Borrowing Without Giving Back

Cultural appropriation takes place because a cultural trait, practice, or object is used in a way that decontextualizes instead of complexifying it, that simplifies instead of enriching it; ultimately, it’s an act of power. 
— Stéphane Martelly 

Appropriation art, for its part, seeks not to erase relations of power but to underline them. 
— Jean-Philippe Uzel 

The first instances of artistic appropriation in contemporary art go back to the 1960s and 1970s and the work of Elaine Sturtevant, who set the scene for artists interested in questions of authorship and intellectual property. Fully embraced, though not without legal consequences, these acts of appropriation are generally part of thinking critically about the art world. In contrast, cultural appropriation refers to the takeover of cultural codes, for commercial profit for example, or to the gestures of artists who intend to pay homage to a culture yet do not realize or recognize the resulting appropriation. By juxtaposing these two notions here, we wish to reveal what sets them apart.