Jesse Kimotho 1

Art Now
Jesse Kimotho
Art Now: Practices, Theories and Institutions

Appropriation in Postmodern Contemporary Art: An Introduction to Black Art

In recent years, the art world has seen much evolution, chief of this is the advent of the Black

Postmodern Artist. In February 2018, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald unveiled the official

presidential portraits for Barack and Michelle Obama, taking the world by storm because of the

painting’s unusual style and the number of ‘firsts’ surrounding it. Kehinde became the first

African American Artist to paint the first African American president, the painting itself the first

Postmodern work to be introduced to such a formal political scene.

This sudden spotlight on black postmodern artists creates an opportunity for discussion and

analysis of the ‘postmodern’ art world as a space where contemporary African art - developed

within the local (indigenous) and international (Western and European) African context can

exist. To do so, the paper highlights two key works, Kehinde Wiley’s, Napoleon Leading the

Army over the Alps, Oil on canvas, 108” × 108”, and Sanford Biggers’ Laocoön, a conceptual art

piece.

Introduction:

Appropriation in Postmodernism finds its roots in the works of Marcel Duchamp, Dada and

Pablo Picasso (Naumann, 2012). Duchamp was Famous for Fountain, the depiction of a urinal

with the words ‘R. Mutt 1917’ painted at the top. His other works such as Bottle Rack, illustrated

Duchamp’s perception of the readymade, with few alterations made to the source piece.
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Fig.1 A Replica of Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ (1917, replica 1964)

Duchamp during an interview noted that the reason for appropriation was really quite simple: ‘I

was drawing people’s attention to the fact that art is a mirage. A mirage, exactly like an oasis

appears in the desert. It is very beautiful until, of course, you are dying of thirst. But you don’t

die in the field of art. The mirage is solid.’ (Hahn 1964). For Duchamp, the use of an ordinary

store-bought urinal with a signature on it questioned the very ideals of what ‘art’ was. Although

he received harsh criticism for the same (the piece was taken off display by the committee

responsible for exhibition) (Schwarz, 1997), it is this challenging of modernist notions of high art

and low art, the institutionalization of art, and originality that laid the foundation for

appropriation in postmodern work.

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Fast forward to the early 2018 and appropriation has developed as a staple in contemporary art.

This paper looks at appropriation in Postmodern art in view of the portrayal of black people and

culture. Regarding black people as a subject matter, the paper posits the following questions: is

there a correct way to Appropriate work in art? What counts as a successful appropriated art

piece?

Kehinde Wiley

Fig.2 A side by side comparison: Kehinde

Wiley’s ‘Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps’ (2005) and Jacques-Louis David’s

‘Napoleon Crossing the Alps.’ (1801)

Napoleon leading his Army over the Alps, is a rendition of Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon

Crossing the Alps.’ (1801). The painting features a black man in army fatigue and Timberland

boots in an equestrian pose. The foreground for Kehinde’s Paintings is often depicted as hyper-

realistic and dramatic, in this case, an almost exact replica of Jacques-Louis’ work. There are
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stark differences however, names of famous generals are scrawled on top of the rocks in the

bottom left of the painting and the background is entirely made of a brocade fabric motif.

Kehinde’s appropriation is rife with meaning. He uses art styles from the Baroque period, lavish

brocades and gold and maroon colors to represent status and wealth (Murray, 2017). The

juxtaposition of ideas, the replacement of the authoritative figure of Napoleon Bonaparte with a

nondescript black man makes the viewer question the role cast for the average black male today.

The fatigues symbolize the culture of violence perceived amongst black men and are also a nod

to the original idea of Napoleon leading his soldiers to war. The contemporary dress of the black

male in the painting, with its penchant for noise, is a direct allusion to the hip-hop culture of the

black community and paints him as a real living individual today, making him almost seem

familiar.

The brocade, identifiable as a luxurious French fabric invokes notions of wealth and power.

Under close examination, it is possible to observe that Wiley has subtly painted images of sperm

in the background, satirizing the masculinity depicted by the subjects in such classical paintings.

