APPROPRIATION ART

APPROPRIATION ART:

 Evolution of a trend and its legal, ethical, and moral implications.

 

 

Appropriation is the taking of a thing or concept for one's own use.  In art, appropriation consists of using another's objects, concepts, or images in the creation of a new work.  The current legalities of this depends on infringement, fair use, parody, and intellectual property rights.  To some extent all artists appropriate by using materials, concepts (e.g. vanishing point perspective) and more currently images.  The Cubists are often credited with the first use of appropriation by using newsprint, wall paper, etc. in their collages.  Duchamp enlarged on this by utilizing "ready-mades" as his "Fountain" which in fact was a urinal turned upside down and hung on a wall.  This was denigrated but not because of appropriation as the materials could be considered "fair use"  and parody.  But then Duchamp created "LOOQH" painting a copy of Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" but with a bigger smile and a mustache seen as a parody. Further, since it is universally easily identified with Da Vinci, no attribution is necessary.  Rauschenberg accelerated this with his found objects used in his "Combines", once again using found or ready-made objects, but taking them out of context of their primary use and incorporating them into art was considered a non-competitive use.  Similarly Johns appropriated preformed designs such as flags, targets, and numbers for his art.  Warhol was more direct when he copied flower photographs not his own, to create silk screens.  This led to threatened legal actions and thereby a monetary and presumed royalty settlement.  Lichtenstein used an enlarge pixellated comic book look without actually copying a particular image.  Sherman photographed herself in simulated movie stills, and sometimes directly appropriated by photographing actual photographs of Walker Evans. 

 

As the ease of copying others art via digital techniques and internet availability, issues of legality, morality, and ethics become more important and pervasive.  Legalities aside, the issue of intellectual property rights and the morality and ethics pose a broader range of issues.  Is it sufficient to provide attribution ?  Compensation? Permission? Remember Rauschenberg's "Erased DeKooning" is very legal, ethical and moral since the original DeKooning work was given to him for the purpose of 'erasing' and thereby contained attribution (by title), permission and compensation (a gift for that purpose). 

 

Many more recent artists are neither given attribution, receive permission, nor are compensated and thus the artwork crosses beyond the ethical and moral divide and becomes a legal issue.  The courts provide one solution, however, an expensive and time consuming process, especially for often non-wealthy artists, thus subverting property rights.  There almost needs to be a code of ethics for artists and for those who traverse this code a sort of banishment or at least a non-recognition of their 'art'.

 

C. Lawrence Decker

Art Consultant