Appropriation
Appropriation borrows elements such as visuals, concepts, and objects then
reinterprets the elements into new artwork. It requires a process where you
have to do something to it.
Objects that you can find in a store or in a home that has been created by
someone or something else are called ready-made objects. In the past when an
artist named Marcel Duchamp attempted to exhibit his work, which was a urinal
that was ready-made, people accused him of plagiarizing since he used work that
a factory had made, not that he made. But Duchamp appropriated the objects to
create his sculptures. In conclusion, ready-made objects may also be
appropriated.
Below is a letter a student wrote to the artist Duchamp about how the art
society is like today:
" Dear Marcel Duchamp,
My name is Susan Yim and I come from the future, from the year of 2014. I have heard a lot about you in my art
course, which is called themes of contemporary art, and you are the turning point in art culture in my present day world.
Contemporary art now uses a lot of interaction with the artwork, and is also created with ready-made objects just like your
artwork, “Fountain”. An artist named Tom Friedman uses ready-made objects like plastic cups and pencils to create
spectacular art pieces! Another artist named John Dodge also uses ready-made objects we use in our everyday lives into
his work and he arranges them in a room and makes you wonder what his concept is and this makes us viewers imagine in
our own mind what kind of story his artwork is telling us. Nicolas Nyland and John Grade are also some contemporary
artists that create art using various mediums and art in my present day is constantly changing.
“Fountain” has a lasting impact on art and today, it shows us that it’s okay to use ready-made art into our artwork and that
it does not have to be something pleasing to the eye to be considered art. You can see it in Tom Friedman’s artwork, in one
of his artworks he drills a school desk until it’s so fragile that it may break with one more piercing of a drill. He also made
a soap artwork and there are bands in the soap which contain human hair and that make me think of “Fountain” since some
people may see that as disgusting after what they know what is actually is (I did not know it was a urinal the first time I
saw that artwork! I thought it was a sink)... “Fountain” changed the ideas and forms of presentation and methods by
showing that artwork does not have to be beautiful but it may express the ideas of the artist instead since the mind is also a
source of art. For example, there is an artwork called “Les Repos des Pensionnaires” which uses taxidermy birds with
knitted sweaters and that artwork is not what I would consider pleasing to the eye but it shows a point that humans do silly
things for the dead and what we do for the dead’s ceremony. There’s also a sculpture made entirely out of blood by Marc
Quinn, I think that’s really gross (since I dislike dried up blood). The viewer’s role and responsibility for what we consider
art is that it should be contain a message to us and we should respect peoples’ artwork no matter how absurd it might be. I
respect the taxidermy and blood artwork ev [