UC San Diego

This dissertation examines the notion of "appropriation" in contemporary art since the mid-1970s in relation to simultaneous developments in United States intellectual property law. The five chapters analyze specifics art works and legal cases involving the Pictures Generation and late postmodern appropriation art generally, tactical media practices and "post-appropriation" art in the present. U.S. copyright law, trademark law, and artists' moral rights comprise the legal frameworks through which appropriation is understood as both artistic expression and critical gesture. Additionally, critical theory, poststructuralism, new media theory and other scholarship are employed to analyze ideologies of authorship, the status of art in society, and artists' ethical responsibilities. The dissertation begins with simple questions: what is the status of appropriation in contemporary art today? Why has appropriation art seemed to enjoy a status above the law in ways that other cultural expression (e.g., music, documentary film) does not? While describing instances in which appropriation artists have been taken to court over alleged infringements, the chapters ultimately argue that appropriation art as a subversive practice has helped to usher in a new, "postmodern" intellectual property law, in which increased tolerance for creative copying has come at the expense of neutralizing appropriation art's critical power. As the dissertation progresses, the author attempts new ways of defining what form a critical, twenty-first century appropriation art might take