Explain several different ways in which artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have referred to the work of earlier artists in their own works. Mention specific works and artists to illustrate your points

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Responses will vary depending on the selection of artwork. Consider Sherry Levine's Fountain, which refers to Marcel Duchamp's 1917 Fountain. Her piece is a gleaming bronze version and doesn't reference Duchamp's work in any way. She presents the work as her own, a Postmodern practice known as appropriation. During the 1980s a group known as the Neo-Expressionists recalled the sincerity and emotional intensity of the early 20th-century Expressionist movement. Cubist artists at the beginning of the 20th century imported words into art, and during the 1960s Conceptual art incorporated this concept using juxtaposed words and images in critical spirit, as in Kosuth's One and Three Chairs.