Apropros Appropriation

During the Pictures Generation, the art of appropriate really came into fruition. These “Picture Artists” created a way to reproduce art rather than produce something from scratch, something that had not before been conceptualized. During this time frame, the artists typically took photographs and altered them to create new works of art to call their own. In addition to Richard Prince, other Picture Artists included Robert Longo, David Salle, Jack Goldstein and Cindy Sherman. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pictures_Generation)

In the article, the case of Mr. Prince is the most predominantly talked about. Although I haven’t seen his works first hand, some of them are described as collages of photographs taken from a book about Rastafarians without permission. To me, this sounds like something that would be acceptable for a homework assignment or anything of personal use, not to make $2.5 million off of. Now, fair use allows someone to use the work of another without acquiring permission from the original artist, but using a photograph in its entirety to form a collage does not fit that bill. Although the art is brand new, the components are not altered at all and the original artist had done most of the work for that project. An argument made by the photographer, Patrick Coriou, is as follows:

“..[the paintings] are, literally, ‘put together,’ like provisional magazine lay-outs. Some images, scanned from originals, are printed directly onto the base canvas; others are ‘dragged on,’”
(http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/november-08-2008--richard-prince)

            A case where I think the artist abided by the law and was successful in appropriating the original work is that of Jeff Koons. Koons created an original piece of work by appropriating several images of females’ legs to put into his artwork. By rotating, resizing, and cropping the photographs and taking only the legs, he was able to successfully alter the pictures enough to a point where it had been made his own. In my opinion, Koons did enough to not infringe on any copyright laws or steal the original work to profit off of.

            Appropriation is necessary for the advancement and growth of creativity and new-age art. I have done a lot of graphic work throughout my life and I can say most of it would have been impossible without a certain level of appropriation. I think using a pre-existing image as a base or reference in artwork does not insult the original artwork in any way, especially if it had been altered enough to the point where you can’t even tell what the original image was. Using stock images to add some light to a photo or place a small object in an illustration does not break the law and is a necessary part of the growth of creativity. If I found my work being appropriated, assuming it was altered enough, I would be perfectly fine with it. Knowing my work is perceived as good enough to be reproduced would make me feel very highly about my abilities.