1.
How appropriation changes the original?
In this essay I will explore how appropriation has influenced art over the past century and
how different artists have approached appropriation in their own work. I will discuss several artists
who have used appropriation to manipulate the contextual ideas of a piece of art and talk about the
significance between the 'original' and the appropriated art work. Is there such a thing as an
original? I want to find out whether the appropriated work's visual outcome matters? Does
appropriation merely change the context of the work through subtle changes of visual elements? For
example, the colour scheme or painting technique.
I will discuss an American painter and photographer Richard Prince, an American conceptual
photographer Cindy Sherman and an American artist Jeff Koons. As a response to these artists I will
question whether the use of appropriation is a starting point for innovative ideas or rather a starting
point for a multitude of copies.
Appropriation became popular in the early 20th century, where artists would gather direct
inspiration from other artists' work. It first began when Duchamp placed a urinal in a high art gallery,
re-contextualising the role of the object. Back then appropriation in terms of ready-made art was
seen as not choosing a 'random' object, but a specific one. The object is visually manipulated in such
a way that it would be able to reflect a personal artistic input. "Something must be added,
something more than simply appropriation that could be
described as artist's own achievement"1
. However these
views have changed drastically since the 1950s over the
course of Post modernism, questioning the ownership and
originality of art.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is a prime example of
challenging the originality of art. He was an American pop
artist known for his Campbell's Soup Cans. In the 1960s
Campbell Soup Cans were an everyday object on
supermarket shelves. Warhol challenged the conception of
the ready-made by taking an everyday object and re-
contextualising it by placing it to a museum. His soup can
canvases are very simple and technically easy to
manufacture. But is this art? Steven Zucker and Sal Khan discuss this:
We're now an industrial culture. Warhol is also very consciously working towards asking the same questions.
He is saying: Can this be art? And in fact, he's really pushing it. Look at the painting closely. He has defined the
calligraphy, rendered the reflection of the tin at the top, but then he stopped. I don't wanna paint the flor de
lis. So he actually had a little rubber stamp made of them and
actually sort of placed them down mechanically. Warhol is
reflecting the way that we manufacture our world. Almost
everything was made in a factory. Almost nothing is singular in
the world anymore. 2
Andy Warhol
Campbell Soup Cans
1962. Synthetic polymer paint on
thirty-two canvases, Each canvas
20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

2.
Andy Warhol has been one of the artists who has redefined artistic
concepts. He put importance upon the context of a piece of art
rather than the visual elements or its original source.
Comparing this to Duchamp's Urinal, Warhol has actually painted
the canvas himself and not only one but thirty-two canvases.
Duchamp on the other hand simply took a urinal, signed it and
placed it in a high art gallery as his own piece of work. I think that
appropriation is an extremely important factor in changing or
highlighting people's views in a certain period of time (1917 in this
case). Duchamp's Urinal does not demonstrate craftsmanship but it
does however gain a new purpose and context. It has changed how
people think of art. Perhaps not all art is meant to be taken
seriously. Modern art tends to challenge all boundaries.
Of course there probably wouldn't be Warhol's Campbell Soup
Cans if not for Marcel Duchamp. He is a French-American
conceptual artist who "Many consider . . . the Conceptual
Godfather of appropriation art. His ready-mades, for example, re-
contextualize everyday objects. Fountain and Bicycle Wheel are his
most famous examples of bringing the “ordinary” into the sacred
space of art. His L.H.O.O.Q. is an irreverent appropriation of da
Vinci’s famous work."3
At the first glance this piece of work looks nothing more than a joke
pulled by a child. A curly thin moustache and a goatee beard
rushed in pencil. However perhaps Duchamp had more in mind
when drawing this silly moustache and beard. It was
suspected that Leonardo da Vinci was a homosexual and
perhaps that was the innuendo Duchamp tried to portray by
putting a moustache on Mona Lisa. Another factor comes in
to the fact that Marcel called his work "L.H.O.O.Q." which
pronounced in French, would sound like 'She has a hot arse'
"Duchamp said the Mona Lisa becomes a man - not a woman
disguised as a man, but a real man. This hints at a different meaning
from vandalism, for all the crudeness of those letters, L.H.O.O.Q."4
Is artistic craftsmanship no longer valued? Are we heading to a time
where artists would rather cut corners than create an 'original' piece
of art? When an art piece loses its uniqueness, it gains social value
because that copy potentially reflects our manufacture heavy
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Mona Lisa
1503–1506, perhaps continuing
until c. 1517
Oil on poplar
77 cm × 53 cm (30 in × 21 in)
Marcel Duchamp
Urinal, 1917
61 cm x 36 cm x 48 cm
glazed ceramic, Ceramic
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Mona Lisa parody LHOOQ (1919), post
card reproduction with added
moustache, goatee and title in pencil
(19.7 x 12.4 cm)

