Appropriation in Postmodernism

Appropriation in PostmodernismDuality is seen a lot around the world.

It is shown in the street, with people and mostly in artworks. Appropriation and post modernism is also seen in artworks and shared with duality. All of these can be found in artworks of famous artists around the world. It is not hidden but sometimes invites the viewer just have to look hard and think to actually understand what they are looking at.

Appropriation and post modernism are two well known words in the art industry. They can be seen in artworks and even used in biographies of artists and their works. To appropriate is to take possession of something. When using Appropriation, artists deliberately copy images to take possession of them in their art. They are not stealing or plagiarizing. They are not passing off these images as their very own.

Appropriation artists want the viewer to recognize the images they copy, and they hope that the viewer will bring all of his/her original associations with the image to the artists new context, be it a painting, a sculpture, a collage, a combine or an entire installation?. The definition of post modernism is that it is any of a number of trends or movements in the? arts and literature developing in the 1970s in reaction to or rejection of the dogma, principles, or practices of established modernism. This shows especially in architecture and the decorative arts running counter to the practice and influence of the International Style and encouraging the use of elements from historical vernacular styles and often playful illusion, decoration, and complexity?. These two meanings fit into each other perfectly in art.

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Historical precedents such as Dada and Surrealism established the idea of “appropriation” early in the century. In visual arts, it is a tool for innovation and is also used in other mediums as well. Leo Steinberg a recognised art historian, acknowledged the brief post-modern era in the beginning of 1972, when artists appropriated historical ideas, imagery, and, especially, authorship, from the history of modern photography and art. Postmodernist discourse was, in part, conceived as a self-referential echo that mirrored the modernist past and reconfirmed the culmination of modernism. Appropriation and post modernism reflect not only in each other but also duality, another concept which is found in a lot of artworks around the world.Duality, a symmetry within a mathematical system such that a theorem remains valid if certain objects, relations, or operations are interchanged, as the? interchange of points and lines in a plane in projective geometry. Duality is not only known is mathematics but is also in art. Duality in art can be shown in many different ways.

It is revealed extremely well in black and white paintings because it is straightforward, same with a soft and textured sculpture of some type. Duality is evident in appropriation by the way the art is presented and what the artwork is actually showing. In the artwork of the Mona Lisa a new appropriation of this piece was made in 1919 and it was alerted that the Mona Lisa would have a moustache and a beard. This particular image is shown as examples of appropriation art around the globe since the Mona Lisa is such a well known artwork. Duality is seen in this picture as reality and fantasy not, and man and woman. Reality and fantasy are the main parts of duality that are found in appropriation art because the pictures or the object is changed to make a new picture or object. There are lots of artists that use this in their artworks and they also use duality to force their meaning across especially well.Gordon Bennett is an artist that uses appropriation, post modernism and duality in his artworks.

Bennett??™s art practice is interdisciplinary and encompasses painting, photography, printmaking, video, performance and installation.? His work is layered and complex and often incorporates images, styles or references drawn from sources such as social history text books, western art history and Indigenous art?. The critical and aesthetic strategies of postmodernism have had significant impact on the development of his art practice. Bennett doesn??™t look at himself as an ???appropriation artist??™ he often describes his own practice of borrowing images as ???quoting??™, Bennett re-contextualises existing images to challenge the viewer to question and see alternative perspectives. He draws on and samples from many artists and traditions to create a new language and a new way of reading these images. Perhaps a re-writing of history is what he sees his artworks to be. This is shown very well in his suit of artworks that were created 15 years ago and never previously shown, the ???Shadow Reflection??™.

The critical and aesthetic strategies of postmodernism have had significant impact on the development of his art practice. ? His work is layered and complex and often incorporates images, styles or references drawn from sources such as social history text books, western art history and Indigenous art. These suits of art also show duality. Duality is shown in many different ways in these works one is that the two different views of the people.

One of the faces are up right and the aboriginal face is upside down, this is seen as duality. Other evidence of duality is the two very different people in the pictures, one is always a white man and the other an aboriginal. Duality is exposed through the ???Shadow Reflection??™ artworks to make the viewer of the artworks to actually think of how different the two people in each painting are. With both appropriation, postmodernism and even duality shown in his artworks it proves that artists do use these in their works and to improve their final works.Another artist that shows all of these in her artworks is Barbara Kruger.

Kruger is interested in graphic design, poetry, writing and she attended poetry reading for her interest in poetry. Her earliest artworks date to 1969. Large woven wall hangings of yarn, beads, sequences, feathers, and ribbons, were some of her early artwork ideas these works all exemplified the feminist recuperation of craft. Her more recent artworks are the famous black and white photographs with overlaid captions set in white on red Futura Bold Oblique.

She uses juxtaposes imagery with text containing criticism of sexism/ misogyny and cultural power structures. When it comes to the other details in her art there are the three, appropriation, postmodernism and duality. When the artwork ???Untitled??™, (Your Body Is a Battleground) 1989 is explored the view of appropriation, postmodernism and duality can be seen. Duality is a part of this work with the play of positive and negative space between the two halves of the image, highlighting ideas of positive versus negative, white versus black, good versus bad. The juxtaposition of? this image superimposes the disembodied voice of patriarchal authority, the expressed bold face, with a ???found??™ image provides a counter representation of women from a feminist perspective. The use of appropriation is used in Kruger??™s artwork with the photograph of the woman and the sticking of the words onto the face to enhance the overall piece.

Adding the words ???Your Body Is a Battleground??? makes the viewer of the artwork think about totally different things to do with this piece instead of just looking at the woman??™s face without the words. With the use of postmodernism, appropriation and duality in this artwork of Barbara Kruger??™s it shows that these work together to make a wonderful outcome to the artist work.Duality is seen a lot around the world. It is shown in the street, with people and mostly in artworks. Appropriation and post modernism is also seen in artworks and shared with duality. All of these can be found in artworks of famous artists around the world.

With the evidence of Gordon Bennett??™s and Barbara Kruger??™s artworks it can easily be seen that postmodernism, appropriation and duality can work together in one artwork to create a ???work of art??™ . Both of these artist use postmodernism and appropriation in different ways however, I do believe that Bennett and Kruger??™s accomplishments signified the uniqueness of art, and their significant contribution through their works had produced to the broader frameworks of postmodernism; it is also applied by today art.

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