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Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art
Appropriation
Important documents and appraisals of appropriation art from Duchamp's readymades to feminist and postcolonial critique.Scavenging, replicating, or remixing, many influential artists today reinvent a legacy of "stealing" images and forms from other makers. Among the diverse, often contestatory strategies included under the heading "appropriation" are the readymade, d�tournement, pastiche, rephotography, recombination, simulation and parody. Although appropropriation is often associated with the 1980s practice of such artists as Peter Halley, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, and Cindy Sherman, as well as the critical discourse of postmodernism and the simulacral theory of Jean Baudrillard, appropriation's significance for art is not limited by that cultural and political moment. In an expanded art-historical frame, this book recontextualizes avant-garde photomontage, the Duchampian readymade, and the Pop image among such alternative precursors as Francis Picabia, Bertolt Brecht, Guy Debord, Akasegawa Genpei, Dan Graham, Cildo Meireles, and Martha Rosler. In the recent work of many artists, including Mike Kelley, Glenn Ligon, Pierre Huyghe, and Aleksandra Mir, among others, appropriation is central to their critique of the contemporary world and vision for alternative futures
Artists surveyed include
Akasegawa Genpei, Santiago �lvarez, Art Workers Coalition, Ross Bleckner, Marcel Broodthaers, Victor Burgin, Maurizio Cattelan, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Douglas Gordon, Johan Grimonprez, Peter Halley, Hank Herron, Pierre Huyghe, Mike Kelley, Idris Khan, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Alexandra Mir, Keith Piper, Richard Prince, Jorma Puranen, Cindy Sherman, John Stezaker, Retort, Martha Rosler, Philip Taaffe.
Writers include
Malek Alloula, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Nicolas Bourriaud, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Johanna Burton, Douglas Crimp, Thomas Crow, Guy Debord, Georges Didi-Huberman, Marcel Duchamp, Okwui Enwezor, Jean-Luc Godard, Isabelle Graw, Boris Groys, Raoul Hausmann, Sven L�tticken, Cildo Meireles, Kobena Mercer, Slobodan Mijuskovic, Laura Mulvey, Jo Spence, Elisabeth Sussman, Lisa Tickner, Reiko Tomii, Andy Warhol.
Artists surveyed include
Akasegawa Genpei, Santiago �lvarez, Art Workers Coalition, Ross Bleckner, Marcel Broodthaers, Victor Burgin, Maurizio Cattelan, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Douglas Gordon, Johan Grimonprez, Peter Halley, Hank Herron, Pierre Huyghe, Mike Kelley, Idris Khan, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Alexandra Mir, Keith Piper, Richard Prince, Jorma Puranen, Cindy Sherman, John Stezaker, Retort, Martha Rosler, Philip Taaffe.
Writers include
Malek Alloula, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Nicolas Bourriaud, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Johanna Burton, Douglas Crimp, Thomas Crow, Guy Debord, Georges Didi-Huberman, Marcel Duchamp, Okwui Enwezor, Jean-Luc Godard, Isabelle Graw, Boris Groys, Raoul Hausmann, Sven L�tticken, Cildo Meireles, Kobena Mercer, Slobodan Mijuskovic, Laura Mulvey, Jo Spence, Elisabeth Sussman, Lisa Tickner, Reiko Tomii, Andy Warhol.
- GenresArtNonfiction
239 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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204 people want to read
About the author
David Evans
2 booksThere is more than one author with this name
David Evans is the author of the catalogue raisonné John Heartfield: AIZ/VI 1930-38 and a Research Fellow in Photography at the Arts Institute, Bournemouth, England. He has published numerous articles in such journals as Afterimage, Eye, and Source.
David Evans is a writer and picture editor who teaches the history and theory of photography at The Arts University College at Bournemouth, England. Recent publications include Appropriation (Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, 2009) and Critical Dictionary (Black Dog Publishing, 2011).
