Postproduction- Aproppriation
Draft. For definitive version, see British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (2005), 123-137. Appropriation and Authorship in Contemporary Art Sherri Irvin
Abstract Appropriation art has often been thought to support the view that authorship in art is an outmoded or misguided notion. Through a thought experiment comparing appropriation art to a unique case of artistic forgery, I examine and reject a number of candidates for the distinction that makes artists the authors of their work while forgers are not. The crucial difference is seen to lie in the fact that artists bear ultimate responsibility for whatever objectives they choose to pursue through their work, whereas the forger’s central objectives are determined by the nature of the activity of forgery. Appropriation artists, by revealing that no aspect of the objectives an artist pursues are in fact built in to the concept of art, demonstrated artists’ responsibility for all aspects of their objectives and, hence, of their products. This responsibility is constitutive of authorship and accounts for the interpretability of artworks. Far from undermining the concept of authorship in art, then, the appropriation artists in fact reaffirmed and strengthened it.
I. Introduction What it is that makes an artist the author of an artwork? What does the special relation of authorship, such that the work should be interpreted in
1
terms of the artist’s meanings (or at least in terms of meanings the artist could have had) consist in? Famously, the notion of the author came into question in the 20th century with thinkers like Roland Barthes, who closes his obituary of the author with the suggestion that ‘the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.’1 Michel Foucault agrees, arguing that the concept of the author is a tyrannical one that does little more than restrict the free thinking of readers.2 The 1960s saw the genesis of an artistic trend that seemed to give substance to the theories of
Abstract Appropriation art has often been thought to support the view that authorship in art is an outmoded or misguided notion. Through a thought experiment comparing appropriation art to a unique case of artistic forgery, I examine and reject a number of candidates for the distinction that makes artists the authors of their work while forgers are not. The crucial difference is seen to lie in the fact that artists bear ultimate responsibility for whatever objectives they choose to pursue through their work, whereas the forger’s central objectives are determined by the nature of the activity of forgery. Appropriation artists, by revealing that no aspect of the objectives an artist pursues are in fact built in to the concept of art, demonstrated artists’ responsibility for all aspects of their objectives and, hence, of their products. This responsibility is constitutive of authorship and accounts for the interpretability of artworks. Far from undermining the concept of authorship in art, then, the appropriation artists in fact reaffirmed and strengthened it.
I. Introduction What it is that makes an artist the author of an artwork? What does the special relation of authorship, such that the work should be interpreted in
1
terms of the artist’s meanings (or at least in terms of meanings the artist could have had) consist in? Famously, the notion of the author came into question in the 20th century with thinkers like Roland Barthes, who closes his obituary of the author with the suggestion that ‘the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.’1 Michel Foucault agrees, arguing that the concept of the author is a tyrannical one that does little more than restrict the free thinking of readers.2 The 1960s saw the genesis of an artistic trend that seemed to give substance to the theories of