‘good artists borrow, great artists steal’- Picasso

What did Picasso mean by this, and how can you use this mantra to

enhance your work?

Development - Appropriation

To appropriate something involves taking

possession of it. In the visual arts, the term

appropriation often refers to the use of

borrowed elements in the creation of new

work.

The borrowed elements may include images, The borrowed elements may include images,

forms or styles from art history or from

popular culture, or materials and techniques

from non-art contexts.

Since the 1980s the term has also referred

more specifically to quoting the work of

another artist to create a new work. The new

work does not actually alter the original per se;

the new work uses the original to create a new

work. In most cases the original remains

accessible as the original, without change.

PicassoHere, Picasso has appropriated (borrowed, and made his own) the form and subject of

Velasquez’s ‘Las Menias’ to create a new work .

Picasso borrowed from this image more than

once to create new works.

In 2003, Mark & Dinos Chapman famously bought and then altered a set of Los Caprichos, - a series of etchings

by Goya. Working on top of the original prints (there are several in circulation) they ‘vandalised’ the original

work, by painting on top of it. In doing this, they literally ‘appropriated’ the work of Goya and made it their

own, placing the original in a different context and creating something new.

The Chapman Brothers

The Chapman Brothers

The Chapman Brothers

The Chapman Brothers appropriated the

work of Goya more than once… and in a

number of different ways.

Great Deeds Against The Dead

by Jake and Dinos Chapman

(1994)

Goya Disasters of War, 1810 - 20

The Chapman Brothers didn’t only

‘appropriate’ from Goya, they have

also worked on top of a number of

Victorian portraits, ‘defacing’ the

original sitter, by giving them a new

and ghostly disguise.

They also worked into a number of

Hitler’s original drawings for the exhibition

‘If Hitler was a hippie, how happy would he be?’

Other examples of ‘appropriation’ in work by the Chapman Brothers

Richard PrinceIn 2005, a Richard Prince photograph of a Marlboro cigarettes advertisement

was auctioned for over $1.2 million - a world record. He photographed the

Marlboro ad without permission removing the identifying marks. In a 1977

essay, Prince proclaimed that he was "practicing without a license" – referring

to his practice of stealing other people's pictures and publishing them as his

own.

Richard Prince

Graham Dolphin Graham Dolphin's work appropriates objects

and icons of the fashion and music industries,

reforming them into assemblages that reveal

the obsessions and formulas underwriting the

temporal world of mass culture.

Text works include: every lyric from the Beatles

back catalogue hand written over the iconic

cover of the White Album. In another text

work, Dolphin takes every word from a single work, Dolphin takes every word from a single

issue of Vogue and scripts them onto a single

page, which has the same dimensions of the

magazine. Film works include: gathering 1,500

images of Kate Moss merged into 60 seconds

and footage of 100 Fashion Shows shown in a

mere 100 seconds.

These compulsive actions transform and

disrupt the surface aspirations of popular

culture and the glamour industry.

Graham Dolphin

Dolphin's drawings compile every 'product'

(shoes, cosmetics, etc.) traced over each

other onto a single page.

The BOUDICCA Animate Editions are the product of a unique

collaboration between Graham Dolphin and the luxury avant-

garde fashion house.

Dolphin uses the medium of etching to create a series of fine

graphic impressions, which explore the aesthetics of the

BOUDICCA Autumn/Winter collection, Animate.

Edition 1 brings together every item from the collection and re-

configures the garments into an intensely layered composition.

Edition 2 takes one item from the collection, The Pleated

Shoulder Jacket '(Vent Jacket)', and gathers then explodes all the

different fabrications that have gone into the garment, creating

a deeply transformative representation.

Graham Dolphin

EDITION 1: BOUDICCA ANIMATE COLLECTED (2005)

The series includes two Editions of the

etchings with additional artwork by

BOUDICCA, and a sound art Edition re-

working every piece of music that went into

the New York show launching the collection.

Graham Dolphin

Dolphin’s text works include: every lyric from

the Beatles back catalogue hand written over

the iconic cover of the White Album, every

word from a single issue of Vogue scripted onto

a single page, (which has the same dimensions

of the magazine).

His Film works include: gathering 1,500 images

of Kate Moss merged into 60 seconds and

footage of 100 Fashion Shows shown in a mere

100 seconds.

Graham Dolphin

These compulsive actions appropriate,

transform and disrupt the surface aspirations

of popular culture and the glamour industry.

Graham Dolphin

Fumie SasabuchiSasabuchi's work tends to draw attention

away from the selling purpose of the

advertisements by turning the models into

displays of human anatomy, or by drawing

complex tatoos on children.

