The concept of originality emerged as a core value of modernity and modern art in particular. Legal frameworks of intellectual property—which not only limit artists’ capacity to engage in practices of appropriation, but also condition our expectations regarding the creative value of appropriation—also came to prominence across multiple national contexts in the 20th century. For centuries prior, however, practices of visual culture had been rooted in continuity and quotation, principles that continue to guide Indigenous practices of visual culture across the globe. From the outright copying of Greek statues in the Roman Empire to Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol’s “irreverent” reinterpretations of Renaissance paintings, the Western art canon is replete with examples of “visual citation.” In this lecture, Kelley Tialiou, Curator of Art & Visual Culture at The Reach, will explore a wide range of visual citation strategies and the roles they play in the work of global contemporary artists such as Kathleen Gilje, the Guerrilla Girls, Michael Te Rakato Parekōwhai, Yinka Shonibare, and Kehinde Wiley, as well as Art on Demand 11.1 artist Alex Sandvoss.
