Pablo Picasso said “good artists copy; great artists steal” . At the same time, Jobstein admitted frankly that he was “shameless about stealing great ideas.” It can be said that today many artists have this mantra in mind.
Work analysis
Next, I looked for some remix cases for analysis:
The first is Picasso’s work, In 1958, Pablo Picasso created a series of paintings that reinterpreted and/or recreated Velázquez’ iconic 1656 painting “Las Meninas.”
He combined his unique style of painting with the image of the girl in the original oil painting to form his own unique painting and give it a more unique meaning.
The next work is from David Carson, who is good at combining the innovation of text layout with existing elements. The above picture is a poster made by combining text layout with Pepsi elements.
And the most typical remix I want to show is this “Crown Hotel (Mona Lisa Black Background)”, a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1982. The work quotes two classic works of Western art which are Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and Edward Manet’s “Olympia” . When the black woman appears as the servant of a naked white-skinned beauty in the picture, it shows latent racism.
Personal thoughts
After appreciating the above works, I have made it clear that remixing is an important part of the creative process, which includes copying, conversion, and recombination. Blackman(2013) said that mixing should be seen as a creative and transformative work, which formed part of the structure of our broader cultural environment. No matter what form it takes, meaningful appropriation remains a key principle of creativity and innovation.
Therefore, I think it is not a problem at all that the elements of creation are not original. As long as you have your own creativity in the process of creation, and can give new meaning to the original work, it is a successful creation.
Reference/Reading list:
Murray, B., 2015. Remixing Culture And Why The Art Of The Mash-Up Matters. [online] Techcrunch.com. Available at: <https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/22/from-artistic-to-technological-mash-up/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACq0LCj9kzJ5We9Ta-1fuiJdZI_CV6WvgJruLxP0mBR5IqZUvYfnIhpsu5RMjwZ7E1ict6VnEpomBUYy7anA60rmgwHX5zMpB7R97_RKYLFZdLsry5I5DqCZ_-IRYb6x6dXI12pKDfHXdXBKKbfAlxSNY6R9j0MyZE7AnqGnPnAe> [Accessed 25 July 2021].
Blackman, B., 2013. Remix In Visual Art | Brad Blackman Fine Art. [online] Bradblackman.com. Available at: <https://bradblackman.com/remix/> [Accessed 25 July 2021].
