Andy Warhol - Mao

Americans copying Chinese creativity

Artistic Appropriation

Appropriation exists in many forms. It includes artists copying someone else’s style, composition, idea, process or even words from an artist statement. Is it wrong? Like many things in art, it is a subjective judgment. Is it better to reinvent the wheel or to apply other people’s wheels to create complex machines? Is it better to attend a concert and hear someone bang away on dog food cans as they show how unique they are, or listen to someone play a unique but complex song on a violin - an instrument that is someone else’s creation? Likewise, when Jimmy Hendrix performed his version of the Star Spangled Banner on his electric guitar, was his version less worthy because he was neither using a unique instrument nor playing a unique song? Sometimes it is easy to be different and difficult to do something better than others.

Ironically, attempts to be unique often results in the works of visual artists all looking the same. Many graduating exhibitions can be really boring because the work shows that the students have tried to be different, but in doing so, left a huge hole where the concept or expression should have been. Although they would have had to justify their work to a panel, such justifications replace a visual lanaguage with a linguistic language, which is somewhat self-defeatist for visual artists. By not adopting pre-existing visual languages, or pre-existing symbols, it becomes difficult for visual artists to communicate their concepts to an audience. Both the creation and display of art is a highly social process, and as such, the influence of others is necesary for the social function to be realised. In short, to embrace appropriation is to simply embrace learning from others, extend another's idea or acknowledge that individuals are the product of social processes.

Legal issues regarding artistic appropriation

The legal issues regarding appropriation are somewhat clouded and vary from country to country. In the US, a distinction is sometimes made between art that is considered "derivative" and art that is considered "transformative." To be transformative, the new work must be plainly different in purpose to the original, but it also must comment on the original in some way.

A second issue considered is the artistic nature of the original image. A painting of someone else's garden would be appropriating someone else's creativity, but would less likely to be considered as a copyright violation as would a painting of a painting. The main reason is that a garden, rightly or wrongly, is not generally recognised as art as is a painting. For this reason, courts are more tolerant of artists taking material from newspapers than they are from art catalogues.

Most of the world's leading contemporary artists have found themselves involved in copyright suits, which have shown copyright law at work. In 1989, Jeff Koons found a picture of a couple holding puppies on a postcard. He decided that he wanted to make a sculpture based on the photograph to show the banality of everyday items. The judge found that Koons was not commenting on the work of the original and was therefore merely plagiarising it.

In 2000, Damien Hirst exhibited a sculpture titled Hymn, which was a 6.1 m, six ton, enlargement of his son's 14" Young Scientist Anatomy Set. Hirst argued that he was changing the perception of the object. The manufacturer of the set subsequently sued and an out-of-court settlement was reached.

In 2008, Shepard Fairey used a newspaper photograph of presidential candidate Barack Obama, altered it, turned it into a print and wrote the words "Hope" underneath. The Associated Press subsequently sued and stated that Fairey should have asked for permission. Additionally, Fairey admitted that he had destroyed evidence showing the source of his photograph and his appropriation. This destruction made it more difficult to argue that he was commenting on the original and that he was acting with integrity.

Although Fairey was legally in the right, morally, by failing to ask permission, destroying evidence and not acknowledging the source of his image, he dramatically weakened his case. An out-of-court settlement was reached.

The court cases seem to indicate that artists can best reduce the threat of legal action is they ask permission first. If that is not possible, they can increase the chance of their work being seen as transformative if they change the purpose, but still have the original as a component. This also requires that they acknowledge the origin of their image.  Some paintings add the words "after (insert original artist's name)" to the title of their work.

Appropriation of subject - Taking the subject and composition but changing the style

Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez	Las Meninas by Pablo Picasso

Picasso appropriated from many classical paintings when deciding his subject.

Approriation of style - Using a different subject but copying a pre-existing style

Braque The Portoguese (1911)	Picasso Ma Jolie (1911)

Appropriation of style is the most common form of appropriation. Despite being very common, there is a negative stigma against those who paint in a style, probably because the likes of Van Gogh, Cezzane and Picasso developed new styles. As icons of contemporary art, they seem to portray a message that to be a good artist, one must develop a style of one’s own rather than copy someone elses'. It shouldn’t be forgotten; however, that their new styles grew out of appropriating from old styles. For example, Picasso’s cubism was really Braque's invention, and Braque invented it after copying from Cezzane’s post-impressionism. Picasso freely acknolwedged that he was in the tradition of Cezzane. Van Gogh’s expressionism was influenced by Suerat’s pointalism and Japanese woodblocks. In fact, it was probably due to the appropriation of Japanese woodblocks that European artists started moving away from simply trying to depict the real. In other words, the new styles they developed were hybrids of existing styles.

Appropriation of composition - Same composition but different style and different idea

In 2010, Australian artist Sam Leach won the Wynne prize with his entry Proposal for a Landscaped Cosmos. The Wynne prize is for ""the best landscape painting of Australian scenery". When it emerged that Leach had appropriated from a Dutch artist who had imagined an Italian countryside, there was uproar in the media. Critics argued that he had stolen someone else's creativity. Ironically, Leach showed far more originality and creativity in his work than those who simply painted a photograph of an Australian place. Leach took a composition of an imagined European countryside and was able to map over an Australian aesthetic in a way that fooled the judges. It was genius. That Australian aesthetic came from his mind, not his eyes showing him a scene before him. While the composition was similar, the lighting and colour use was very much in the Australian style. It had the same dull colours, the same lack of contrast, that most differentiates the Australian landscape from Europe.

