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mingzhi.docxRunning Head: Appropriation and Erasure in Visual Art
Appropriation and Erasure in Visual Art
Appropriation and Erasure in Visual Art
Mingzhi Hu
Dr Hallie Meredith
Fine Art 101
2/16/2019
Appropriation and Erasure in Visual Art
Appropriation is a method used by artists where they borrow or reuse elements that had been used earlier within a new work. It has played a very important role in art’s history. Appropriate in the visual art means to adapt properly, borrow, recycle or sample aspects of human-made visual culture.
On the left is Robert colesscort work, right, Pablo Picasso appropriation
A good example of visual appropriation is a painting that is used to borrow a narrative and a composition from infamous Les demoiselle’s d’avignon by Picasso. Colescott has come up with Picasso’s abstraction as well as Africanism in line with the influences of Europeans (Hummer, 2018).). In terms of color and content, colescott has made this image on his own whilst still making his inspiration clear. There is the historical Piassco’s reference, but this is undeniably the artists own work.
The text above reads” chapter XII- the German censors….idiots…
Erasure involves the creation of art where words from an existing art in the text are erased and as a result forming another work with a new meaning. A perfect example of erasure as a form of visual art is the one that was used in 1827 by the German poet Heine, to criticize the ruling elite during a time when it was almost impossible to ridicule the censors (Seyhan, 2019). Through the creation of a parody Heine shows the idea of censorship that it can only backfire. He uses this method of erasure to effectively pass the information that to censor is idiotic. It is learned from his message that a government which is unable to endure criticism is weak because if it was strong; it would not keep the truth away from the citizens of that particular country.
Similarities of appropriation and erasure
Both of them use preexisting objects or images with a little transformation applied to these objects or images. They are therefore an adaptation or a remake of an already authored work. There is a big connection between the old and the new work.
They are used in bridging the artistic political and economic matters. They, therefore, are tools that have been used as a vehicle of effectively criticizing and changing legal and ethical discourse in regards to cultural matters, economic matters among others.
In both tools of communication, artists use them information of rage of cognitive or symbolic effect where an existing piece of work is rebranded and given new meaning, questions or some new suggestions.
Differences between erasure and appropriation
The big difference between the two is that appropriation is much about the addition of new things in an existing image to give new meaning but erasure is much about the subtraction of the original material to bring out information or to pass certain information to the intended audience. An argument has been put that when artists eliminate elements of their own paintings and add new ones, they are constantly conceding to and contradicting their own points.
Government and military have used this as a method of hiding important information to the outsiders. For example, there are different works that are used to address counterterrorism, abuse of prisoners, among many other burning issues. It is therefore correct to state that this has been used by many activists globally as a tool of passing information t the people and the government about various issues that are burning or issues which need to be addressed for the general benefit of the public.
Seyhan, A. (2019). Heinrich Heine and the World Literary Map: Redressing the Canon. Springe
Hummer, M. (2018). The Appropriation of African Objects in Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
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