Appropriation
My first brief is appropriation, which in this context means using an existing media image that is already in the public domain and re-contextualising, re-coding or transforming them in order to create a series of images with new readings and intentions.
The idea that artwork or images can have more than one meaning is something that is deeply rooted in postmodernism. Appropriation, therefore, can be considered a postmodernist movement as it is a photographer taking existing work and removing the original meaning (determined by its creator) and changing its context to imply new and sometimes contrasting messages.
[www.theartstory.org/definition-postmodernism.htm]
Richard Prince
In a lecture, we were shown images by a controversial appropriation photographer named Richard Prince. Prince has been known to push the boundaries in regards to ownership and copyright laws, using images taken by other photographers without crediting or even acknowledging the creator. His work consists of an existing image that has been manipulated or edited (sometimes very crudely) to change its original context, which then changes the meaning or intention of the photograph.
Prince’s most famous work “Untitled”, which features the Marlboro Cowboy, is a re-framed image of an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes. Prince cropped the image to exclude the text and focus on the cowboy. This piece, along with a large majority of Prince’s work, caused a lot of controversy when it was produced in 1989 due to the lack of effort required to create it and the fact that there were a lot potential buyers who were willing to pay a lot of money. Many believe that it is unfair that Prince was given the credit and was allowed ownership of the work as it wasn’t his photograph to begin with nor did he have permission to use it. However, some people believe that Prince is using the appropriation in this way to comment on how the media industry uses imagery such as this to push clichés onto an unknowing audience. For example, the image above shows how Marlboro uses the symbolic masculine imagery of the cowboy to heavily imply that smoking their brand of cigarettes will make you fit into society’s ideological social expectation of men.
[www.theartstory.org/artist-richard-prince.htm]
Barbra Kruger
“Best known for laying aggressively directive slogans over black-and-white photographs that she finds in magazines, Barbra Kruger developed a visual style that was strongly influenced by her early work as a graphic designer. (…) Informed by feminism, Kruger’s work critiques consumerism and desire, and has appeared on billboards, bus cards, posters and in public parks, train stations and other public places.”
[www.artsy.net/artist/barbra-kruger/biography]
Kruger’s work is known for having political and social messages behind their production. Unlike Prince, she chooses to re-contextualise images by adding text that sums up her political stance. In her more recent and well-known work, the text is white and in a red box that separates it from the image to make it stand out and emphasise the point she is making.
The image above is a commentary on ex-President George Bush’s views on abortion. She uses a simple repetitive slogan to sum up the ex-President’s contradictory views and the way they are placed over the image in red boxes is reminiscent of someone writing on a poster as an act of protest. The message of the image is clear and significantly different from the photograph’s original intention.
Untitled by Barbra Kruger
This is another example of Kruger’s signature style. Again, she uses the red boxes and bold text to clearly convey the message that following leaders blindly can lead to awful atrocities. I also like how the image is used to add even more of an impact on an already powerful statement. Kruger could have used any image of Hitler like a photograph if him at one of is rallies, which is commons used in the media to show a visually aggressive portrayal of him. However, the simplicity of this photograph alongside the way that the text only exposes his key features makes him look more human and ‘normal’, which emphasises that he was a person like everyone else and is not a ‘storybook villain’ that is separate from our reality. Kruger is making the point that anyone could be capable of what he did especially if they have authority over us so we have to be in control of our minds and question what the people in power do and say. That message is laid out clearly and simply in the image above just through the use of text and a pre-existing image.
Ankur Patar
Ankur Patar is a digital artist from India, who recreated Rembrandt’s stolen masterpiece, ‘The Storm’, using Adobe Stock images.
Adobe Stock allowed him to add images and change the colour, warp, resize them and remove the watermark. He used three or four stock images per face and included his own face as a nod to Rembrandt, who also included a self portrait in the original image. He used a mixture of blending techniques on Photoshop to create the piece, which is something I am interested in doing for my images.
My Work
Got Milk?
For my first piece, I wanted to make a statement about the cruelty that animals face every day in order for us to have things that we take for granted. I wanted to include text in a similar way to Barbra Kruger.
I decided that I wanted the focal point to be around and existing logo or slogan from a large company that uses animals. I chose the American advertising campaign ‘Got Milk’, which was created for the California Milk Processor Board in 1993 and has since become a well-known slogan across American and here in the UK. I wanted to create something that changed the meaning of this well-known phrase and made people question whether the poor treatment of animals is worth it.
I found an image online of latest variation of ‘Got Milk?’ and cropped it down so that only the text was visible. I was undecided at first what type of image to find. I wanted it to be striking but I didn’t want to be too graphic as work like Kruger’s used relatively inoffensive images to get her point across, which made it more powerful. I found an image of a cow that was clearly in pain and looked as though it was crying. I then over-layed the ‘Got Milk’ text and resized it.
Not a Costume
For my second appropriation piece, I wanted to play on the term ‘appropriation’. When I originally heard this brief I thought about the appropriation of cultures the effect that has on the people within that culture.
A lot of fashion magazines and costume shops use Native American cultures and clothing as costumes, which shows a lack of respect and a stereotypical outlook towards Native American people. I aimed to highlight the issues with this by taking something that we see a lot (native American people on t-shirts being sold to younger, more privileged teens) and reversing it.
I started by finding an image of a native American woman and a separate image of a woman standing. I used the head of the native American woman and put it to the standing woman so that I had blank clothing that would be easier to edit onto. I struggled to blend the two images together convincingly so instead I began to play around with the fill tool to see what the effect would be. I actually really liked how it looked as it gave the image a drawn, ‘Banksy’ look that worked well his work has a similar tone.
I then found an image of a woman dressed in a native American costume. I cut her away from the background and used the fill tool to create the same effect that I had done before. I was going to leave the image as it was but I felt like it was missing something so I looked at my research and decided to add Kruger-esque text.
I experimented with where I wanted the text as I didn’t want it to take away from the image itself. I originally wanted the text to be at the top or bottom but I found that i looked too cramped so I chose to move the image to the left and then have the text be in a box on the right.
Reflection
I think that I engaged well with this brief as my images have clear messages behind them but aren’t overly explicit in explaining said message. I have used a minimalistic style in both images, which I think suits the themes that they address whilst still being visually interesting. However, I think that the editing of the second image could be a little better as there are areas that are not as neatly filled in and stand out quite obviously in a composition with so few elements. I think that this brief has challenged both my ability to creatively adapt an existing image and my technical skills on Photoshop as it took a lot of trial and error to get to a point that I was happy with.
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