Appropriation

Appropriation is basically where you take something from somewhere else and use it for your own purposes. It's an essential part of practicing art, because unless you live in a cave for your entire life, how can you not be influenced by the work of others? Just recently I finished an A0 piece for Illustration, where we were told to take the composition of a painting from a gallery and then use it as a basis for our own work. So I've appropriated someone elses composition.

But there are times when people appropriate to a much more obvious level, like Sherrie Levine's Gold Fountain, which is a replica of Duchamp's fountain only in gold. For me I just feel like what's the point in this piece of work, does the urinal really have more to say? The first time it was done fair enough, it had a point. But there's a reason that barely anyone has heard of the gold fountain compared to the original.

It could also be argued that the Chapman brothers have done some appropriation with their work with Goya's prints. Persoanlly, whenever I see these prints I just think they look defaced. If I had produced some work, and then someone else bought it and scribbled all over it, I'd be annoyed, and I wouldn't think they'd done something clever with my work, or that it was now their work, I'd think "they've just gone and scribbled all over my work!". So I think appropriation has a place for deffinite, but I'm not a fan of when it's just ripping off other peoples work.