Do not plagiarize do not plagiarize do not plagiarize. Since day 1 it’s been drilled so deeply into our brains. But what if taking position of other’s material without permission can be the subject of an artwork itself? Sherrie Levine is someone who has made a whole artistic career out of this notion.
Appropriation is adopting and reconstructing, “borrowing” sample aspects of manmade culture to challenge ideas around originality and authenticity. New meaning is revealed that was not visible in the old version, such as Levine’s After Walker Evans: 4 (1981).
Known as one of the most influential photographers and early founders of documentary as evidence and truth, Evans’ Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife (1936) captures an essence of small town poverty during the depression. The original work enters the copyright domain after Evan’s death in 1975, and Levine’s work becomes technically legal. Praised and attacked for dismissing every creative right, yet successfully critiquing the commodification of art — the image on the right is a marker of postmodernism.
Rather than taking from mass culture, from mundane routines of consumerism like Warhol, she is taking from Art, including all of its baggage surrounding ownership and authorship. She challenges the unique and singularity that fine art favours all too much. Photography is a thing that can endlessly be copied, and Levine hijacks it to make a statement that questions the status of art during this time of The Pictures Generation.
What does appropriation mean in the 21st century? Does Art have any originality anymore?
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