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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Books on the history of appropriation and "free culture" in art

  
 
TeN
04:05 / 26.10.06
Not quite sure if this is the right thread for this...

I want to do some reading on appropriation art and it's historical roots, as well as the historical roots of other "free culture" issues in art, such as: anonymity/authorship, intellectual property (not in a strictly legal sense, but a cultural one as well), and mass-production/distribution.

I'm interested in reading something VERY broad in scope - from the Roman copying of Greek statues to the works of Sherrie Levine and Elmyr de Hory; from the invention of the Gutenberg press to the rise of filesharing; from Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction to Andy Warhol's mass produced art works and art works of mass produced things; from the first instances of art works being attributed to their creators in Ancient Greece to Neoism's experiments with anonymity and shared identity.

Are there any works you know of that cover such a broad spectrum of topics? Or at least touch on several of them?

I'm having a hard time finding even a decent book dealing with appropriation art more specifically (i.e. an overview of modern/contemporary appropriation art and it's practitioners): something that deals with appropriation art in the way that art history books on cubism deal with cubism, etc. I'd be interested in anything along those lines as well.
 
 
Glenn Close But No Cigar
11:49 / 01.11.06
I can't think of a single work off the top of my head, but I'd imagine any book on NYC art in the 1980s would cover this issue - the work of the artist Ashley Bickerton would be a useful starting point.

Also, there's a wonderful late '90s / early 21st C. work by the French artists Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno named 'The AnnLee project', in which they bought a no-mark Anime character from a Japanese animation company, and 'gave' her (in the manner of open source soft-ware, of Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius) to other artists to use. The project concluded with them awarding AnnLee legal possession of her own copyright.

Last year's Tate Triennial focused on Appropriation Art today. The catalogue might be worth a look.
 
 
TeN
02:00 / 02.01.07
thanks, I'll definitely check out that catalogue
I'm also considering purchasing some books on Richard Prince and Laurie Simmons, as well as Stewart Home's books on Neoism and The Fesitval of Plagiarism
anyone know of anything else?



unsatisfied with the lack of material directly focusing on this topic, I've done some research myself and compiled a list of notes
it's written almost as if it were plans for chapters in a book. this of course is a pipe-dream: I don't claim to know enough about the topic, or art history, or contemporary art, not to mention be a talented enough writer, to write something so extensive on the topic
I guess these are more like the notes toward the creation of the book I'd like to read
as these notes were originally intended for my own amusement, I understand they might be a bit confusing. it might be helpful to know that some of them are grouped in a rough attempt at creative heritage (mostly my mind making connections which may or may not be historically valid) and that the entire thing is more or less semi-chronological
I'm posting this here because maybe others are interested, and hopefully this might clarify what exactly I'm talking about and/or spark others to think of more examples

- the first instances of art works being attributed to their creators in Ancient Greece
- Roman copying of Greek statues
- Navajo blankets (pg 109 of Harold Rosenberg's The De-Definition of Art)
- Shakespeare's reworking of previous texts
- patchwork [quilts]
- invention of the printing press
- invention of the assembly line
- art forgery (Elmyr de Hory; etc.)
- money art / counterfeiting (J.S.G. Boggs; Otis Kaye; Emanuel Ninger)
- trompe-l'œil (John F. Peto; William Harnett; John Haberle; etc.)
- history of copyright law
- Pablo Piccaso and Georges Braque's use of collage and found materials
- Marcel Duchamp
- "The German critic Walter Benjamin envisioned a book composed entirely of assembled quotations from other authors." (The 41 Curses, Crises and Conspiracies of Everyday Life [http://notbored.org/audio.html])
- Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
- SI's "detournement" -> AdBuster's "subvertising"
- cut-up technique: Tristan Tzara -> Guy Debord's "Memories" -> Brion Gysin -> William S. Burroughs -> Genesis P-Orridge -> Keith Haring's Post headline cutups -> spam poetry
- Industrial Painting
- pop art (Jasper Johns; Robert Rauschenberg; Richard Hamilton; Claes Oldenburg; etc.)
- Roy Lichtenstein
- Andy Warhol
- outsider art (Henry Darger's "tracing, collage, [and] photo-enlargement from popular magazines and children's books"; Daniel Jonston's obsession with Casper and Captain America; etc.)
- lowbrow art / pop surrealism
- Neoism and Stewart Home's Festivals of Plagiarism
- street art / graffiti (Shepard Fairey's appropriation of André the Giant; etc.)
- sampling / hip-hop
- sound collage / plunderphonics (Negativland; John Oswald; Christian Marclay; The KLF; etc.)
- bastard pop / mashups
- Richard Prince
- Sherrie Levine
- Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin
- the internet and p2p
- copy-left, open source, and Creative Commons
- Wikipedia
- Illegal Art exhibit
- Tate Triennial 2006
- Brandon Bird
- Cory Arcangel
- Paper Rad
- Grant Wiggins
- Triple Candie's "Candy Noland Approximately" and "David Hammons: The Unauthorized Retrospective"
- Bill Barminski
- Ray Beldner
 
 
TeN
02:30 / 02.01.07
wow
I've already found something to add to the list:
http://www.aftersherrielevine.com/
http://www.afterwalkerevans.com/
 
 
unbecoming
08:09 / 02.01.07
Jeff koons' work would provide an interesting alternative viewpoint to the issue since he often approaches the brands which he uses for permission, situating himself outside the notion of appropriation as a underground, subvertive force.


This is a subject i'm really interested in; i wrote an essay back at uni that was about those issues in relation to a painter called Dexter Dalwood. see here
There's a poor quality image here

you could also think about the underground sixties cartoonists the "Air Pirates" who appropriated the disney style ands were subsequently sued for millions of dollars

the book about it is entitled "The Pirates and the Mouse"
 
 
unbecoming
08:13 / 02.01.07
btw thanks for the list, there's alot on there i need to look at.
 
  
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