To appropriate means to take something for your own and as often synonymous with theft, stealing, taking, or poaching.1 It can also mean a specific amount of money set aside for a specific use such as Appropriations or Budget Bills in Congress.2 In both cases appropriation has connotations of acquiring and or use of a thing, sometimes with permission and sometimes without.
In a 1982 article in The New York Times, Andy Grudberg describes appropriation, or using someone else’s work, and says it may call “…into question modernist orthodoxy concerning originality as well as the entire notion of an avant-garde …” but also might just be theft.3
Appropriation vs Reference
Is all Copying Appropriation?
The copy is the original Examines how copying and the concept of the original may be different in China and other countries.
Articles
- Appropriation
- Citation, Appropriation, and Fair Use: News Genius Picks Up Again Where Failures Left Off
- Seeking references on the ontological basis of ‘cultural appropriation’ to cure my confusion
- Just What is Appropriation in Art? An Historical Overview
- Appropriation (art)
- Cultural Appreciation vs. Cultural Appropriation: Why it Matters
- Cultural Appropriation vs. Appreciation
- Appropriation! When Art (very closely) Inspires Other Art
- Early Examples in Modern Art
- Should We Retire the Concept of Appropriation in Art?
- Appropriated Art of the 21st century
- Art Appropriation and Cultural Appropriation
- Appropriation in Contemporary Art
- 11 Historical Appropriation Art that Redefining Meaning and Challenging Conventions
- The Art of Copying
References
Common Budgetary Terms Explained Congressional Budget Office Publication 57660 PDF ↩︎
Grundberg, Andy. PHOTOGRAPHY VIEW; IN TODAY’S PHOTOGRAPHY, IMITATION ISN’T ALWAYS FLATTERY The New York Times. November 14, 1982, Section 2, Page 31. ↩︎