This is also a direct attack on the institutionalism that exists in the art world, determining what

proper works of art should look like. On the ground, next to the names of famous generals such

as Hannibal and Napoleon (as depicted in Jacques-Louis paintings) is the name Williams, Wiley

here forcefully includes black people – denoted using the common Black American name

‘Williams’ – into the historical narrative, where they are often left out, including in the arts

scene. (Case-Leal, 2017)

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Fig.3 Sanford Biggers’ ‘Laocoön’ (2016)

Sanford Biggers

Sanford’s work is a mirror of what a proper understanding of the subject matter does to add

value to the work of art depicted in the contextual scene. Biggers’ work, Laocoön, depicts an

inflatable Fat Albert (a comic character from the show ‘Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids’) also

seeks to provoke questions about race relations and their depictions in art. The sculpture, made

from vinyl, is periodically blown into by a pump linked to a timer, giving the idea of labored

breathing. Biggers’ work akin to Kehinde’s is rife with appropriation. The inflatable sculpture is

made in the likeness of Fat Albert, a character created by Bill Cosby, and is easily recognizable

because it depicts a popular cartoon character. Biggers’ decision to use a character linked to Bill

Cosby, who has been convicted on grounds of sexual assault and battery (CNN, 2018) alludes to

the ‘taint by association’ culture that mars the Western view of black people. Together with the
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deflating sculpture itself, it also loosely refers to the deflating image of Bill Cosby in light of his

recent sexual assault and battery charges(Kim et.al, 2017). Most importantly Fat Albert, in his

prostrate position, is reminiscent to the police shooting of black men in America, more so the

depictions of Michael Brown an 18-year-old youth shot in Missouri. The name of the piece is

also a marker of historical appropriation. Laocoön, was the name of a Trojan priest who warned

the Trojans of the danger that lay in taking the Trojan horse into their city by trying to thrust a

spear into it. Because of interfering with their plans, the gods sent giant snakes to smite him. This

tragic tale can be equated to the system racism that exists and the abuse of authority by killing

black folk. The tale of Laocoön is also symbolic of the pivotal Role Brown’s death in starting

events such as the Ferguson unrest and the Black Lives matter movement.(Ruffin, 2016)

In as much as appropriation can be used in Postmodern art to communicate to the viewer, not all

forms of appropriation have been implemented successfully. Kenneth Goldsmith’s rendition of

Michael Brown’s autopsy entitled ‘The Body of Michael Brown’ was met with heavy backlash.

(Steinhauer, 2015). Goldsmith, who is famous for altering the text in common prose such as

weather and traffic reports, (Wilkinson, 2015) read out an altered autopsy at an art event at

Brown University where he was invited as a speaker. Goldsmith received huge amounts of

backlash due to his utilization of a familiar, powerful yet painful topic to create art.(Louise,

2015) Others riled up against Goldsmith, claiming that he had obtained monetary benefit off

someone else’s pain. (Steinhauer, 2015) In another art piece involving Michael Brown, painter

Ti-Rock Moore who appropriated the murder of Michael Brown as a source for one of her

installation pieces, created an installation piece depicting Brown’s body on the ground after he

was shot dead.

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Fig.4 Ti-Rock Moore’s ‘Angelitos Negros’ (Black Angels) 2016

Ti-Rock who pointedly states that she obtained permission to use Michael Brown as her source

material(Reyes, 2015) received huge backlash, with some saying that:

Memories of Brown's desecrated body are already emblazoned across every home and every

hood and every heart of every black person who has ever realized that this country never loved

us at all. We do not need a 'courageous' white artist to sign her signature on the body of our dead

to understand that." (Savali, 2015).

There are other angles explored within the story linked to overtones of monetary profit - another

piece in the same installation depicted a Confederate flag which protested the shooting at the

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, sold for $4,500

dollars. When asked by Rosemary Reyes, a writer for the Pelican Bomb about selling politically

pointed artwork for profit, Moore replied: “My art is expensive to make. I am very far in the

hole, and it has gotten to the point that I must start making money to be able to make more art.”

(Reyes, 2015)
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The key question that arises here is this: Is there a right way to use Appropriation regarding the

Postmodern? Not necessarily, but there are some practices that are ill-fitted for the arts scene.

One key difference worth noting between the works of Duchamp, Wiley and Biggers, and that of

Moore and Goldsmith is the dissociation of the content and the subject matter.

