#appropriation art

Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans: 4 (1981)

So, Sherrie Levine photographed a bunch of Walker Evans photographs from a book, including this one, Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife, and called it her work. That's it. That's what she did.

I'm not a huge fan of conceptual art—here "appropriation art," I'm told, although that term could be used much more productively to cover so many other things, including AfuckingI—but I'm willing to see the point of photographing a famous photograph to put the viewer at a remove from the process of seeing the photo in a book, which is, itself, at a remove from the original. All very meta and reception theory blababla.

What I don't get is how museums torque this as somehow being "feminist":

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The series, entitled After Walker Evans, became a landmark of postmodernism, both praised and attacked as a feminist hijacking of patriarchal authority…

Centre Pompidou: She questions the ideas of authorship, originality and authenticity, together with the under-representation of women in art history.

Whitney Museum: Appropriation…also subverted the authority of a patriarchal canon of art history and underscored the centrality of authorship and historical context in our understanding of artworks.

What the what now? Sooo...if a Black artist had done the exact same thing instead would that be a "subversion of the authority of a white canon" and "a Black hijacking of white authority"? And if an LGBTQ artist had done it, would that be a "subversion of the authority of a cishet canon"? And so on down the line?

Artwork 1 - "myperfectworld.com/home/room2"

The goal with these artworks is to further explore some of the images of myself I used in the first project. As previously seen in the GIF assignment, I am interested in mixing real world images together almost like a collage to create a virtual “diorama”. The two images I submitted for this assignment serve as “concept art” for a larger idea, the second GIF serving as an animation test (with an early version of the same room I finished here being featured). With all these works I am attempting to replicate the style of early 3D PC games, games that heavily used the technique of billboarding to create 3D spaces. The title of this fictional game being “MyPerfectWorld.com". Since these feature no animation, these images were put together in Photoshop, collaging the various pieces together while adding slight shadows to add depth, then overlayed with a fake UI to make it appear more “game”-like. The logo featured in the top right was designed entirely by me, hand drawn then recreated in Adobe Illustrator. The images of myself are sourced to... myself. The only way to further develop this concept would be to make it a full short film, as opposed to still images and short GIFs. For the purpose of this assignment, I am satisfied with these images serving as “screenshots” of a game filled with a large amount of appropriated images.

Artwork 2 - "myperfectworld.com/home/bedroom"

I believe it is ethically acceptable to use the appropriated material in this case because, to me, it is extremely clear that I am not trying to pass it off as my own. By design, these images are meant to look like an incohesive hodge-podge of different sources. These are fake rooms filled with the things I like or want to own, I think people can tell I “stole” the various images but that is the point. All the images are being recontextualized as being various items filling my virtual living space.

This artwork’s appropriated materials are sourced from a large list of places including various online stores, brands, copyrighted artworks, operating systems, as well as a few stock image websites. Most images were found through Pinterest. I’ll provide some specific sources but not for each individual image. (If this is needed, I can try and find the exact sources.)

Various posters from strayrats.com, PlayStation Magazine, and Hirohiko Araki & The Mars Volta artwork

Certain images sourced from image textures from the games “Façade” and “Animal Crossing”

Assorted products featuring copyrighted characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and Garfield

All sorts of stock and product images of furniture, wallpaper textures and patterns.

User interface icons sourced from Microsoft Windows XP

Classmate Responses

Valentina Diaz-Moreno - Hi Valentina, this artwork is really stunning. I think you really succeeded at creating a poster for this music video, I would not think twice about seeing this up for sale on the artist's website or as promotional material. I went and checked the source video for references and it is clear that you did not just collage a couple screenshots together. There was a very inspired idea behind which stills you chose and the line drawings you decided to add on top of them. I would love to see more poster work from you as I really like what you did here. Like you mentioned in your writing, I think it shows that you translate what the song means to you visually and are not just cheaply stealing screenshots from the video. I do not have much to critique for this specific work, I can just say that I would love to see more

Brandon Granados - Hello Brandon, great idea for an artwork, I am a big fan of Luigi's Mansion and I wish I had thought of this. I think this idea is very solid, it is a fun lighthearted parodic piece, but I would really love to see it taken a lot further. I understand it might be past the scope of this assignment, but I think it would be really cool to see the appropriated Luigi elements be melded with the original "The Scream" painting a little better. Maybe having Luigi's face be redrawn a bit closer to the style of the original artwork, having the ghosts fading into the background a bit. Alternatively, you could take it in the complete opposite direction, around the time of this game's release, Nintendo ran a series of ads that container characters literally taped onto real world images, taking your artwork and having the collaged elements appeared tape I think would be a fun way to highlight just how different the two sources are. Great work!

Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. Double Fiction. 2008. Collection MFAH, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.

Installation view: Radvila Palace Museum of Art, exhibition Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky. 2023-2024

Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. Pink and White. 2008.

Collection Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, Poland

Installation view: Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. November 16, 2023-February 2024. The Radvila Palace Museum. The Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Vilnius, Lithuania.

Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: I knew Edwards only slightly. 2009

Collection MFAH, Museum of Fine Arts Houston