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  • Essay / The Use of Appropriation in the Art of Jeff Koons and Barbara Kruger

    Contemporary artists have appropriated past works of art to reuse them to make them more relevant to future society. Postmodernism was a broad movement that developed in the mid-to-late 20th century as a reaction against modernism. It can be said that modernism paved the way for postmodernism. However, while modernism was based on idealism and reason, postmodernism is about skepticism and suspicion of reason. Postmodern art generally causes audiences to question pre-existing theories formulated about art, the social, politics and economics and challenges the idea that there are certainties or universal truths. There are no rules of style in post-modern art except "traditional and typical" and technology has been accepted as a medium. Stereotypes, mass media, comic-book style images, and kitsch become acceptable. There are devices that postmodern artists use: appropriation, parody, pastiche, satire, and irony. Appropriative art is when an artist borrows, adopts, recycles a pre-existing work of art and makes few changes to it, adding or recontextualizing the meaning of the original work of art. Many artists have used appropriation to express how they feel about the social and draw attention to the topic people should pay attention to. Barbara Kruger and Jeff Koon are among those who have succeeded in doing so. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayBarbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist, collage artist, and feminist artist. His famous trademark style is photographic work in which appropriated black and white photographs were taken from magazines with a directive and provocative slogan spelled out in bold white on red to challenge cultural assumptions and challenge the way in which mass media influence the role of women in society. These words about his art introduce ironies into cultural idioms and make the viewer keep these words in their mind. One of his iconic works was “I Shop, Therefore I Am” and is so famous that it was reproduced on items such as a shopping bag and a t-shirt. This image contains a black and white image of a hand and the slogan I buy therefore I is written in white in Futura Bold font in a red rectangle in the middle of the image. The choice of color allows the slogan to stand out and the text has an immediate impact on the audience. The statement “I make my purchases therefore I am” is borrowed from René Descartes’ philosophical statement “I think therefore I am”. The meaning of this statement is that anyone who can simply think already proves their proof of existence. By simply replacing the word "think" with "shop", Barbara used this statement to criticize the fact that people are not seen and judged by what they think, but rather by what they owe, replacing their esteem of oneself by materialistic objects. “I shop, therefore I am” helps express concerns that modern society is moving towards a plastic society where people focus on what they own and their social image rather than what they are and their achievements. An important point here is that the message is even more relevant today than when the artwork was made, because social media is so important in today's society. Jeff Koons is one of America's most popular contemporary artists and his subject matter usually involves the..