Anatomy of Appropriation. Postmodernism, Allegorical Procedures and the Myth
Filip Lipiński (ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY IN POZNAŃ)
The article is an extensive analysis of the postmodern phenomenon of appropriation art in its practical and theoretical context. It focuses on the historical period of the late 1970s and 1980s and the New York Scene of American artists, collectively called the Pictures Generation. It was a moment when artistic practice merged with an insightful critical refl ection inspired by diverse sources such as Walter Benjamin’s theory of allegory, Roland Barthes’s analysis of myth and the idea of „the death of the author” as well as Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction. In the fi rst part of the article I analyze the photographic work of four major female artists – Sherrie Levine, Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger – in terms of the strategies of appropriation they employed. It sets ground for the second part of the article – a detailed „anatomy” of critical discourse and theoretical and historical premises for the emergence or appropriation art with a special focus on the allegory and allegorical procedures discussed in seminal articles by Craig Owens and Benjamin H. Buchloh. It also highlights the relationship between appropriation and the Barthesian understanding of the myth. In the third part I discuss critical reconsiderations of appropriation in terms of subjectivity and its political value. The fi nal section consists of analyses of selected works of appropriation, deconstructing „American myth” in order to demonstrate the above-mentioned political/critical dimension of appropriation. In conclusion, I propose to think about postmodern appropriation not only as an important phenomenon of the past but a still operative, even if at times aporetic, project which sets major coordinates for contemporary art.
The full version of this article is available in Polish in the printed version of Tekstualia and in the on-line subscription.
The sample of Polish version of this article is available here: http://tekstualia.pl/index.php/pl/nasze-numery/277-2-49-2017/artykuly/1409-anatomia-zawlaszczenia-postmodernizm-procedury-alegoryczne-i-mit