3.
society. It might not have been the most profound art piece in terms of skill, but it has raised a lot of
discussion and he has really pushed people's thinking.
With time, the use of appropriation has became even more popular than ever. It has stirred the
artistic values of originality, which is seen in one of Jeff Koons pieces. He is an American
contemporary artist who grew in popularity in the mid 1980s as he explored the crisis of
representation and the meaning of art in our media-consumed era. In the year 2000, Koons saw a
photograph taken by Andrea Blanch titled Silk Sandals by Gucci and published in the August 2000
issue of Allure magazine to illustrate an article on metallic makeup. Jeff Koons took the idea of this
photograph and decided to take the legs out of the image to use it for his painting Niagara. He then
got sued for copyright infringement. However, he has won the case under the “Fair use” laws of
copyright. Although one can clearly see the direct insertion of Andrea’s photograph in relation to
Koons’s painting, the meaning of the two pieces of work is just not the same. He has changed the
colour, layout, composition, medium. He has changed the context of the original work (photograph).
“In his affidavit in the case, Koons noted that it was important to use the photo from Allure, rather
than painting a model’s legs himself. "My paintings are not about objects or images that I might
invent, but rather about how we relate to things that we actually experience. . . . Therefore, in order
to make statements about contemporary society and in order for the artwork to be valid, I must use
images from the real world. I must present real things that are actually in our mass consciousness."4
In saying that, he displays the attitude of today’s modern artist and how far appropriation has come.
We are no longer afraid to ‘borrow’ ideas and images from companies or artists. And though the art
of Jeff Koons is used from a borrowed source, this source is used in an investigative manner; it does
not duplicate the objectives of Andrea Blanches photograph, rather it is transformed into a new
objective which uses commercial visual elements. For example, the waterfall of women's legs and
the use of donuts and three scoop ice cream in the background.
Andrea Blanche
Silk Sandals by Gucci
2000, August
Jeff Koons
Niagara
2000. Oil on canvas, 120 x 172 inches.
Deutsche Guggenheim

4.
Cindy Sherman
Untitled # 205
1989
Cindy Sherman (1954) is a well known American photographer who more often than not is the
model in her own photographs. Sherman is thought to raise important questions about the
stereotypical women in the society during the 1980s and make the viewer feel bad about having
certain expectations on women. Like many artists she has used appropriation of a number of other
visual forms: fashion photograph, historical portrait and some sex images.
In this photograph Cindy Sherman changed the original artwork significantly, using eye-catching and
fake looking prostetics (breats and belly) to immitate this historical piece of art. This makes the
portrait look quite striking and crude, which is also exaggerated by the purple arm band. Another
difference would be the excessive make up Sherman used in comparison to no makeup on the
original painting. As an artists she might want to relate her appropriated art to today's society.
Another thing to point out would be the stomach of the original piece and the appropriation. In the
original piece, the woman has a normal built figure. Whereas in Sherman's piece she appears to be
pregnant, pointing out that if a woman isn't slim she must be pregnant. Cindy Sherman is
communicating the hegemonic views of women in today's men dominant world, where a woman
must appeal to the media standards. She must look pretty and presentable, act like a lady, do all the
chores and bare kids. Which in my opinion this is very true today and will be true for decades to
come.
Raphael
La Fornarina, 1518–1519
Oil on wood
85 cm × 60 cm (33 in × 24 in)

