This essay examines the problems that have arisen in the continuation of appropriationist art as a means of social commentary. After establishing how artists of the late twentieth century used appropriation to undermine accepted narratives, I consider whether contemporary artists using similar methods today are bringing enough critical vigour to their work. I consult essays by Douglas Crimp and Martha Rosler to evaluate the achievements of Cindy Sherman and highlight the comparative failure of emerging multimedia artist Chloe Wise. I introduce recent critical arguments—including a discussion of Richard Prince’s ‘New Portraits’—to articulate why Wise’s choice of medium weakens her attempt to subvert present-day self-representation. Finally, I contrast Kehinde Wiley as a contemporary appropriationist who successfully dismantles oppressive narratives through portraiture. I have concluded that, in order to meet the criterea laid out by Crimp and Rosler, artists art must first set up and then subvert expectations through selection of source material and considered choice of medium. I will show that the most successful examples of neo-appropriation present an alternative social reality in which repressed experiences, like those of women and black men, are expressed through self-representation.
Appropriationists: The ‘Pictures’ Generation
Appropriation as a movement began in the late 1970s with curator Douglas Crimp’s influential exhibition for Artists Space in New York, which was simply titled ‘Pictures.’ The exhibition, accompanied by Crimp’s essay of the same title, announced a new approach to photography that might now be regarded as postmodern. This approach uses quotation, excerptation, framing, and staging to question the way cultural meaning is constructed through images (Crimp, 1979, p. 87). In addition to the five artists featured in ‘Pictures’ (Brauntuch, Goldstein, Levine, Lango, Smith), other artists gained prominence for engaging with the techniques listed above—not only in photography but in painting and sculpture as well. ‘Appropriationist’ was also used as a loose term to refer to Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and Jeff Koons, who garnered attention for using recognisable objects and symbols in attempt to comment on the mass-media and rampant capitalism of their time. Martha Rosler offers insight into this practice in her essay “Notes on Quotes,” arguing that there is political power in re- appropriating contentious images to suggest alternative socio-political histories. However, Rosler cautions against the dependency of many artists on imitation as a form of critical practice. The ambiguity of the artist’s relationship to appropriated material often tempers its intended irony, and the work that results is a purely aesthetic statement with little political purpose (Rosler, 1982, p.135-142). While Rosler’s inquiry was directed at the ‘Pictures’ generation, her points can be used to gauge the effectiveness of neo-appropriation as a subversive process. The following section considers whether the work of Chloe Wise maintains the principles laid out in Rosler’s essay.
Fig. 1 – Still from Chloe Wise, ‘literally me trailer,’ 2016
Chloe Wise and Cindy Sherman: (De)Constructing Womanhood
Chloe Wise is a Canadian-American artist whose figurative paintings and sculptures have fast attracted commercial success and critical praise in the North American and European art worlds. Since earning her BFA from Concordia University in 2013, Wise has found gallery representation with Almine Rech (New York, London, Paris), Galerie Division (Montreal), and Sébastien Bertrand (Geneva). Notably, she featured in the group show ‘Unrealism’ curated by Jeffrey Deitch and Larry Gagosian during Art Basel Miami Beach 2015. Wise frequently appropriates from social networking sites to explore the way representations of women and carnal pleasure intersect with corporate interests (Rosenzweig, 2016). She has quoted from personal profiles leaked from the consensual cheating network Ashley Madison, enlarged and re- framed sections of Fragonard paintings, and reproduced popular brand logos from the high street and the supermarket alike. In a 2016 video work titled ‘literally me trailer,’ Wise films herself doing pushups alongside one of her self-portraits. A text block appears at the bottom of the video with the phrase: “participating in self-presentation in a way that combines millennial narcissism with historical tradition” (Fig. 1). The font choice and fragmented sentence suggests satire, but the statement is a fair description of Wise’s practice overall. While she may well achieve a sort of fetishised incoherence, the more pertinent question is whether this approach to representation adds a layer of commentary that the banal aesthetic she satirises lacks in its native context. For example, the vanity selfie has transcended social media platforms and is now frequently co-opted in luxury advertising. Wise’s paintings of well-known models (herself included) echo the familiar, aspirational aesthetic that has arguably come to characterise millennial visual language (Fig. 2) in both personal and corporate branding. Defined by an intentional clash of the glamorous and the trivial, the pseudo-cynical philosophy adopted by many millennials fetishises capitalist resistance while remaining safely inside the status quo (Mascatello, 2018). In Wise’s practice, this translates to brash oil paintings of mostly nude women, posing suggestively among bags of junk food, phallic fruits and