Appropriation in painting

The Painting of Modern Life, an exhibition

featured at the Hayward Gallery in London,

(2007) explored the use and translation

(appropriation) of photographic imagery in

modern art.

Beginning in the 1960s when artists such as Beginning in the 1960s when artists such as

Warhol, Richter and Artschwager, began

making paintings that translated photographic

images taken from newspapers and

advertisements, the exhibition illustrated how

photography has influenced not just the

content but also the technique of painting.

Andy Warhol, Big Electric Chair, 1967.

Elizabeth Peyton

In most the paintings explored in

this exhibition, photography played

a major part, often as a direct

source material. Some are painted

versions of snatched tabloid versions of snatched tabloid

moments rendered in paint, such as

Elizabeth Peyton’s depiction of

Prince Harry at an Arsenal match,

one of the first images to emerge of

the Princes after Diana died.

Elizabeth Peyton, Arsenal (Prince Harry), 1997,

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter’s Woman with Umbrella, a

moving portrait of a distressed woman, is in

fact based on a photograph of a grieving Jackie

Kennedy but could easily be any ordinary

passer-by.

With its basis often in found imagery, Richter’s

work presents a world that is recognisable yet

blurred and slightly out of reach.

“I did not take it [photography] as a subsititute

for reality but as a crutch to help me get to

reality,” a quote by him on the gallery wall

explains.

Gerhard Richter, Woman with Umbrella, 1964,

Liu Xiaodong

Liu Xiaodong’s “A Transsexual

Getting Down Stairs” (2001)

brings to mind both the

changing state of present-day

China as well as Marcel

Duchamp’s “Nude Descending

a Staircase.” Such references

interweave photography and

Liu Xiaodong “A

Transsexual Getting

Down Stairs” (2001) interweave photography and

art history in ways that work

for most of us on a

subconscious level born of an

education in modern art.

Nude descending a staircase no2 1912 by

Marcel Duchamp

Down Stairs” (2001)

Music is not exempt from appropriation either.

In their music video for their song Lemon, U2

pay tribute to the photographer Muybridge.

Groups such as the Nouelle Vague made their

name by covering (appropriating) songs and

remaking them their own distinctive style.

Rappers & DJs sample and remix

other people’s work – appropriating

the elements they find interesting

in other people’s work and turning

them into something new…

… painters and poets

do the same!

Artists – of all varieties are

constantly referencing each

others work in their own,

remixing and refashioning them

to build new ideas from the

foundations of those which

have gone before them.

What will you do?!

Pop ArtPop Art was one of the most revolutionary art

movements of the 20th century. In the 1950s,

a group of artists in Great Britain and the USA,

rather than despising popular culture, gladly

embraced both its imagery and its methods,

using photographs, advertisements, posters,

cartoons and everyday objects to form the

basis of their art. Their audacity at first

scandalized the Establishment, but by the mid-

1960s their work dominated the world art

scene and names such as Andy Warhol, Roy

Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg were Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg were

familiar to many.

Film, art, music, photography,

fashion… They all look to (and steal) from

each other, you can’t detach

yourself from the world – and

the influences – around you.

Skin & BonesThis exhibition at Somerset House highlighted parallels

between practice in fashion and architecture, showing

how both architects and fashion designers have inspired

one another

Fashion & Architecture

It is often mentioned that

fashion is closely related to

art, but some think the

interconnection between

fashion and architecture is

sometimes even stronger.

Alexander McQueen & Sydney Opera House (by Jørn Utzon)

sometimes even stronger.

Here are five examples from

the spring-collections of

2008 and five famous,

exceptional buildings from

the 20th and 21st century.

Balenciaga & Guggenheim-Museum Bilbao (by Frank O. Gehry)

Emilio Pucci & Finca Güell in Barcelona (by Antoni Gaudí)

Akris & Holocaust Memorial Berlin (by Peter Eisenman)

Anne Klein & Unité d’Habitation in Marseille (by Le Corbusier)

‘good artists borrow, great artists steal’- Picasso- Picasso

Artist appropriation: project development and artist development writing

• Take inspiration from your artists and steal – don’t just borrow from their works and ideas.

• Write about and illustrate the ideas, motifs,

techniques etc you find inspiring in your artists’ work techniques etc you find inspiring in your artists’ work

and explain how you’re going to incorporate these

into your work in your artist development writing.

• Ensure you take the concept a step further – there’s no point in copying something – do something different with it – take it somewhere else – DEVELOP your ideas – steal them and make them yours by embedding them into your work.