Appropriation

Andy Warhol appropriated popular images, including one of the most popular photographs of Marylin Monroe. He also, in the style of Marcel Duchamp, with his ready-mades, appropriated a soup can, and painted an exact likeness as fine art. His aim was to blur the line between popular, commercial and fine art. He also produced images in reproducible form, to ensure that his art would be available to the masses. However, as time went on, these limited editions became rare and they now fetch remarkable prices. His work was in the vanguard of the Pop Art movement.

Assembly Line Art?
In August 1962, Andy Warhol began to produce paintings using the screenprinting process. He recalls, “The rubber-stamp method I’d been using to repeat images suddenly seemed too homemade; I wanted something stronger that gave more of an assembly-line effect. With silkscreening you pick a photograph, blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across it so the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue. That way you get the same image, slightly different each time. It all sounds so simple—quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. My first experiments with screens were heads of Troy Donahue and Warren Beatty, and then when Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month (August 1962), I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face.” (Andy Warhol, Popism, 1980)

From MoMA website: http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-gold-marilyn-monroe-1962

Marylin Monroe, Original Publicity still from 1953 film Niagara. Photo source: http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-gold-marilyn-monroe-1962

Right: Andy Warhol, Marylin Monroe, 1962-, silk screen images

My base image is an old black and white photograph of myself, taken in the 1970s.

The image is scanned to the computer, and manipulated in Photoshop to add colours similar to Andy Warhol's images.

Helen Lyth, Helen Lyth (after Andy Warhol), 2015.

A picnic with a difference

Manet, Dejeuner sur l'herbe, 1863

Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe, 1863

This painting is an enigma. The original title was Le Bain (The Bath). However, it was later changed to the well-known title, which translates as "Luncheon on the Grass".

It raises questions of gender. Why are the males clothed and the females either naked or scantily clad? There are several other inconsistencies.

Manet's nude woman looks straight at the viewer - a confronting gaze. He later exploited this gaze again in the painting Olympia (1865)- which was considered quite shocking when first produced. Women are often depicted nude - to have the females nude in an everyday scene, while the males are clothed points to a sexualising of the women - and a probable innuendo that they are courtesans rather than ladies.

My appropriation reverses the attire. The males are naked and the foreground female is dressed in modern gym-style gear - she's dressing for herself and in control. The faces remain from the Manet original.

The food has been updated with fast food.

Unhappy with the images available on the internet and my original crude appropriation, I've manipulated the image, in a number of ways, using Photoshop.