Clement Greenberg, in his essay, “Towards a Newer Laocoön,” sheds light on what is a clear

difference between the two approaches to appropriation. In his exposition, he dedicates

significant portions of the essay to analyzing the relationship between form and content as well

as the difference between content and subject matter. Greenberg states that, “every work must

have content” but as for subject matter it “is something the artist does or does not have in mind

when he is actually at work.” (Greenberg, 2000) Using this exposition as a guideline and

Biggers’ Laocoön as an example, the content in this case is an inflatable African-American male

lying on his side who wears a red shirt, jeans, and white sneakers. The subject matter includes

the legacy of Bill Cosby (via Fat Albert), Eric Garner, Michael Brown, race relations and

systemic racism (in the form of police brutality). Greenberg’s creates a distinction between what

we see when when we look upon Laocoön and what Biggers is ultimately addressing.

If we were to pass the work of Moore and Goldsmith through the same scope, we see that there is

little nuanced between the content and subject. Goldsmith’s piece is ubiquitous with

dimensionality, naming Brown and the conditions which led to his death as based on the autopsy

report clearly as both the subject and content. Moore’s work itself is an exact replica of Michael

Brown’s body when he died.

Greenberg’s discussion here is representative of the qualities of abstract expressionism and the

potential for a content-less art. Similarly, we can use his arguments to further our understanding
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of ‘successful’ postmodern art. Greenberg here asserts that medium is “discovered to be

physical” and that “painting and sculpture…look what they do.” (Greenberg, 2000). Here he

maintains that a given artwork’s form is dependent on the physical properties of its medium.

Moreover, how the work of art affects the viewer is a function of its form and content.

All in all, the presence of work depicting black culture and people is significant because the art

does work in an institutional system that has historically ignored this work (Case-Leal, 2017).

Kehinde’s paintings – more particularly in works like "Judith and Holofernes" (depicted below)

mainly attack this aspect of modernist art– the institutionalism of the art world.

Fig 5:"Judith and Holofernes”, oil on linen, 2012 by Kehinde Wiley

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All in all, despite works such as those by Goldsmith’s and Moore’s facing backlash, black art has

come across positing black men and women not as symbol of violence or attrition, but rather

symbolic of what Postmodern art really represents. Wiley and Biggers are bending somewhat

violent images from art history to the needs of a world that is reexamining the violent

underpinnings of certain activities that most do not recognize as an issue, to something that all

can relate to.

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Works Cited

Aldridge, Taylor Renee. “Black Bodies, White Cubes: The Problem With Contemporary Art's

Appropriation of Race -.” ARTnews, 11 July 2016, www.artnews.com/2016/07/11/black-

bodies-white-cubes-the-problem-with-contemporary-arts-appropriation-of-race/.

Accessed 2 May 2018.

Camfield, William A., and Marcel Duchamp. Marcel Duchamp, Fountain. Houston Fine Art

Press, 1989.

Case-Leal, James. “Art Statistics.” Art and Representation - Artist Statistics, The City University

of New York, Mar. 2017, www.havenforthedispossessed.org/.

Greenberg, Clementine, and Francis Frascina. “Towards a Newer Laocoön.” Pollock and after:

the Critical Debate, Harper & Row, 1985.

Kim, Kyle, et al. “Bill Cosby: A 50-Year Chronicle of Accusations and Accomplishments.” Los

Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 17 June 2017, www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-

bill-cosby-timeline-htmlstory.html.

Louise, Maryam. “Death Threat For Michael Brown Autopsy Poem - Kenneth Goldsmith

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goldsmith-responds/.

Murray, D. C. “Kehinde Wiley: Splendid Bodies.” Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art,

vol. 2007, no. 21, Jan. 2007, pp. 90–101., doi:10.1215/10757163-21-1-90.

Reyes, Rosemary. “Not Black and White: An Interview with Ti-Rock Moore.” Pelican Bomb, 9

July 2015, pelicanbomb.com/art-review/2015/not-black-and-white-ti-rock-moore.

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Ruffin, Herbert. “ Black Lives Matter: The Growth of a New Social Justice Movement.” Black

Lives Matter: The Growth of a New Social Justice Movement | The Black Past:

Remembered and Reclaimed, BlackPast.org, 18 Dec. 2016,

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movement.

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Duchamp, Delano Greenidge Editions, 2000, pp. 648–650.

Simpson, April. “Michael Brown's Father Says Chicago Exhibit of His Son Is Disgusting.”

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browns-father-says-chicago-exhibit-of-his-son-is-disgusting/.

Steinhauer, Jillian. “Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes Michael Brown Autopsy Report as Poetry.”

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2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/something-borrowed-wilkinson.