vegetables, or industrial dairy products (Fig. 3-5). Her subjects’ clothing appears carefully chosen to either heighten the irony of these idle props or look strikingly flamboyant by contrast. Like a Jeff Koons kitsch sculpture, the products in Wise’s portraits are treated as novelties, thrown in as kinky pleasures for the culturally elite. Women are presented as glossy pin-ups, as Wise inflicts an objectifying gaze on her subjects and their ‘snacks’ in equal measure. Does this reframing of visual culture do what Rosler (1982, p. 134) calls for: the “necessary act of making the normal strange,” of liberating aesthetic signifiers from the control of mass-media? To better answer this question, I will use Cindy Sherman as an example of an artist identified by Crimp as an important appropriationist, who likewise fulfils Rosler’s criteria for productive use of the medium.
Fig. 2 – ‘Millennial visual culture.’ Left: mirror selfie from the 2018 Met Gala by model Ashley Graham, featuring models Slick Woods and Adwoa Aboah, and Jordan Dunn. Right: Gucci 2018 advertising campaign
Fig. 3 – Chloe Wise, ‘And everything was true,’ 2017
Fig. 4 – Chloe Wise, ‘Do not go gentle into that Hidden Valley,’ 2017
Fig. 5 – Chloe Wise, ‘O Sweet Spontaneous Earth, I’m Actually Not Obsessed With You Anymore,’ 2016
In the ‘Untitled Film Stills’ series of the late seventies, Sherman takes popular media conventions of female representation and replicates them in photographs using herself as subject. Sherman paraphrases these romanticised notions of womanhood to a point of subtle absurdity, suggesting how far removed certain ingrained tropes (the ‘bored housewife,’ the ‘damsel in distress’) are from actual female experience. As Crimp (1979, p.87) explains, the exact sources of these tropes are of little consequence to the work. Divorced from their origins, Sherman’s replicated film stills expose the underlying structure of signification used to typify women in mass-media (Crimp, 1979, p.85-87). By embodying a different archetype in each image, Sherman subverts the confining nature of this structure and advances the feminist cause of reclaiming agency over female representation. According to Rosler (1982, p.135), manipulating the relationship between prescribed aesthetics and lived experience was crucial to the kind of postmodern, critical engagement that she felt legitimised quoting as a practice. The idea that representation shapes our identity is equally present in Wise’s work. Interestingly, her paintings manage to convey this principle while remaining decidedly tethered to mainstream representations of women. The act of posing seductively with everyday objects, using brand logos or household items to magnify the comparative glamour of one’s appearance, was perhaps subversive when social media first made self-representation accessible to ordinary women. Reflecting on this trend, recent critical essays have argued for the selfie as a performative practice, crediting figures like Kim Kardashian as early adopters whose self-inflicted gaze actively re-appropriates voyeurism (Saltz, 2015). If these claims are indeed valid, does painting in the style of vanity selfies carry the same political weight? Wise has expressed serious concerns about social injustice and corporate irresponsibility, especially towards women. Satire, she says, is her way of countering popular iconographies that reinforce these institutions (Rosenzweig, 2016). While it is difficult to confirm or deny outright the political impact of contemporary art, Rosler (1982, p.140) provides a basis: reproducing exploitative imagery, she says, either through direct quotation or through stylistic appropriation, may in fact reproduce exploitation. Wise’s intentional bathos can then be considered ineffective, as the insertion of industrial food products into the canon of female portraiture does not, as Rosler claims, actively counter dominant iconography but rather reinforces it. One could argue that Sherman’s replicated film stills also reinforce the narrow definitions of womanhood in mass-media. Yet, the crucial difference between Wise and Sherman lies in their choice of references and selection of subjects. As mentioned above, the women featured in Wise’s portraits are models and ‘influencers’ culled from the upper echelons of the internet. She stylises these women to mimic the kind of commercial imagery invented by advertising executives to entice viewers. Sherman, on the other hand, uses only herself—an unknown, fairly average looking woman—as model. Many of her images feature undesirable portrayals of women in typically desirable situations to problematise the status quo. While Wise has found near-instant commercial success, Sherman was largely misunderstood in the art world during her early career. In fact, in 1981, Artforum editor Ingrid Sischy refused to print a series of commissioned photographs for fear of backlash (Cain, 2016). Where Sherman pulls from the bottom of social hierarchies to suggest a new, controversial female viewpoint (Rosler, 1982, p.135), Wise paints in a pre-existing aesthetic that was created and market-tested on social media to appeal to a culturally affluent cross- section of women. This approach has more in common with the quotational irony of pop art (Rosler, 1982, p.136) than with the discerning satire of the original appropriation movement. If nothing else, Wise demonstrates that her generation (and art dealers eager to groom young collectors) has warmly embraced a pseudo-nostalgia for seventies kitsch.
