Discuss how Post Modern artisits, architects or designers have used appropriation to represent cultural and emotional reactions.
"The postmodernists seek to parody and question previous art forms to modernism."
"Postmodernism is not a style or movement but a historical period of art that follows and responds to modernism"
Barbra Kruger is a post modern artist, Kruger appropriates her work. She borrows images from art, advertising and media and using them in a new and interesting ways. Her works such as Untitled, "we have received orders not to move" and Untitled "buy me I'll change your life)
Yasumasa Morimura is a post modern artist who also appropriates her work. She gets normal works and appropriates it to give it a new meaning. For example "Criticism and the Lover A" was a work made by someone else and Morimura appropriated it from its original meaning to a new meaning of her own.
Lin Onus is another post modern artist who uses mixed media and paintings to create his work. He observes other artists contexts and cultures, he doesn't allow his work to be locked into the limitations of his traditional aboriginal art style. For example his art work Fruit Bats, which is mixed media.
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Barbra Kruger, a post modern artist appropriates her work, when we see Kruger's work we either agree or disagree like we would when we read an advertisement on a billboard. We react to her work immediately, what we see on the media is the way we shape our selves. This is what Kruger is reacting against her works are often feminist and political.
An artist is somebody who creates art and then it gets critiqued, an architect designs and creates both appropriate and Barbra Kruger is a post modern artist with her works that use appropriation to represent cultural and emotional reactions.
"My art is committed to the paradox that in using mass-media I am using a source which I despise with which I am at war. In using the images of mass-media I am taking an art from whose motives a debased exploitive and indifferent to human welfare and setting into a totally new moral context"
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In Kruger's work "We have received orders not to move", this work is a figure filling a space touching the frame on two sides and gives a sense of tension. She gets images from the media we see and people agree too and appropriates them to a new meaning showing that you don't need to listen to the media and shows another meaning to the work. Her other work "Buy me I'll change your life" is at the same time humorous and threatening. Another work is "You body is a battleground", which is a political statement about abortion. Kruger's work is always thought-provoking. Her works are appropriated from the media and changed to reflect cultural events and emotion reactions. Kruger combines black and white photographs with texts that appear to consist of words cut from magazines or newspapers While her words have meaning of their own taken together they have further implications. She used elements from mass media to create images that call attention to major social and psychological concerns. Her works are meant to be looked at and then looked again and you either agree or disagree, her works show different sides of arguments. Her works make us immediately react.
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Yasumasa Morimura is a post modern artist who borrows works from the past and creates it in her own way giving it a new meaning, he copies but not exactly the same image as he copied, he would use it and then reproduced it in another from of media like mixed media. Morimura places images of himself in paintings and exhibiting internationally. With his work he displays many of the devices and attitudes of the postmodern style. Such as appropriation, Morimura uses very complex computer technology and reproduction in his works. And appropriates it, also called 'quoting the past' He digitally scans himself into images and creates a new meaning. His works give humour into the works he copies.
"I keep taking photographic self-portraits because of my fascination with being seen."
An artist is somebody who creates art and then it gets critiqued, an architect designs and creates both appropriate and Yasumasa Morimura is a post modern artist with her works that use appropriation to represent cultural and emotional reactions
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In Morimura's work "Criticism and the Lover A" he appropriates this work from another work by using mixed media to place faces onto the orange and apples to create a sense of humour form the previous work which had a more serious subject matter. He copies and instead of using the usual Caucasian faces he used his faces from an Asian background, which is also where he is from and by this it would refer to cultural events and significant events. The art is then left being questioned by the audience which gives an emotional response.
Another work of Morimura is 'Nine Faces' a work where Morimura has again used mixed media to scan his own face onto the faces of the figures surrounding Dr Tulp, in Rembrandt's famous painting 'Dr Nicholas Tulps Anatomy Lesson'. He deliberately appropriated this work because Rembrandt is considered one of the greatest European artists of the western world. Just as Rembrandt was famous for exploring his own portrait, Morimura uses a kind of portraiture to expose how Eastern and Western outlooks both conflict and overlap. His works are usually appropriated which giving different meaning and humour, but changing and recombining of contexts by artists is another importance.By this it responds to using appropriation to represent cultural events and emotional reactions.
The audience is left to question Morimura's work
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Lin Onus another post modern artist who learnt to paint by observing other artists. Onus mixes ideas and images from different contexts and cultures and has not allowed his work to be locked into the traditional limitations of the aboriginal style. His work makes us of various cultures and histories since parts of his compositions may be realistic, while other parts incorporate traditional indigenous images. Onus style is very distinctive with his photo-realist, non aboriginal style converging with traditional Aboriginal techniques. With his work he makes claiming that Australia is Aboriginal land. Onus would make regular trips from Melbourne, where he lived to Ramingining, central Arnhem Land, gaining ideas and inspirations for his art works on the long journey. An artist is somebody who creates art and then it gets critiqued, an architect designs and creates both appropriate and Lin Onus is a post modern artist with his works that use appropriation to represent cultural and emotional reactions.
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In Lin Onus's works Fruit Bats, the Hills hoist, what Onus has done here is that I is a symbol of Australian white suburban living which then has been combined with the traditional Aboriginal colours and linear cross hatched patterns which are present on the bats. The painted surface of the bats contrast with the ready-made object the hills hoist. The spattering of tiny shapes at the base of the hoist is a Arnhem Land Symbol which represents bat droppings. In this work there are strange mixtures of symbols and reality, manufactured objects, nature, different cultures. Also there is element of humour.
In another work called Arafura Swamp he had rectangles of traditional Aboriginal paintings float in a landscape. Here we have an interpretation of landscape which is expressed thought the conventions of beliefs of the Aboriginal and white cultures. Dream time is the representation of Aboriginal art with its symbolic spiritual rich in pattern and from an aerial point of view. The white Western interpretation of the landscape is as 'a window to the world'. By placing the rarrk and spiritual patterning within the white landscape. Onus makes a political statement claiming Australia is as Aboriginal land.
In his works Onus has skilfully combined the two cultures of Australia and Aboriginal and suggests Onus's experiences in belonging to both cultures.
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In conclusion these artists in there own right represent post modernism and reflect on it with there works, that have created an impact and possibly still do make an impact. There works leave audiences arguing the point with negative and positive, they leaving emotional reactions towards the point given and also outline cultural events that have happened in the past. The works are looked up to and give a good sense of meaning especially in Kuger's works which give strong meanings with the media. Morimura's works of appropriation which give humour to previous works and show past cultural events and emotional reactions. And Lin Onus's work combining the two cultures of Australia and Aboriginals into one to create humour and yet emotional impacts.
Theses have by these reflected on post modernism with there own unique impacts into the art world to the audience that sees it.
146/100
Thank you.
