Appropriation in Art
What does appropriation of images for artwork mean?
Appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation to those objects or images.
Artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque appropriated objects when they developed collage in the 1910s. They glued printed wallpaper or newspaper snippets or other items directly to the surface that they painted. Just a few years after Picasso and Braque made collage a modern art form, Hannah Hoch created photomontage art by gluing numerous photographic images together to create her collage form. In each of these cases, the artist used pre-existing images (photos and printed patterns) as part of their artwork.
By the 1960s, Pop Artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein appropriated pre-existing images, including Campbell's soup can labels and comic strip cells, for their paintings and prints.
By the 1970s, several contemporary artists began appropriating more and more pre-existing images and objects in their work. In many cases, these appropriation artists argued that their use of an image was substantially different from the original use because they were changing the meaning of the original work. They were placing the work in a new context. They were getting viewers to look at the original work in a new or critical way.
As you might expect, appropriation artists often toe the line between fair use and copyright infringement. Jeff Koons is one of the better-known artists who appropriates artwork. Richard Prince is another appropriation artist who has been taken to court for copyright infringement.
Disney is often cited as a copyright holder willing and able to take people to court over copyright infringement. That has not stopped some artists, however, from appropriating imagery from Disney movies or shows for their own artwork.
Jeff Hong, for example, creates digital images which include animated Disney characters in real-life environments different from their animated ones. By placing these characters in unexpected environments, Hong gets us to think about how those characters might exist in our real world instead of the more idealized animated world from which they come. By creating these images, Hong also allows us to make more personal connections to social and environmental issues in our real world.
You can see Jeff Hong's "Unhappily Ever After" series here.
Dina Goldstein does similar work to Hong, although she creates real-life characters based on the animated Disney characters. She then places those characters in real-world situations which can be emotionally or intellectually connected to their animated world situations. Through her images, Goldstein also gets us to compare and contrast our real lives with the idealized or romanticized lives of the Disney world.
You can see Dina Goldstein's "Fallen Princesses" series here.
What is appropriation in art?
Sources for more information:
A 7-minute podcast episode from 2012 on Appropriation Art from Studio 360 in New York City. The episode includes one of Jeff Koons' lawyers and a contemporary appropriation artist as guests.
A Smarthistory article on appropriation art.
