CITY COLLEGE OF CALAMBA

Department of Arts and Sciences

ARTAP201: Art Appreciation

Lesson 9: Cultural Appropriation on the Arts

Lesson Objectives:

At the end of this discussion, the students are expected to:

• Characterize and define narractives, appropriation, borrowings, and
ownership of the artist or any agency in the art world
• Contextualize classical notable works into a certain theme and comment
on a certain issue, either on a personal or societal level
• Develop students’ artistic ability in any form they would like to appropriate

Discussion:
Appropriation Art

In this contemporary world, we live in a culture that overflows with images

and objects. From television to the internet, from the mall to the junkshop,
surrounded by words, images, objects that are cheap, free or throwaway. You
think that these are already useless and have no importance.

Surprising or not, artists today incorporate these objects into their creative
expressions and this is what we call appropriation in arts.

To appropriate is to borrow. Appropriation in arts therefore is the practice

of creating or even borrowing new work by taking a pre-existing image from
another source such as from art history books, advertisements, media and then
transforming or combining it with new ones. Other sources of appropriated
images are works of art in the past and recent ones, historical documents, film,
and television, products in the market.

The source of an image or an object that was appropriated can be

politically charged, symbolic, or ambiguous, or can even push the limits of
imagery deemed acceptable for art.

Any appropriated image can be photographed or digitally reproduced,

copied by mechanical means using an overhead projector that is attached
directly into the artwork or recreated in several ways. The result can be a real
representation of the appropriated object or a genuine transformation.

Sometimes artists recreate an object or repaint it. They may also alter its
scale or style to create a new artwork.

They may also juxtapose (placing it side by side) different objects or

images, break them into fragments, or recontextualize (glossary) them - that is
how they redefine images or objects by placing them in a new context so that it
appears as an original work of art.
The use of appropriation in art has played a significant role in the history of
the art such as those in the literary, visual, musical, and performing arts.
In the visual art, for instance, to appropriate means to properly adopt,
borrow, recycle or sample aspects of human made, visual, cultural. In most
cases the original 'thing' remains accessible as the original, without changes.

Historical Background of Appropriation in Arts

Appropriation in art started in 1970s with Richard Prince rephotographed

advertisements such as for Marlboro cigarettes. His main work is on billboard
advertising.
In 1980s, this art was commonly used by artists. One of them was Sherrie
Levine who addressed the art of appropriating itself as a theme in arts. She often
quotes the entire works in her own work, for example photographing
photographs of Walker Evans. Levine plays with the theme of "almost same."

In the 1990s, artists continued to produce appropriation art, rising it as a

mediun to address theories, political, and social issues, rather than to focus in
the works themselves.

In this digital age, appropriation have today become an everyday

phenomenon. The new generation "remix culture" have already taken the stage
not only of the visual arts but also of music, literature, dance and film.

According to some artists, by liberating one finally from traditional

concepts as originality, they will lead to new terms of understanding and
defining art. Critical observers see this as the starting point of a huge problem.
They say that if creation is based on nothing more than carefree processes of
finding, copying, recombining, and manipulating pre-existing media concepts,
forms, varies and alters of any source, art will be trivialized, low-demanding and
a regressive activity.
 Some say that only last people (to include the artists) who have nothing to
do are inspired in this way of appropriating arts. Copying, imitating, repeating,
quoting original works of art is plagiarism and is a violation of the copyright law.

Appropriation Art Cases Filed in Court

Appropriation act has resulted in several copyright issues regarding its

validity under copyright law. A number of case - law example have emerged
that investigate the division between transformative works and derivative works.

Among those who faced a series of lawsuits were Andy Warhol on his
famous "Campbell's Soup Can," Jeff Koon's "String of Puppies"; Andrea Blanch's
"Silk Sandals by Gucci"; Damian Hurst's sculpture "Hymn"; Richard Prince and
companions on their painting "Canal Zone", etc. The case is in favor for all
respondents (sued artists). Appropriating a familiar object to make an art work
can prevent the artist claiming copyright ownership and artworks that
"transformed the original images are permitted"

Appropriation of Art into Contemporary Narratives

Many artists today have been trained in specific artistic styles, moverents,
and techniques. These artists appropriate and transform works of art to varying
degree to fit the theme and designs of the stories they wish to illustrate and
publish. Their purpose of doing this is to increase the significance of their
artworks.

In fine arts, for instance, there are three forms of narrative

appropriateness: 1. reproduction; 2. transfiguration; 3. stylization.

Reproduction is the mimetic reproduction of an original work of fine art, a

faithful rendering of an original artwork, most frequently achieved through a fine
art is identifiable but the artist has transformed the image to fit the context
photographic or digital rendering process. In transfiguration, a single work of
and purpose of a particular picture board, narrative and design. In stylization, a
specific work is not readily identifiable but a particular art movement, for
example surrealism may be adopted upon by the illustrator.
Five Acts of Cultural Appropriation

These are: object appropriation, context appropriation, style

appropriation, motif appropriation, and subject appropriation.

Object appropriation is latency of objects for appropriation as works of

arts. A motif may be repeated, copied, in a pattern or design, often many times
for appropriation use.

Appropriation in Contemporary Arts

(Adapted from Barbara Kruger, 1987 posted in the Internet)

In separating images from the original context of their own media, we

allow them to take on new and varied meanings. The process and nature of
appropriation has considered by anthropologists as part of the study of cultural
change and cross-cultural contact.

Images and elements of culture that have been appropriated commonly

involve famous and recognizable works of art, well known literature, and easily
accessible images from the media.

The first artist to successfully demonstrate forms of appropriation within his

work is widely considered to be Marcel Duchamp. He devised the concept of
the 'readymade', which essentially involved an item being chosen by the artist,
signed by the artist and repositioned into a gallery context.
By asking the viewer to consider the object as art, Duchamp was
appropriating it. For Duchamp, the work of the artist was in selecting the object.
Whilst the beginnings of appropriation can be located to the beginning of the
20th century through the innovations of Duchamp, it is often said that if the art of
the 1980’s could be epitomized by any one technique or practice, it would be
appropriation.

The concepts of originality and authorship are central to the debate of

appropriation in contemporary art.

Cultural Appropriation: What is it and Why is it Wrong?

The idea of cultural appropriation has entered in the mainstream of

contemporary society, casting doubt on legitimacy of everything.

The reason is: it can provoke anything from a less serious to serious offense
- a violation of the copyright law. It can also provoke the originator, the author
of the work that was appropriated to sue in court the person who appropriated
the work (transformer, borrower, a mild term) - but it remains hard to defend and
prosecute.

Cultural appropriation, in terms of art, is when someone adopts, copy,

transfer, borrow, transform something, an object, image, motif, etc. from a
culture that is not his or her own - a photograph, a book, clothing style, hair style
etc.

Unlike cultural exchange in which there is mutual interchange,

appropriation of an artwork is much different.

The problem arises when somebody takes something from another less
dominant culture (especially without the knowledge of the original owner) in a
way that members of that culture find undesirable and offensive.

Reference:
Ariola, Mariano M. (2018) Art Appreciation. Intramuros, Manila: Unlimited Books
Library Services & Publishing Inc.