Fig. 6 — Louise Cehofski via Instagram
The Art of Instagram
The distinction between Sherman’s politically potent quotation and Wise’s comparative shortcomings raises the question, ‘What would a critically important use of appropriation in the digital age actually look like?’ Appropriately, Sherman provides an example. In her most recent work, the artist has experimented with digital manipulation in portraits made exclusively for Instagram. Continuing her practice of obscuring the boundary between real life and the theatre of the self (Becker, 2017), Sherman posts these disconcerting self-portraits on her personal Instagram profile. By manipulating the selfie in its regular platform, the artist subverts expectations of self-refinement (filters and retouching tools are built into the app) along with the voyeuristic gaze of its users. Meanwhile, Wise, an internet native, flirts with the grotesque ever so slightly under the pretence of feminism or consumer nihilism, all while remaining safely within the bounds of aspirational self-presentation. She renders what was once a subversive use of social media in a commercialised medium, making her cultural consciousness and technical skill the work’s prevailing statement. The fact that Wise’s works that can be exhibited, sold, and owned should not be ignored. Millennial artist Louise Cehofski similarly explores the relationship between representation and consumerism in her work, but differs in that she uses the selfie as her primary medium to engage these issues (Fig. 6). Richard Prince attempted to commercialise the selfie for his ‘New Portraits’ show at Gagosian Gallery in 2014, but he was scrutinised (not to mention sued) for this blatant commodification. Much like Prince, Chloe Wise has a talent for creating fine art commodities using mainstream aesthetics. While Prince can at least claim to be Postmodern in criticising ‘creativity’ as an aspect of authorship (Rosler, 1982, p.142), Wise might be considered a Structuralist for clinging to composition, colour, and technical skill in painting as her artistic calling cards. Based on this argument, it would be easy to dismiss figurative painting as an inappropriate medium for critical, neo- approriative art. Fortunately, Wise’s contemporary Kehinde Wiley actively interrogates his approriated material to make pointed social and political critques about the conventions of painted portraiture.