David Evans is the author of the catalogue raisonné John Heartfield: AIZ/VI 1930-38 and a Research Fellow in Photography at the Arts Institute, Bournemouth, England. He has published numerous articles in such journals as Afterimage, Eye, and Source.
David Evans is a writer and picture editor who teaches the history and theory of photography at The Arts University College at Bournemouth, England. Recent publications include Appropriation (Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, 2009) and Critical Dictionary (Black Dog Publishing, 2011).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 25, 2010
Like The Map as Art, I picked up Appropriation purely based on my fascination with the subject matter, with no particular knowledge of its quality. Also like that book, it has some pretty serious problems.
The biggest problem is that most authors seem to take an overly narrow view of what appropriation in art actually is and can be. As I learned while writing my Popmatters article on the subject (http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/...), the methods that can be grouped under the heading of "Appropriation" are so diverse that its nearly impossible to create some overarching theory. MoMA's "Pipe, Glass, and Bottle of Rum" acknowledges this fact, starting its history of appropriation art with the cubist collages. Nevertheless, an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of particular modes of appropriation could be interesting. Unfortunately, most of the authors seem to think that appropriation art began and ended with Douglas Crimp's 1977 "Pictures" show and its associated artists: Sherry Levine, Robert Longo, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and the rest of their coterie.
Examples of these critical blinders run throughout Benjamin Buchloh's essay Parody and Appropriation in Francis Picabia, Pop, and Sigmar Polke. At one point, he writes:
The latter point is only any way defensible if "art history" translates simply as "Duchamp." Sure, Duchamp's readymades, rather than being affirmation of mass production, were largely meant as treatises on the boundaries between high and low art, the subjectivity of the artist (or lack thereof), and the context of the museum/gallery. But what about the purely affirmative appropriation of Joseph Cornell? Recall that Cornell collected the objects that made up his collages and boxes for years before he actually made artwork with them - it was an artwork born of a deep affection for the materials, and the culture from which the sprang. Or how about the appropriation of the Surrealists, who often mined contemporary culture not for critical purposes, but to point out the latent Freudian content in the day-to-day activities around us. Buchloh's overly narrow art history leads him to the conclusion that appropriation art must, by its nature, be transgressive - a dubious claim to begin with, but becomes laughable when he then goes on to lambaste appropriation techniques as ineffective transgression.
At least on that last part, I agree with him. In much of the writing about artists like Prince, Sherry Levine, et al, much ink is spilled over the political/critical nature of the act of appropriation. Part of my interest in this book was a desire to see if any of the authors could convince of the necessarily transgressive nature over appropriation, and whether appropriation could ever make for effective political discourse. None of them could.
My problem with appropriation-as-political-statement is that I'm not convinced that the subversive strategy of recontextualizing a work overpowers the fact that re-representation also repeats the original statement. This has always been my problem with the adbusting/culture jamming movement - yes, you can criticize McDonalds by subverting its logo in various ways, but at the same time you are also further spreading the McDonalds logo - which, given that one of the biggest goals of advertising is brand saturation, strikes me as ultimately counterproductive.
I also find myself completely uninterested in the "is it art?" issue, or the "who is the author here?" issue, both of which are raised over and over throughout the text. Many of the essays I found most surprising were the ones that moved beyond this knee-jerk analysis to express a genuine affection for the appropriate subjects. Richard Prince, for example, who I expected to be most afflicted with this kind of po-mo gobbledy-gook (for those who don't know, Prince's work involves such moves as re-photographing, without manipulation besides cropping, Marlboro billboards), spent much his interview in the book expressing a real interest in the cultural mythology of his subjects.
There were a few other gems tucked into the mix, which made the book worth reading. Perhaps the strongest was a piece by Johanna Burton, called Subject to Revision, which did an admirable job of pointing out many of the critical blind spots mentioned already. It was exactly the kind of analysis I was hoping to find throughout the rest of the text.
