According to vocabulary interpretation, appropriation is an art history term that refers to the use in works related to the visual arts of either real objects or works of art already created before. From the Latin language, this term is translated as "assimilation, appropriation." More detailed information on the fact that this is appropriation will be presented in the review.
Readymade
The practice of appropriation is traced by art historians to the collages created by Cubists, the works of Bark and Picasso, which were made in 1912. In them, real newspapers were part of the work, representing themselves.
This practice was developed by Marcel Duchamp, a French artist in 1915 in his readymade. Ready-made comes from the English words ready - "ready" and made - "done." This technique is characterized by the fact that the author, as his work, represents a certain object that he did not create.
The first to use the indicated term was Duchamp. In the technique of readymade, he created such works as “Bottle Dryer”, “Bicycle Wheel”, as well as the “Fountain” scandal. The latter is a urinal, which the artist signed and presented as a work of art.
In this case, the authorship of the artist using ready-made, lies in the fact that he, moving the item from non-artistic space to the artistic, thereby opens it from an unexpected perspective. In it, properties begin to emerge that were not seen outside the artistic context.
Further development of appropriation
Surrealists later began to use this technique in their objects and collages. For example, Salvador Dali and Edward James presented their lobster phone, which had a lobster model instead of a telephone receiver. In the 1950s, the assigned objects and images appear in the works of artists such as R. Rauschenberg and D. Johnson, who worked in the art of pop art.
The term "appropriation" is sometimes used in a narrower sense, applying it to the activities of American artists who worked in the 80s of the last century. This applies primarily to S. Levine and artists of the neo-geo direction. As her own, Sherry Levine reproduced paintings by other artists, including Kazimir Malevich and Claude Monet. Her goal was to create a new situation, a new meaning or a set of values attached to a familiar image.
Neo-geo
This term is translated from English by Neo-Geo as “non-geometric conceptualism” and refers to the direction in abstract art of the 20th century. It occurs in the early 80s. in american art. The appropriation in it is expressed in the continuation of the traditions of partly classical geometric abstraction of the 1st half of the 20th century, partly of pop art (to a greater extent).
The founder and theorist of neo-geo was Peter Helly. He called to see in his paintings not abstract constructions inherent to Mondrian or Malevich, but peculiar graphs and schemes describing modern society. So, rectangles and squares are different “cells of society”, and lines are communication networks and social connections.
In postmodernism
Appropriation is, according to theorists of art, copying is not easy, but placing a new work in a different context, endowing it with new meanings. It began to be used most actively in the 90s. of the last century in the framework of postmodernism.
It is then that the ultra-appropriation arises, characteristic of a modern consumer society, saturated with advertising, which is one of the main components of this society. Postmodernism and appropriation, in particular, cast doubt on the romantic ideas of the authors, their originality, as well as such social institutions as museums and galleries.
Cultural appropriation
This is the name of the sociological concept, which considers the borrowing or use of the elements of a culture by representatives of another culture. To a large extent, this phenomenon is regarded as negative. The basis of this concept is the assumption that the culture that is being borrowed is also subject to oppression and exploitation by the culture that borrows it.
The concept of cultural appropriation in North America is particularly evident in studies of African American culture and Native American culture. This concept arose at the end of the 20th century when it was used by post-colonial critics of Western expansionism. Among other things, they expressed indignation related to white pop musicians who imitated the music of a black population. An example of this, in their opinion, was the work of singer Elvis Presley.
Proponents of the concept include the following examples of cultural appropriation:
- Use by sports teams of the names of indigenous tribes, images of their representatives as a mascot or team logo, as well as traditional works of art. So, one of the teams in American football is called the Redskins, the logo on the baseball team is the Leader Wahu, and the New Zealand team performs the ritual dance “hack” before the matches.
- Dressing for Halloween in costumes such as “Native American warrior”, “crazy dude”, costume of a gangster from Latin America, when they are worn by people who do not belong to the corresponding culture and call them humorous.
- The fashion for a headdress is like that of an Indian warrior, which often provokes protests in the form of petitions to ban it as part of holding certain festivals. Often these protests are effective.