The Phenomenon of Reproduction of Art Object with the Concept of Appropriation

The concept of appropriation, which is one of the concepts used in various fields such as environmental psychology, law, sociology etc., is observed to have established close bonds with the cultural appropriation when its relationship with the art is examined. Conceptualized as reproducing the work of another artist and owning and appropriating such reproduced work in the field of art especially in the 1980s, the term of appropriation has opened a new area of discussion for concepts such as belonging and originality in the artworks of that time. In social psychology, the concept of appropriation is used with the meaning of adoption of a space/object as a result of the close relationship established with that space or object. In this context, it is observed that this term is in a close relationship with today’s understanding of art. In this study, the concept of appropriation will be examined based on the examples of “appropriation art” which exist in the art literature and where the existing works of art are reproduced. Then, as an alternative to the equivalent of the concept of appropriation in the art literature, the works in which the appropriated objects/spaces are reproduced as an artwork will be discussed. Considering the examples given, it is observed that the concept of appropriation creates an area of discussion about artist identity in the work of art. It can be suggested that the work of art that is reproduced in the examples of appropriation art makes the identity of artist less distinctive or otherwise emphasizes it in a new context, while the term of appropriation used in the context of social psychology brings together the audience with special objects or spaces for the artist and compares the audience with the elements that stick in the artist’s memory and contribute to his/her identity