, logos, pictures and newspaper articles, reflecting the popular culture of the time. He re-stylized ready-made images (usually with repetition or the addition of colors) to transform them into works of his own. This process is referred to as appropriation, a practice that was not foreign to the art world but became much more complex at the onset of Warhol’s artistic career.

Source: http://revolverwarholgallery.com/andy-warhol-art-appropriation/

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1981

Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans: 2, 1981

Gelatin silver print 3 3/4 x 5 1/16 in (9.6 x 12.8 cm)

In the late 1970s Sherrie Levine made photographic copies of book illustrations of photographs by Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter and Alexander Rodchenko and added new titles such as "After Walker Evans (by Sherrie Levine)." In the use of Farm Security Administration (FSA)photographs by Walker Evans Levine had not altered the visual image but had transformed its meaning through appropriation to raise issues of creativity, reproduction processes, the canon of photographic history and the context of viewing. As Levine said:

“The pictures I make are really ghosts of ghosts: their relationship to the original images is tertiary, i.e., three or four times removed."

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1991

Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy) , 1991 Ektacolor phtograph 50 x 70 ins (127 x 178 cm)

Richard Prince worked a tear sheet department taking sections out of magazines - the remaining advertising material was the cultural waste at the end of the day that nobody wanted rather like used dental floss. Prince has for years explored the relationship between how culture is imagined through adverts and how the images, frequently unaltered, can be copied and shown in a different context. His Cowboy series based on work by Sam Abell and his Canal Zone series based on photographs by Patrick Cariou have led to controversy and questions related to fair use and copyright - in legal cases his transformative use for artistic purposes has been vindicated.

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2002

Robert Silvers, Anne Frank, 2002 Fuji Crystal Archive print 48 x 48 ins (122 x 122 cm)

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2005

John Baldessari, Face (with Red Nose): Plus Four Alternate Noses, 2005

Besides being included in this exhibit, John Baldessari helped design it. The homage to Magritte is apparent in the way that he, too, hides his subject's identity. Whereas Magritte might have someone turn away, Baldessari in the 1980s painted circles over faces in the news photographs or old movie stills in his work. The noses seen here are a variation on that idea, with different colors so the viewer can imagine the subject in different moods (red for dangerous, blue for hopeful, etc.). It's all pretty crude, and intentionally so. The photo reproduction is grainy, the painting amateurish; even the moods are color-coded cliches. Baldessari is associated with Conceptual Art, a misnomer or, at any rate, ironic because it implies intellectual elitism. He likes pictures that are "dumb," he says. Art should be "mute and stupid and not about parading . . . virtuosity." Conceptualism was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, which emphasized sensibility and originality. Like other Conceptualists, Baldessari has made his art from debased materials, forgotten pop-culture references and deadpan humor. He wants to remain as anonymous as the B-movie actors in his work

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2006

Tobias Stengel’s Die Woge, inspired by Katsukisha Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa

On a similarly nautical note, here’s Tobias Stengel’s Die Woge, a sculptural riff on Hokusai’s world-famous Edo Period woodblock print. Located in Dresden since 2006, Stengel’s work commemorates the flooding of the Elbe River four years earlier.

Whether is it in photographic or cultural form, i think it's okay to be inspired by great artists before us and it's okay to start off from appropriating their work or their style because as long as we add our own artistic touch, two works won't be the same. Every artist has their own personal style which no one can mimic the same and i feel that after much practice we will definitely develop our style and preference from there. I mean, that's why we have artist references right?