Appropriation of concept -Changing context to turn something into art

Duchamp - Fountain (1917)	Andy Warhol - Campbell's Soup (1962)

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp pioneered the concept of gallerising an object to help people see it anew when he put a urinal in an art gallery and called it art. Since that time, countless artists have put banal objects in galleries in order to change the way people view it. Andy Warhol copied the idea by creating a print of a soup can and putting it in the gallery. The idea was not original, but doing it as a print was original. Furthermore, selecting something that had iconic value and putting his name on it was original.

Appropriation of concept and process - Express similar idea using different materials

 

May Ray -Indestructible Object (1964 replica of 1923 original)	Damie Hirst 1992 - The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

British artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin are very much in the Duchamp tradition of taking something that is not usually found in a gallery and putting it in the gallery to make it art. In short, they make art but changing the context that it is viewed in. It is an art form that is particularly popular in Britain because, as Sarah Thornton stated in Seven Days in the Art World:

"In Britain, the press never tires of the question “Is it art? and finds it impossible to resist sex jokes"

As well as appropriating the tradition of Duchamp by changing context to make art, Hirst also appropriated an idea about immortality from May Ray's readymade matename, named Object to be Destroyed. When unveiled in 1923, it was accompanied by the message,

"Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow."

In 1957, it was destroyed by a group of protesting artists and simply made once more. The innability of death to die in the mind of the living seemed to be the inspiration for the title of the Hirst shark.

Even though Hirst's process and idea were not original, the display of the idea in the form of a shark was original. Viewers definately got a different emotional experience in the presence of the shark than they did in the presence of a metronome.

Appropriation of culture - taking a style from a different culture to make yourself different in your own

Gauguin, Picasso, and Van Gogh all copied styles from cultures outside of their own in the process of revolutionising their own art and the art of their country. Gauguin copied from the cultures of the South Sea Islanders that he chose to live with. Picasso copied African sculptures found in European junk shops. Van Gogh copied Japanese prints.

Hiroshige, "Great Bridge, Sudden Shower at Atake" - Van Gogh, "The Bridge in the Rain"

 The book The World of Van Gogh, by Robert Wallace, provides a good comment on Gauguin's appropriation:

“One of the most active “borrowers” in all art, Gauguin took ideas from a score of sources, often lifting them intact with little pretence of alteration...Elsewhere in Gauguin’s work there are copies of motifs from Egyptian and Greek sculpture, from the primitive art of Latin America and Polynesia, and from many Western artists, including Botticelli, Delacroix, Millet, Degas, Courbetr, Daumier, Manet, Prud’hon and the school of Rembrandt. At times Gauguin was content to take an ordinary snap shot or a newspaper illustration and press it into service.

As to whether Gauguin was a master plagiarist, however, the reply is surely No. His borrowings were combined with his own artistic visions, and his completed works have an originality that is beyond question. Although it is sometimes startling to recognize a familiar motif in one of his paintings, invariably the motif has been subordinated to Gauguin’s purpose.”

Appropriation of artist statements - using common words and cliches

Some words repeatedly occur in artist statements. Specifically, words like address, evoke, invoke, explore, question, challenge, critique, reference, reflect, consider, contemplate, interpret, memory, imbue, and juxtapose.

It could be argued that the repeated use of such words is a sign that artists are copying ideas and concepts; however, often the artist statements really don’t make sense. It seems there is a collection of common words that are thrown in a blender and then churned out.

Appropriation of ideology - copying an in-vogue ideology

In contemporary art, many artists identify themselves as rebelling against conformity, which is actually in conformity with the traditions of contemporary art. As articulated by a blogger at http://reskew.blogspot.com/

"The last few centuries have seen humanity getting bolder and bolder in the destruction of what came before in order to make way for a newer version of the "same shit, different day."  However, the last several decades (even back to DuChamp and Dada) have seen an explosion of attempts at renewal, novelty, and challenges in art by increasingly rejective and destructive means. "

My appropriation

Gauguin: a Stockbroker and an Artist (2009) - Chad Swanson

Aappropriation of theory used to develop a style known as Geometric Expressionism. Subsequently used to explore the masks of Gauguin, a master appropriator.

Portrait with a Bandaged Ear - Vincent Van Gogh	Vincent 4 - Chad Swanson

Geometric Expressionism used to explore the liberation and restraint of Vincent Van Gogh

Behind the Red Door (2009)- Chad Swanson

An appropriation of Australian artist Russel Drysdale and Chinese artist Wen Bing. ) By playing with context, the painting asks the viewer to reflect on their stereotypes of outback Australia, Asian women and women who dress in an elegant manner. The original paintings are important references in the questions I ask. In regards to Drysdale work, the book, 100 Masterpieces of Australian Landscape Painting states,

"it has been said that Drysdale’s paintings of the desolate fringe of the interior are better known to most Australians than the outback itself…It could be any country town, any country pub. It is hot and dry, the buildings are old and dilapidated, the car has seen better days, and so have the customers.."

Bing often paints women in harsh landscapes and describes his work as a tunnel to his heart. In that regard, he painted the woman from a perspective of praise.

When I added Bing's lady to Drysdale's outback pub scene, my urban audience often viewed her as a prostitute. The irony of the prostitute explanation is that the scene is not an uncommon one for most urban Australians. In a later painting, I replaced the outback background with an urban background (mostly painted from life, but including a long-closed nightclub). It could have been any Australian capital city on a summer's night where Australian men usually dress down and Australian women usually dress up.

Moonlight Walk in Canberra (2010)