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Appropriation Art

Art
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Art made by reusing existing images, objects, or cultural materials in a new context. It raises questions of authorship, ownership, and meaning.

Detailed Definition
Appropriation art deliberately incorporates preexisting material rather than presenting creation as wholly original. In poetry, it can include quotations, found documents, advertisements, lyrics, archives, or altered canonical texts. The practice may expose assumptions embedded in source material, but it also requires ethical attention to power, attribution, and cultural context. Its artistic force often comes from the contrast between the original source and its new poetic setting.
Example
Example in poetry:
Appropriation art in poetry can involve reshaping found language, such as advertisements, legal documents, or news reports, into a poem; Kenneth Goldsmith's "Day" appropriates and retypes an entire issue of The New York Times, challenging ideas of authorship and poetic creation; Susan Howe often incorporates historical documents and archival fragments, showing how borrowed texts can gain new meanings in poetry; A poet might arrange product slogans into a lyric about consumer desire, while clearly acknowledging the source material
Additional Notes
Appropriation art can illuminate found poetry, quotation, collage, and remix. Discuss both its creative reframing and ethical issues of credit, consent, and cultural power.
Also Known As
Appropriationism Art Appropriation
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