In regards to artists such as Richard Prince who appropriate other's work as their own, I am at a complete indecision in my thoughts on whether or not this should be acceptable. On the one hand, it's another artist's work, taken without permission. Furthermore, the work, at least in the case of Richard Prince is shown and sold without credit. My gut instinct is to say this isn't right. If I'm selling a print for $200, and then Richard Prince photographs my work and sells it for $35,000, how is that integral to my process and effort? At least part of me would be quite negatively confused by the whole ordeal.
On the other hand, I sort of look at Richard Prince's work as an odd sort of curatorial practice. There is intention to which photographs he appropriates, it's not like he's choosing anything and everything. The size, the type of paper it's reproduced on, where, when, with what other images, where it's shown--these are all selections of Richard Prince. But it it okay? Is this just stealing?
I've sort of come to look at his appropriation process as an odd type of performance art. The act of appropriating images is likely not be thought of without backlash of some kind. If these questions and conflicts are all ideas that Prince wants to bring about as a discussion, can we not look at his decisions as a type of performance?
2 comments:
I really like how you refer to appropriation as performance art. I think that is a very good way of looking at this. Initially, appropriation art really upset me because it seems as though the appropriator is completely stealing the original artist's work. However, if we view it as a performance, the intent seems to change. We then explore his reasons for appropriating and consider a higher level of exploration. However, I still feel that appropriated art should not be sold or purchased. I do not feel that it is right not make money off of a photograph of someone else's work. Often, performance pieces cannot be physically purchased, therefore this work should not be either.
I am also finding myself interested in your idea of his process as performance art. I kind of just ranted a bunch of questions in my own response to this reading...and your middle paragraph reminds me of what I asked at the end. Last semester, there was an artist at CAG whose body of work was entirely comprised of images that she culled from the Dodd Center, reprinted on hand-made paper, and then hung on the wall. This is essentially exactly what Prince did...curating images and therefore re-contextualizing to say something new. I'm still wondering why one is more intensely questioned on the practice than the other.
Post a Comment