Plagiarism vs Appropriation

Plagiarism vs. Appropriation

By Brian Parker Durnil and Manjun Tan

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism, by definition, is the act of using another person’s words, ideas, or work and passing them off as your own. So, in other words, it is a form of stealing, which is something that seems to be pretty common in the art world, as artists’ have continuously battled other people who have used their work, or took their ideas, and passed them off as their own. In the art world the biggest form of plagiarism is art theft, which is the act of using an existing piece of artwork and passing it off as your own without giving any credibility the source.

One puzzle about art theft is that it often appears to be a crime with no easy rewards to the perpetrator. It often questions the artist's credibility and the pieces authenticity, which can depreciate the value of the piece and ruin  the reputation of the artist that created it, as well as the person that stole it.

Another form of art theft is tracing, or copying, which can often be found in appropriation or imitation of artwork.

Plagiarism and Imitation

    Pablo Picasso has a quote that says "Good artists' copy, great artists' steal." While there is some form of truth to that statement as artists can obtain inspiration from a variety of sources and makes for great practice. Imitation in artwork is a tale as old as time. Even in today's world artists' from all over look back on previous works done by others and imitate various styles and techniques. In an article on USA Art new, it summarizes how artists have used the old masters’ techniques, compositional and color solutions to recreate or create inspired works.

Left: Adolf-William Bouguereau. “The Caught the Butterfly." Right: Nikas Safronov. “Angel”.

One of the benefits in using imitation is that imitation can help an artist develop their own personal style and teach different techniques in creating art, such as painting techniques, drawing, or writing. It can be a great teaching tool, but only if it is used for just that. Teaching. However, there are drawbacks that can come with using imitation. The drawbacks to using imitation is that it can become a crutch in artistic work. Unless the person is applying the technique learned from copying/imitating, then how can that person say that they are learning anything.

Imitation can often be mixed with Appropriation, which is the use of preexisting work with little to no changes to the original piece. If someone were to take an artist’s piece of work, lets say a photograph, manipulate the photograph just a little bit, and sell it off as if the piece of work was their own would that be considered Plagiarism, or Appropriation? The answer would be Plagiarism. By passing off the piece as their own, without any regards of the original piece, and then selling it for a higher price, the artist committed the act of plagiarism. Now, if we were to take that same scenario, but this time add credibility to the original source, that scenario would then become appropriation.

 

Plagiarism vs Appropriation

            The biggest difference between plagiarism and appropriation, is that with plagiarism, the person is just stealing, whereas with appropriation, a person takes for their own personal use. Not to say that appropriation can’t become plagiarism, such as the case with Andy Warhol’s Flowers, who made money off of using a screen print from Patricia Caulfield’s black and white photograph. Or even the case with Jeff Koons who lost the battle of appropriation vs plagiarism back in 2018 over a piece he appropriated. Frank Davidoici, a French Ad Executive, created a campaign titled Fait d’Hiver back in 1985 that was meant for the French clothing line of Naf Naf, but discovered Koons work of the same name, inside the Pompidou Center back in 2014 and laid claim that the American artist had plagiarized his work.

 Left: Frank Davidoici Fait d'Hiver, 1985 Right: Jeff Koon Fait d'Hiver, 2007

In this case, Jeff Koons imitated the composition of Frank’s piece with some variations to it, the biggest one being that in Koons Fait d’Hiver, the woman and pig are not real but rather porcelain figures that are dressed and placed in a similar manner that clearly represents the original work.

 

 Appropriation in Art

Appropriation means borrowing, copying, and altering images or objects that already exist. It is a visual sampling. It appears throughout art history, also in music, TV, advertising, fashion. Artists like to  use each other's work to study and used as inspiration.Raphael's work was used as a model for Velazquez,which also inspired Francis Bacon. Three of paintings show a man's psychological depth at the seat of the church's power.

