Elaine Sturtevant – The art of appropriating art (en) - a podcast by CastYourArt.com

Elaine Sturtevant – The art of appropriating art
What makes art art? Is there an aura of authenticity? Can a copy be an original? Is it reference or usurpation? Who is the author?

Appropriation, or „the art of repetition“ as an attack on key notions of art history like authorship, originality, creativity and authenticity: American Elaine Sturtevant (1924-2014) is on display with her complete graphic oeuvre of 100 works in the Albertina. She studied and “repeated” the work of artists of pop art like Jasper Johns (Flags), Andy Warhol (Flowers), and Roy Liechtenstein (Hot Dogs), or of the forefather of conceptual art Marcel Duchamp, taking questions about oeuvre, authorship and originality to a new conceptual level. At the same time she undermined the laws of the art market in a subversive way (e.g. an almost identical Warhol for a fraction of the price). In her blending of conceptual and pop art she copied Duchamp’s reproduced reproductions, so copied originals existed next to original originals and original copies as well as copied copies, adding to the confusion. An everyday object transformed into art, a readymade, becomes a work of art after art after art.
The theoretical justification is based on the assumption that decontextualization and repetition of pre-existing material generates a new context, with its own meaning and a new discourse, within which new representative modes are created where the viewer becomes an active agent in the process of production and reception of the artwork. On the one hand there is the moment where an element is removed from its original context becoming an entity and receiving an autonomous meaning, on the other hand there is the moment when we decide to include it in a new context, far from the original one, in order to ascribe a new meaning to it. According to this train of thought, the artist who reassembles the appropriated material adds a surplus of validity and relevance to it. (written by Cem Angeli)
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