In response to the work of Richard Prince, I find myself questioning the whole of artistic practice. The topic of appropriation is a tricky one, especially in photography and digital art, which can easily be extracted from its original context and combined into all sorts of things or be pedaled to all corners of the Internet. But I’m wondering why this work makes us question appropriation, and not others? Many artists, not just photographers, incorporate found images into their work. Of course in the case of Richard Prince, he is only using an image from someone else, but he is in a sense curating the pieces into a new context, and that is how he chooses to say what he wants to say. Is that any different from a photographer who takes an image of someone else's sculpture and sells it? Or what about collage artists? Why aren’t cropping, sequence, and installation enough of the artist’s hand to warrant originality? There are artists who make their entire pieces from re-contextualized found objects - are they guilty of stealing? Why is the artist who makes an installation entirely of Coca-Cola bottles credited with transcending the object, while the photographer who repurposes advertisement images credited with plagiarism? The artist who had work at the Contemporary Art Gallery before the Omnivore's Dilemma Visualized show had work that was entirely made up of re-contextualized media from the Dodd Center, reprinted on hand-made paper. Why is she regarded as a legitimate artist, and Richard Prince is questioned? Is it because of the price tag on the work? I don’t feel that I have any answers to these questions, but I do think that there is a lot worth considering when it comes to passing a judgement about appropriation, and all things should be questioned.
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