Reviews
What is the original, if the copy is an artwork?
In the world today, it has becomed incredibly easy to make copies of others work.... Richard Princes success builds on this. He took the idea of appropriation, which had been an interesting theme in art running from Picasso through Duchamp to Warhol, and stripped away everything else..
I wonder; What is the original, if the copy is an artwork? What about appropriating an appropriation - like Aprilia Bjork's "Running for home" (attached)? The horse is turned around, apparently running home.
Plagiarism? - or could this be some sort of appropriation - or a comment on it? - art?
I think this is interesting...
I wonder; What is the original, if the copy is an artwork? What about appropriating an appropriation - like Aprilia Bjork's "Running for home" (attached)? The horse is turned around, apparently running home.
Plagiarism? - or could this be some sort of appropriation - or a comment on it? - art?
I think this is interesting...
Tags: appropriation, photo
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afterRP.jpg, 117 KB
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Replies to This Reviews
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Permalink Reply by Alaleh Alamir on -
plagiarism has always existed, but what survives in time is the original... why? because it is the one transmiting the 'energy'. the rest is just passing 'business'. in fact this augurs an extremely harsh wake up for the copy-paste generation. (i'd like to invite you to read my blog 'art -illusions n°1)
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Permalink Reply by Sarah Fairclough on -
This is a question that seems to be buzzing around a lot at the moment. I don't have an answer but you may be interested to know that an exhibition on the theme of appropriation in contemporary art will be opeining on April 21st 2008 at the University Gallery, University of Essex, titled Yours, Mine, Ours and featuring the works of Christian Holstad, Pierre Bismuth, Loukia Alavanou, Seb Patane and Idris Khan amongst others.
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Permalink Reply by JanMurphy on -
How about you see it as other's being influenced by the masterpiece and creating their own version of it?
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Young on
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Permalink Reply by Steven Keirstead on -
Derivative works are nothing new, the Romans made oodles of copies of Greek statues, and some of these copies survive, while the originals are long lost. I'm taking a history of Japanese Art in Harvard Extension School (a terrific class) and last night we had a discussion of the Rinpa school of painters. In the early 17th century Tawaraya Sotatsu made a now famous pair of folding screens of the Buddhist wind and thunder gods, a whimsical take on deities that are traditionally presented as stern guardians. About century later Ogata Korin made a copy of the paintings, and they are not as good as Sotatsu's. About a hundred years later, Sakai Hoitsu made a copy of Korin's copy, never having seen the original. This copy is still worse, the vitality of the lines are further diminished. The copies are certainly still art, and are less important than the works Korin and Hoitsu made afterward. My teacher's theory is that in making these copies the artists learned how to incorporate the essence of the older artists, then they used that knowledge and made it their own, enabling them to go on to produce their own masterpieces.
Of course photography is a different medium than ink painting, but there is still a great deal of learning that has to go on by imitating the style or seeking the subject matter before an artist can grow into his or her own style. Almost nothing in photography is totally new and unprecedented, and it takes a rare genius to break into new uncharted artistic territory.
On the other hand, deliberately reproducing someone else's work directly is just theft, and I would not say it's art at all. In order for a derivative work not to be just a copy (and possibly a copyright violation), there has to be some significant manipulation of media going on, as in Andy Warhol's silk screen paintings of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, which colorized black and white news photos.