The biggest problem is that most authors seem to take an overly narrow view of what appropriation in art actually is and can be. As I learned while writing my Popmatters article on the subject (http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/...), the methods that can be grouped under the heading of "Appropriation" are so diverse that its nearly impossible to create some overarching theory. MoMA's "Pipe, Glass, and Bottle of Rum" acknowledges this fact, starting its history of appropriation art with the cubist collages. Nevertheless, an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of particular modes of appropriation could be interesting. Unfortunately, most of the authors seem to think that appropriation art began and ended with Douglas Crimp's 1977 "Pictures" show and its associated artists: Sherry Levine, Robert Longo, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and the rest of their coterie.
Examples of these critical blinders run throughout Benjamin Buchloh's essay Parody and Appropriation in Francis Picabia, Pop, and Sigmar Polke. At one point, he writes:
When, for example, Lichtensetin talks about his interest in the iconography of the comic strip and Richter talks about his interest in the iconography of amateur photography, both artists refer to the sources that seem to protect their own artistic production from being instantly identified with high art practice. Criticisms of such strategies as being purely affirmative of mass cultural manipulations, and glamorizing collective alienation, fails to ask the crucial questions these strategies raise, and fails to recognize the actual place of these strategies within the tradition of twentieth-century art.
The latter point is only any way defensible if "art history" translates simply as "Duchamp." Sure, Duchamp's readymades, rather than being affirmation of mass production, were largely meant as treatises on the boundaries between high and low art, the subjectivity of the artist (or lack thereof), and the context of the museum/gallery. But what about the purely affirmative appropriation of Joseph Cornell? Recall that Cornell collected the objects that made up his collages and boxes for years before he actually made artwork with them - it was an artwork born of a deep affection for the materials, and the culture from which the sprang. Or how about the appropriation of the Surrealists, who often mined contemporary culture not for critical purposes, but to point out the latent Freudian content in the day-to-day activities around us. Buchloh's overly narrow art history leads him to the conclusion that appropriation art must, by its nature, be transgressive - a dubious claim to begin with, but becomes laughable when he then goes on to lambaste appropriation techniques as ineffective transgression.
At least on that last part, I agree with him. In much of the writing about artists like Prince, Sherry Levine, et al, much ink is spilled over the political/critical nature of the act of appropriation. Part of my interest in this book was a desire to see if any of the authors could convince of the necessarily transgressive nature over appropriation, and whether appropriation could ever make for effective political discourse. None of them could.
My problem with appropriation-as-political-statement is that I'm not convinced that the subversive strategy of recontextualizing a work overpowers the fact that re-representation also repeats the original statement. This has always been my problem with the adbusting/culture jamming movement - yes, you can criticize McDonalds by subverting its logo in various ways, but at the same time you are also further spreading the McDonalds logo - which, given that one of the biggest goals of advertising is brand saturation, strikes me as ultimately counterproductive.
I also find myself completely uninterested in the "is it art?" issue, or the "who is the author here?" issue, both of which are raised over and over throughout the text. Many of the essays I found most surprising were the ones that moved beyond this knee-jerk analysis to express a genuine affection for the appropriate subjects. Richard Prince, for example, who I expected to be most afflicted with this kind of po-mo gobbledy-gook (for those who don't know, Prince's work involves such moves as re-photographing, without manipulation besides cropping, Marlboro billboards), spent much his interview in the book expressing a real interest in the cultural mythology of his subjects.
There were a few other gems tucked into the mix, which made the book worth reading. Perhaps the strongest was a piece by Johanna Burton, called Subject to Revision, which did an admirable job of pointing out many of the critical blind spots mentioned already. It was exactly the kind of analysis I was hoping to find throughout the rest of the text.
Want to read
September 2, 2012Was interested in Appropriation is 20th century art but not familiar enough with the majority of the artist's works to read analysis of them. Maybe in the future with a stack of art books at my side.
March 8, 2025
This really helped me write my thesis. I love the format of short interviews/letters.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews