Appropriation Art

In the world of visual art, the word appropriate means to borrow, recycle, adopt, or sample aspects of man-made visual culture. Art Practices involve the appropriation of ideas, symbols, images, objects, etc from popular cultures or other aspects of man made visual or non visual culture. In dealing with appropriation art comes the law of copyright law.  This law contains exclusive rights granted by the law of jurisdiction to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work.  However, there are many exceptions and limitations to these laws to strive to balance the public interest in something.  


The art world is full of many different aspects that have been borrowed or recycled from others works.  If that was not allowed then the art world would be very boring.  Many people find it interesting to see others views on objects or pictures or paintings that others have used before.  

The image above is an example of appropriation art that we actually looked at in class.  Shepard Fairey is an artist that was simply trying to help Obama win the election.  He took the photo of Obama that was taken by photographer Mannie Garcia and used it to base his new art work off of.  Fairey stated in an interview about the controversy over the art that, My Obama poster variations of “HOPE” and “PROGRESS” were obviously not intended to report the news. I created them to generate support for Obama; the point was to capture and synthesize the qualities that made him a leader. The point of the poster is to convince and inspire. It’s a political statement. My Obama poster does not compete with the intent of, or the market for the reference photo."

After reading through what appropriation art consists of and the laws and regulations that come up in talking about it, I feel as though this controversy over the Obama picture above is not necessary.  The artist was simply trying to help Obama win the election and he was showing his support.  Fairey was not trying to steal the photograph and make it his, he was trying to show his support for the Obama campaign and gain others to follow his beliefs.  Although many may argue differently with this conflict, I truely believe that he was not trying to take the work of Mannie Garcia.