The Importance Of Appropriation

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I think that there are and aren’t any limits to ‘appropriation’ in art and design. I think because in art and design, there are different ways that artists use ‘appropriation’. Certain artists use it as their base of inspiration or parody, but there is a limit to appropriating an artwork. It depends on the material used for the artwork that lets it be determined if it is fair enough to say it has been “appropriated” or not. Personally, I thing it is only considered appropriation if the material used and the meaning of the artwork has been changed.

For example, Jeff Koons, he is known for his animal balloon sculptures made out of stainless steel with a mirror surface.

Picture source: http://design-milk.com/a-closer-look-at-jeff-koons/

He took an everyday object and re-created it by changing the material and the size of it. He is best known for his orange balloon dog that was sold at $58million. So far, there aren’t any bad comments about his balloon sculptures as the material he used also intrigues people. Koons once complaint that a gallery infringed his rights by selling bookends that looks exactly like this balloon dog. But as I quote the gallery as they filed a complain for declaratory relief stating “As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain.” But despite being known for his work, Koons has also been sued several times for copyright infringement over the use of other artist’s image and recreating it with minimal changes.

One example would have to be the case of Rodgers Vs Koons.

It is said that he had lost the case because Rodgers owns all copyright to the photograph he took. I persona...

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...ot so successful when they attempt to do it. Although to some artists, copyright isn’t an issue. But how much changes do we have to make to appropriate an art piece, for it to be considered complying with the copyright law. The copyright law protects an artist’s exclusive right to reproduce or authorize others to reproduce the artist’s work. But the copyright law isn’t as strict as we look at it to be because there isn’t such a thing as international copyright law because in different countries, there are different agreements on what a copyright law should be about.

Source credit: http://painting.about.com/cs/artistscopyright/f/copyrightfaq1.htm

http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/04/19/5-famous-copyright-infringement-cases/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Koons#cite_note-104

http://www.owe.com/resources/legalities/30-jeff-koons-copyright-infringement/

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