Appropriation

APPROPRIATION Claudia Doroshenko

Kazimir Malevich’s production of his infamous white on white painting, representing a white square on a white canvas, signifies a partial and symbolic turning point in art history - this sudden distinction of having to reutilize other ideas and concepts instead of having the possibility to invent and create. This process by Malevich was made by the sudden reductive process and use of simple shapes and colors. In today’s world where creation is present, grasping historical artistic signs, and incorporating them into a new formation is a pastiche. Creation is only possible through the reconstruction and combination of ideas. This juxtaposition of concepts is the current baseline for making things today.

Since the late 1970s, creators have realized that creative meaning and categorical elements are constantly changing. Creative producers find interest in the complexity and the layering of an object, through social and cultural influence, as well as through the use of different mediums, instead of just focusing on a single aspect. Many consider Marcel Duchamp the conceptual ringmaster of appropriation. His readymades, for example, re-contextualized everyday objects. Fountain and Bicycle Wheel are his most famous examples of bringing the ordinary into the sacred space of art.

Appropriation thus takes a recognizable object or image and re-contextualizes it. In the new context, the associations that the reader has with the appropriated object are subverted, and they are forced to reexamine their relationship to it.

Helmut Lang, Untitled, 2012.

Courtesy of the Artist and Sperone Westwater, New York.

Helmut Lang, Untitled, 2012.

Courtesy of the Artist and Sperone Westwater, New York.

Helmut Lang, Untitled (detail), 2012.

Courtesy of the Artist and Sperone Westwater, New York.

Helmut Lang: Burry, Dallas Contemporary, Texas, 16 April – 21 August 2016.

Helmut Lang: Burry, Dallas Contemporary, Texas.

Claudia Doroshenko Š 2017, All Rights Reserved.

Design: Alexandra Curington Photography: Kevin Todora Publisher: McNally Jackson, New York Edition: 100 Special Thanks: Helmut Lang, Justine Ludwig, Kevin Todora Cover: Helmut Lang, Untitled, 2012.

Courtesy of the Artist and Sperone Westwater, New York.

Claudia Doroshenko Š 2017