Tumbling Like Alice

skyline-sunset-in-my-veins

Allow me ( an Art major) to explain

* as a reminder if used with respect, and not to make a joke of the culture or the people who take part in it, then you have permission to borrow ideas and take inspiration from that culture. Context is important so keep that in mind and create so long as you...

bornabitch-allthedaysandnights

Using art from other cultures as inspiration is NOT cultural appropriation.

Yeah except none of this addresses the existence of power imbalances, which makes your entire premise a MASSIVE false equivalence.

Renaissance artists taking inspiration from Romans/Greeks did not have a harmful impact on Romans/Greeks or their descendants.

The appropriation of traditions in marginalized groups DOES have a harmful impact on the tradition and the members of the culture that practice that traditions.

White people taking from other white people does not even BEGIN to compare to the all-out desecration, misrepresentation and stereotyping of people of color by white people, whether in the visual arts or any other artistic medium.

"…the process of cultural appropriation as it relates to Black music involves not so much a ‘borrowing’ as a virtual ‘strip mining’ of Black musical genius and aesthetic innovation. Although this analogy might appear extreme, it accurately depicts a process in which the essential, social, aesthetic, and economic value of a form or instance of cultural innovation is fundamentally extracted and separated from the collective human host that cultivated it. And arguably this analogy exemplifies the more general manner in which people of color have given their lands, labor, culture, and much of their humanity to the enrichment of Western life." - from Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation

"Cultural appropriation is taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. It’s most likely to be harmful when the source community is a group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.” - from Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law

eta: You're also conflating cultural appropriation with cultural diffusion. Different concepts, honey.

skyline-sunset-in-my-veins

Thanks for point that out, you brought up several points I hadn’t considered.

Perhaps I wasn’t entirely clear here. I’m simply stating that art has is and will always be influenced by other art, trying to say that by making a piece influenced by another culture’s art is culture appropriation is entirely off point because art will undoubtedly always be influenced by the art that came before it.

I do agree with you, when taking without permission occurs there should be some sort of response to combat it however sticking simply to art from generation to generation there is no travesty it simply is what art is. However we need keep in mind that I was speaking of artistic influences in art, especially well known European art.

You bring up a good point, there is cultural appropriation in art when art is taken out of it’s context and warped to perpetuate and promote a negative stereotype. You’ll notice all the examples I used save for the last are western pieces. If one was to delve into African art, Native American art, or pretty much anything other that western art we see that westerners have taken it and warped it beyond what is was suppose to be. That is appropriation and further more destruction.

Now if I were to use say ancient Egyptian influences in my art, knowing the history of Egypt, the historical and artistic influences of it and create a piece of my own I am not desecrating Egyptian culture. If however I took ideas or influence and created a mock Egyptian piece which negated any part of he culture, falsified any part of it’s history or so on then that is no longer art.

My point is on it’s own art and the influence it creates dose not appropriate a culture only when it is warped and stolen dose it do any harm.

Your art, should it draw influence from another culture, should pay respect to that culture not force that culture to pay respect to you.