Fig. 7 — Left: Kehinde Wiley, ‘Ecce Homo’ (2012) Oil on canvas, 152.4cm x 121.92cm
Right: Chloe Wise, ‘Which Lake Do I Prefer’ (2018) Oil on linen, 182.9cm x 152.4cm
Kehinde Wiley: The Painting of Politics and the Politics of Painting
Kehinde Wiley is an American portrait painter known for his expressive, naturalistic oil paintings of contemporary black male figures. Wiley has been critically praised for his radical repositioning of the stigmatised black male identity, basing his works on the portrait canons of conquerors, kings, and noblemen from Western art history. Wiley’s allegorical depictions of urban black men earned him the admiration of American president Barack Obama, who in 2017 commissioned Wiley to paint the official presidential portrait for the Smithsonian National Gallery in Washington DC. At first glance, Wiley seems to have a great deal in common with Chloe Wise. Both painters question mainstream representations of the objectified groups with whom they identify: Wise investigates the sexualisation of women while Wiley examines the disenfranchisement of the black community. Both artists work in oil paint, using saturated colours, artificial lighting, and a studied sense of composition to present their subjects in a manner that feels ironically traditional yet decidedly of the present. Wiley’s ‘Ecce Homo’ and Wise’s ‘Which Lake Do I Prefer’ (Fig. 7) have several striking visual similarities that in fact reveal the difference between their achievements. The two paintings each present a young man dressed in contemporary streetwear, arms folded, gazing distantly, engulfed in colourful backgrounds that reference some element of historical portraiture: for Wiley, a tapestry-like pattern recalling royal portrait backgrounds; for Wise, a tangle of bodies and hand gestures mimicking renaissance frescos. Both works appear to render contemporary subject matter in a traditional medium. As discussed, Wise’s decision to paint her subjects allows for the creation of art commodities, but Wiley’s choice of medium has a more express purpose: he directly manipulates the medium which he endeavours to critique. Like Cindy Sherman or Louise Cehofski manipulating Instagram on Instagram, Wiley subverts the expectations of painted portraiture by showing people of colour where European nobility traditionally appear. He liberates blackness from the confines of Western representation, suggesting that glory, wealth and power can be just as inherent to the black American experience as the stereotypes (violent, low class, uncultured) used to demoralise it. The political potency of Wiley’s work is perhaps owed to what Rosler (1982, p. 140) calls a vantage point outside the system from which the viewer registers the critique. By altering an existing system of representation rather than replicating it exactly, Wiley hijacks the visual language of prestige to serve “history’s designated losers,” proposing, as Rosler suggests, an “alternative vision” of how things could be (1982, p. 135). This approach stands in contrast to Richard Prince’s ‘New Portraits,’ in which the system being examined is faithfully reproduced, changing the context without offering a point outside from which to analyse things critically. Richard Prince may have indeed rung the death knell for the more literal appropriation that characterised the ‘Pictures’ generation. The US Federal Court rejected Prince’s defence, ruling that the artist had not altered the Instagram screenshots significantly enough to constitute fair use (Graham v. Prince et al, 2017). As such, a neo-appropriative approach necessitates the kind of foothold outside the work that Rosler (1982, p.140) first established in 1982.
Conclusion
Since Donald Crimp first identified it in ‘Pictures,’ appropriation has been a technique of many artists wishing to provide commentary on the politics of representation in mass-media. Artists of the seventies and eighties radically changed conceptions of authorship by using existing systems of signification to trigger new meanings. However, appropriation as a means of social commentary was met with skepticism: Martha Rosler’s 1982 essay “Notes on Quotes,” examined the ‘Pictures’ generation and identified several inherent problems with their approach to critique. The risk of reinforcing oppressive systems by replicating their visual language was a primary concern of Rosler’s, whose arguments exposed the lack of critically that supposedly political artists brought to their work. As appropriation art continues into the twenty-first century, it is important to assess ‘neo-approriationists’ with similar rigour. Analysis of Canadian-American artist Chloe Wise reveals new problems with appropriation in the digital age. Wise, who explores representations of women and consumer politics, falls into the trap of reproducing dominant conventions instead of challenging them. By simulating the visual language of luxury, Wise converts social media trends into fine art commodities, using the medium of painting to refine this aesthetic without properly analysing it. Wise’s achievement appears even more apolitical when compared to an appropriationist like Cindy Sherman, who likewise examines banal conventions in mass-media. Sherman’s subtle satire makes the viewer uncomfortable with their own voyeurism, whereas Wise’s intentional bathos inadvertently rewards it. The absence of an outside vantage point from which to scrutinise the male gaze is problematic in Wise’s work, but painter Kehinde Wiley shows that neo-appropriation can indeed be used critically. Much like in Wise’s work, a fetishised incoherence is central to Wiley’s achievement. Yet, the decision to work in oil paint allows him to directly address the medium at which he directs his critique. By painting contemporary black men in the conventions of prestige portraiture, Wiley uses self-representation to subvert social hierarchies without replicating their oppressiveness.
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New Minds Eye 