Rapheal,''Pope Julius II'',1511-12

 

 

Diego Velazquez,''Portrait of Pope Innocent X'', c1650 

France Bacon,''study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope innocent X, 1953

 

 Richard Prince is the ultimate appropriation artist. He is one of the most controversial. His works heavily depend on the works of others. Many images of Richard Prince refined ownership and authorship. `Cowboy'series is well known in the early of 1980s. He re-photographed Marlboro ads and cropped out the text, representing an ideal masculinee figure. 2014,he post 1New Partraits' series, its Instagram images of stangers. He just change the comments.

                                    

left:original Ads     Right:''Untitled(CowBoy)'' Richard Prince,1989

 

      

Richard Prince ''Untitled(Portrait)''。2014

 

                                                      

   Appropriation in Culture

Hari Kunzru’s book “𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘛𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴’’ tells the story of two young white men-Carter and Seth. They both lived in New York, and they met in college. They are very different from each other. Carter has a rich family, Seth lost his mother in the past and has an ordinary family. However, they both love music. Carter makes Seth love African-American music. After their college, they set up a recording studio, and Cater provides financial support. Seth often spends his free time on recording the sound. One day, he listened to his recording, he heard a beautiful blues song, but he doesn’t remember hearing this song during his walk. When Carter listened to this song he is attracted by it, so he remixed the recordings, and upload it to the website. They give the record the name '' Charlie Shaw''. After that, they contacted by a record collector, who believes that Charlie Shaw was a real person and musician.  This book states the current situation of American music and culture: the talented black people's work has been abused by white people, and they have been lived in an unfair social environment. Carter and Seth reproduce the song and fool many listeners. Carter said: "These think this music was made in 1928, but actually we made it. We made it, fools! We made that last week! So who's the expert now? Who knows the tradition? We do! We own that!"(Kunzru, Hari 61). These words showed the arrogant of white people, and use other's work without feeling guilty. Cultural appropriation in the fashion industry has been existing, but cultural appropriation actually has a positive effect on the fashion field.

Nadra Kareem Nittle’s article “𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘐𝘴 𝘞𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨”, explain two words separately that made up the term “Culture Appropriation”. It said that “ Culture is defined as the beliefs, ideas, traditions, speech, and material objects associated with a particular group of people. According to the previous explanation, Appropriation is the illegal, unfair, or unjust taking of something that doesn't belong to you” (Nadra). According to the definition, Cultural appropriation means that the members of the dominant group take cultural achievement from the member of the minority group and take the credit. Also, the dominant group usually doesn’t totally understand the minority group’s tradition, history, traditions. This will cause the public‘s misunderstanding of the minority group’s culture. 

 

Cultural Appropriation In Fashion

    The Chinese designer ''Guo Pei'', she can directly use Chinese elements in her clothes, but designers from other culture cannot use these elements, which will make them have no chance to attach to the diversity culture. The culture cannot be exchanged between the people, culture’s barrier and stereotype will still exist.c Ahmed’s article “𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘍𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘕𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯” stated that “Just as languages grow through the inclusion of foreign words, so too is the network of images, crafts, and references enriched by exchange and appropriation” (Osman). Many fields have been developed and creative, part of the reason is cultural appropriation. So, sometimes cultural appropriation in the fashion industry is acceptable.

                                                 

 

Sources

Magdalia, Artistic Plagiarism, https://sites.psu.edu/magdaliapassionblog/2018/04/12/artistic-plagiarism/, Accessed Sep. 27^th 2020

Polk, Kenneth, Art Theft, https://www.britannica.com/topic/art-theft, Accessed Sep. 27^th 2020

Rea, Naomi, Jeff Koons found guilty of plagiarism, ArtNews: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/jeff-koons-plagiarism-lawsuit-1354876, Accessed Sep. 27^th 2020

https://usaartnews.com/events/fine-art/plagiarism-and-clones-in-the-history-of-painting Accessed Sep. 27^th, 2020