5.
Richard Prince is an American painter and photographer. Prince began 'appropriating' photographs
in 1975 and one of his most successful pieces is a photograph of a Marlboro ad. His technical process
was more or less finding a magazine he likes and photographing an image from that magazine, place
it in a gallery as his work and sell it. This particular photograph shot in 1989 was sold for $1.3 million,
a record for any photograph. According to Prince, "I started taking pictures of the cowboys. You
don't see them out in public anymore—you can't ride down a highway and see them on a billboard.
But at Time Life, I was working with seven or eight magazines, and Marlboro had ads in almost all of
them. Every week, I'd see one and be like, 'Oh, that's mine. Thank you.' It's sort of like
beachcombing."5
Richard Prince is a re-photographer and not in the sense where he would re-enact the photo in
tableau, but rather take a photograph of a photograph. This is quite shocking since he is publically
open about copying the Marlboro advertisement campaign yet no one seems to care that he is doing
this. Since the 1980s appropriation developed a bad name as artists like Richard Prince abuse the
idea of appropriation. Our art society has fallen in its standards. I personally think that 'artists' like
Richard Prince should not be called artists at all. He took a photograph of a photograph. They had no
input of the composition, props or lighting of the photograph. Sure he gets some credit for cropping
the stolen picture and making it brighter or colour adjusted, but it does not change the fact that he
took that photograph as it was and called it his own. When I go to an art gallery and take a picture of
a painting I do not claim to be the owner of that painting.
Richard Prince
Untitled (cowboy), 1989. Ektacolor
photograph, unique, 50 x 70 inches
(127 x 177.8 cm)
Artist Unknown
Marlboro Man Ad
Issue release date unknown

6.
Over the course of a decade Richard Prince took a different approach to making art. Evident in one
of his later works of the series called Nurse. This particular piece of work was painted in 2002. Prince
was still using a reference for his art (a book in this case) however he has added personal artistic
input in the work. In Dude Ranch Nurse his technical process was to choose a book, print its cover on
canvas and then paint over it, leaving only the title of the book and the nurse visible. This is very
different from his earlier work because by leaving the title visible he is essentially crediting the
original source of the book and also adding his own mark on the work. But when it came to Marlboro
Man magazine series, he cropped the photograph in such a way that the name of the magazine
wasn't visible. Compared to his old work, Richard Prince has become more hands-on now. Perhaps
he has changed his techniques since the Marlboro Man issues ended in 1999, so he had to get new
sources to appropriate from.
Nevertheless as he did, he has altered almost the entire subject of the image. He painted the dress,
the skin, the background and even the title. Its entire surface has been altered. I think the issue of
ownership is an important factor here. By painting on the print of someone else's book cover, does it
now become his? I personally think that Prince's work serves a different purpose compared to
Arlene Hale's book cover. The man in the Dude Ranch Nurse by Arlene Hale looks vicious, staring at
the nurse who is playfully twisting her hair in a seductive manner. This would suggest a romantic and
playful mood of the image. Whereas Richard Prince's version painted over the nurse's smile leaving
only her fragile body language to focus on. His choice of colour for the background makes the
atmosphere seem toxic and melancholy, complemented by the title which suggest a violent mood
(her being the only nurse in a male dominant ranch). I must say that his Nurse collection is a fresh
approach for him in comparison to his early work and he deserves the credit of ownership and
originality of that work.
Arlene Hale
Dude Ranch Nurse
Richard Prince
Dude Ranch Nurse, 2002
ink jet print and acrylic on
canvas
203 x 132 cm

7.
Overall I find that since the early 19th century Marcel Duchamp's Urinal, appropriation has changed
significantly. He has challenged the views of art in that period of time, creating one after another of
controversial appropriation pieces. As some years have passed artists have been striving to reflect
social and economic views in our society through appropriation and tableau, much like Duchamp.
They were pushing the thinking of people and what they called 'art'. Though in the recent years
artists have seemed to cross the line with the sources for their work, being thrown around courts for
copyright infringement lawsuits. The similarity of visual elements between the original work and the
appropriated piece of art seem insignificant now. Each piece of art seems to be a copy of a copy
subtlety changing its purpose as the years shape our society. However I personally think that
appropriation has done more good than harm. Appropriation challenges the views of our society and
reflects our politics. It acts like a mirror, magnifying the flaws in our society, a lot like Cindy
Sherman's work and Warhol's Cans. Appropriation has changed and varies from artist to artist but it
always serves the same purpose, which is to reflect our society. And without being able to reflect,
we would not be able to progress.

8.
1. http://www.marginalutility.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/04.-Graw.pdf
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdbOrNLcC0I
3. http://www.remixthebook.com/the-course/appropriation
4. http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/may/26/art
5. http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2006/01/koons_wins_land.html
6. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/school-educator-
programs/teacher-resources/arts-curriculum-online?view=item&catid=726&id=82
Iveta Stripeikaite