Banksy
The artwork of the famous street artist Banksy could be conceived as being appropriation as the way he uses existing structures and signs to aid him in the message his wants to convey coincides with what the definition of Appropriation Art is.
For example:
This piece from New York. Banksy uses an existing sign saying “graffiti is a crime” as a part of his artwork. It is a comment on how graffiti is seen as vandalism in New York, ironically this wall was removed and the whole thing was sold not long after it was painted. This piece was the first he made in his New York City stint. During that time he made many comments about what classified as art or an eyesore in the famous big apple. However, Bansky isn’t famous for his appropriation, unlike the next artist I looked at.
Richard Price
Like his name suggests, Richard Price is all about putting a price on other peoples art work and Photography. Price is probably the most problamatic appropriation artist, and has many lawsuits to his name.
He is most famous for his Cowboy range which started in 1980 and is still on going. The most contriversal of those pieces and the one that made his name was the Marlboro Man.
This photo was taken from an advert for Marlboro Cigarettes. Although Price is very famous in the genre of Appropriation, he isn’t much of an inspiration to me. When he takes pictures, he doesn’t repurpose them or try to convey a deeper meaning with them. He just steals the images and then lets people make of it what they will. I much prefer artists that have a more active role in the creation and adaption of the photos.
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger has to be my favourite photographer that uses appropriation and her political pictures has inspired some of the work that I created for this Brief. Its a real struggle to chose which picture of hers to put on to this page, as so many of them resinate with me. The way she uses old black and white photos and then reimagines them with bold red banners and white text, its so simple yet so effective. It also doesn’t state the obvious with the text, but rather lets the audience come to their own interpretation of the image. Barbara Kruger has been so influential that its become quite common to see images done in the same style as hers. If someone wants to make a political or satirical statement then they will often do it in the same style of a monochrome photo, red banner and white text. Some of my favourites of Kruger are:
Andy Warhol
Warhol is famous for his involvement in the Pop Art movement of the 1950s. His work however, can be classed as appropriation due to him using images and recreating or editing them in his prints. I drew some inspiration from how Warhol used bright block colours in his art. However the messages that Warhol tries to convey with his works are not clear to me. When looking at appropriation, I liked how some artist used the images they took to subvert the original message of the picture. With Warhol, I am unsure what message he is trying to convey with his art, however I do think that they are very visually stunning, and I definitely like the style of his art.
