“That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself.”
Art in and of itself is a loosely defined term and it is my belief that nothing past, present, or future, can claim a title of being completely original. My beliefs lie in parallel to Jonathan Lethem, author of “The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism,” where he argues that our society is fueled by plagiarism, but not in the same context that our college professors warn us about, i.e. blatantly plagiarizing to your sole benefit. Instead, our society is constantly thinking of new ideas to be used and turned into a reality, but the matter of the fact is that ideas are constantly being reused over and over. Specifically, street-art is a genre of art that has grown exponentially not only in fans and enthusiasts, but artists themselves due to the ease of access and low cost of material. The majority of street-art stencils originate from existing photos and are slightly (often times offensively) altered to portray the ‘artist’s’ twist on the original. Do you think the street-artist gives credit to the original artist? Can the street-artist’s representation still be appreciated? Hopefully, you will have two different answers to this question.
Pictured is a piece done by Andy Warhol portraying Marilyn Monroe:
and here is a piece by Mister Brainwash (MBW)
* A print of this ‘creation’ by MBW is listed on eBay for $3000.
Yeah, go on and check, I can wait.
Lethem also writes, “I also came of age swamped by parodies that stood for originals yet mysterious to me—I knew Monkees before Beatles, Belmondo before Bogart, and “remember” the movie Summer of ’42 from aMad magazine satire, though I’ve still never seen the film itself.” This statement justifies to me why I always heard old(er) people tell me “the music you kids listen to is a bunch of crap!” Well, that’s because they’ve likely heard it before, years ago, and it probably was much better in a purer sense of music.
Lastly, I’d like to include a link to a personal favorite series of videos on the web called “Everything is a Remix” which basically sums up Lethem’s article into a video (much easier to watch a video than read an article when you’re still hungover from the night prior too…wait what)
http://www.everythingisaremix.info/
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8bG9AbfwM
^- An ‘original’ composition of clips from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” being played simultaneously with 30 other films to show the similarities between the quadruple Oscar winner and lesser known, older films.
Link to actual 3-Part “Everything is a Remix” series
The author of this essay is Jonathan Lethem, an accomplished writer with many published works of both fiction and extensive essays. His most recent publishing, The Ecstasy of Influence, Nonfictions, etc. is described best by Lethem himself:
A constellation of previously published pieces and new essays as provocative and idiosyncratic as any he’s written, this volume sheds light on an array of topics from sex in cinema to drugs, graffiti, Bob Dylan, cyberculture, 9/11, book touring, and Marlon Brando, as well as on a shelf’s worth of his literary models and contemporaries: Norman Mailer, Paula Fox, Bret Easton Ellis, James Wood, and others. And, writing about Brooklyn, his father, and his sojourn through two decades of writing, Lethem sheds an equally strong light on himself.
The above excerpt was completely and shamelessly ‘plagiarized’ from Lethem’s site: http://jonathanlethem.com
Bibliography:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387
http://jonathanlethem.com/ecstasyofinfluence.html
