6.Appropriation + artists

Appropriation:

Appropriation art means 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, forms or styles from art history or from popular culture, or materials and techniques from non-art contexts. Since the 1980's the term has also referred more specifically to quoting the work of another artist to create a new work. The new work may not alter the original.

Yasumasa Morimura 森村 泰昌:

Yasumasa Mormura born June 11 1951 is a Japanese appropriation artist. He was born in Osaka and graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in 1978. Since 1985, Yasumasa Morimura has primarily shown his work in international solo exhibitions, although he has been involved in various group exhibitions. Mormimura borros images from historical artists ranging from Edouard Manet to Rembrandt to Cindy Sherman and inserts his own face and body into them.

Self portrait after Marilyn Monroe, 1996

An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo

Cindy Sherman:

Cindy Sherman born January 19, 1954 is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. Through a number of different series of works, Sherman has raised challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society, the media and the nature of the creation of art.

Untitled Film still #6

Untitled 96

The early seventies was a vital time for women artists as the feminist movement encouraged them to develop personal art that dealt with their stories, their bodies, and their relationships. The culture was also in the grip of the "me" decade which spawned countless self-help groups urging people to focus on how they were marginalized by their race, gender or sexual preference.

Sherman, who combined elements from each of these social and art movements when she created a series of movie stills, staring none other than herself. She was always alone, often in disguise, so that she became everyone and no one. Though this series of black and white pictures are untitled, the audience is seduced in to filling in the story.

Sherman used clothes, props and furniture to indicate the low social class of the women she portrayed, while situation herself in bland, tacky or sterile rooms that quote from Dian Arbus' work. Her work contains echoes of real films, seeming to satirize scenes from famous movies.

I suppose to make an image a legitimate appropriation is that you give the past image a new meaning but still incorporating the elements within the image and enhancing it but using it for present situations.

more Cindy Sherman photographs @ http://www.cindysherman.com/art.shtml