Readymade

In this project, you will experience appropriation as a careful conceptual strategy in which the meaning of an original work is altered by you through various means of transformation. What do we mean when we say that? Let’s draw a lesson from art history, a century ago…

When Marcel Duchamp drew on a common postcard image of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, he noticed something:

The curious thing about that moustache and goatee is that when you look at it the Mona Lisa becomes a man. It is not a woman disguised as a man, it is a real man, and that was my discovery without realizing it at that time.

-Marcel Duchamp ¹

Is this a cheap prank or a high concept? The debate still rages a century out, but one thing is clear: Duchamp changed the game. Whether it’s called by the Duchampian term “readymade,” or identified as a “found object,” an “appropriation,” a “remix,” or a “mash-up,” artists have ever since felt free to incorporate the work of other artists in their output.

How can they get away with it? Isn’t it lazy? Isn’t it plagiarism?

Maybe not if it’s done right—which will be your challenge!