MODULE 8 Cultural Appropriation: Borrowing and Ownership

Site: New Era University Virtual Learning Environment Printed by: Roielyn D. Luzuriaga
Course: GECAAP-18/HUM 1 - Art Appreciation Date: Monday, 15 April 2024, 2:33 PM
Book: MODULE 8 Cultural Appropriation: Borrowing and Ownership
 Table of contents

1. Introduction/Overview

2. Learning Outcomes

3. MODULE 11 Cultural Appropriation: Borrowing and Ownership

3.1. Part II
3.2. Part III
3.3. M11F1
3.4. M11A1
 1. Introduction/Overview

This module aims to provide students the opportunity to examine, experience, critique and even produce works of art that may directly affect
Filipino beliefs, traits and culture. The goal of this module is for the students to understand cultural appropriation, borrowing and ownership
and realize what may be harmful to members of minority cultures, and what can be done to address these issues. Thus, one shall be informed
of the limitations and policies in the consumption of arts as provided by Philippine law.
 2. Learning Outcomes

At the end of the module, the students are expected to:

1. characterize and define narratives, appropriation, borrowings of the artists or

any agency in the art world

2. contextualize classical notable works into a certain theme and comment on a

certain issue, either on a personal or societal level

3. develop students’ artistic ability in any form they would like to appropriate an

Art

4. Discuss how improvisation can make an artwork distinctive and;

5. Identify the issues and problems that can arise because of appropriation of arts.
 3. MODULE 11 Cultural Appropriation: Borrowing and Ownership

What is appropriation in art? Read this first. Click the link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_(art)

History shows that art played a major significant role to capture, record, and communicate events, activities, traditions, and even belief systems
of various groups of people. Ancient civilization have found ways to record events despite the unavailability or limited access to various tools.

Watch and learn from this video clip.

What is Cultural Appropriation?

What is Cultural Appropriation?

Cultural Appropriation can be defined as the unauthorized taking of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine,
traditional medicine, religious symbols etc. especially by those who represent a group in a more powerful political position. Examples of
inappropriate cultural appropriation include using Native Americans as mascots, as in the Washington Redskins football team, dressing up as a
Native American for Halloween, and wearing a Native American headdress at a festival.

Art, Culture, and Appropriation

Artists from many cultures are constantly engaging in cultural appropriation. Picasso famously appropriated motifs which originated in the
work of African carvers. Painters who are members of mainstream Australian culture have employed styles developed by the aboriginal
cultures of Australasia. The jazz and blues styles developed in the context of African-American culture have been appropriated by non-
members of the culture from Bix Beiderbecke to Eric Clapton. Paul Simon has incorporated into his music elements of music from South
Africa’s townships. The American composer Steve Reich has studied with a master drummer from Ghana and the rhythms of Ewe culture have
influenced his compositions. The poet Robert Bringhurst has retold stories produced by members of North American First Nations.
Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan (1814–19) borrows motifs from Hafiz, a Persian poet of the fourteenth century. Novelists such as Tony Hillerman
and W. P. Kinsella have made the native cultures of North America the subject matter of many of their books. A host of filmmakers has done
the same in movies. These include animated movies from Disney’s Peter Pan (1953) to DreamWorks’ Road to El Dorado (2000). Artists are not
the only people to engage in cultural appropriation. Entire artworks have been transferred from one culture to another in variety of ways. Most
famously, Lord Elgin transported the friezes from the Parthenon to Britain. Carvings produced in the context of various indigenous cultures
have found their way into the hands of museums and private collectors around the world.

Each of these sorts of cultural appropriation has sparked controversy and debate. This investigates the ethical and aesthetic issues that arise
when appropriation occurs in the context of the arts. Both aesthetic and ethical arguments have been advanced against the practice of cultural
appropriation of art. One can argue that artworks that are the product of cultural appropriation are bound to be aesthetic failures. Alternatively
one can argue that acts of cultural appropriation are immoral. Aesthetic and moral objections could be combined. The aesthetic failure of
certain artworks may cause them to be wrongly harmful to members of a culture. The work may, for example, misrepresent the originating
culture in a harmful way. Some of these objections are, as we shall see, undoubtedly telling in particular cases. Many acts of cultural
appropriation are, however, morally unobjectionable and some of them result in artworks of great aesthetic value.

A vast literature on cultural appropriation already exists. This is a philosophical inquiry into the moral and aesthetic issues raised by reflection
on cultural appropriation. The debate about cultural appropriation has been conducted almost entirely by lawyers, anthropologists, museum
curators, archaeologists, and artists. Only a few philosophers have contributed to the debate. Philosophers have been remissed in not
participating more. The many difficult and pressing aesthetic and moral issues raised by cultural appropriation cannot be resolved without the
contributions of philosophers. They have the requisite knowledge of normative , moral and aesthetic questions.

Before any progress can be made in addressing the ethical and aesthetic issues raised by the appropriation of artistic products, we need to
have a better understanding of the concept of cultural appropriation. Artworks are only one of a wide range of items that could be subject to
cultural appropriation. Human remains, archaeological finds, anthropological data, scientific knowledge, genetic material, land, religious beliefs,
and a range of other items have all been subject to cultural appropriation. Of course, one cannot adequately discuss the appropriation of art
completely independently of the appropriation of other things. Sometimes appropriated artworks are also archaeological finds. Sometimes the
appropriation of art has a religious dimension. This is so when appropriated items have ritual or spiritual significance in their original cultural
context. Perhaps most importantly, some appropriation of art has to be understood against the background of the appropriation of land. The
appropriation of land from indigenous peoples has resulted in their oppression. Appropriation will tend to be morally suspect when it occurs in
the context of unequal power caused by the appropriation of land. Still, the appropriation of art can be singled out for special attention.

Questions about the definition of art are notoriously difficult. Giving an account of what sorts of items count as artworks is further complicated
if not every culture has the same conception of art. It is even more complicated if some cultures do not employ the concept of art at all.
Anthropologists tell us that every known culture has a conception of objects appreciated for their aesthetic properties, but there is debate
about whether the concept of art is universal.

In discussing the appropriation of art, we will focus on two sorts of activities. The first is appropriation of artistic content by individuals, namely
artists, who regard themselves as engaged in the production of works or performances valuable as objects of aesthetic experience. Artistic
content can include complete works as when a musician performs a composition from another culture or artistic elements. By artistic elements
it means styles, plots, musical themes, motifs, subject matters, genres, and similar items. They are not themselves works of art. Instead they
may be described as the building blocks of works of art. The second sort of activity concerns individuals who appropriate items which they
regard as artworks, that is objects valuable as aesthetic objects. This is the appropriation of tangible works of art by individuals such as Lord
Elgin and many museums. Artists and collectors may be appropriating something that is not regarded as art in its home culture. Again, in
assessing appropriation by artists and others, particularly in giving an ethical assessment, one must bear in mind that artists may be
appropriating something that has more than aesthetic value in its home culture.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘appropriation’ as “The making of a thing private property. . ; taking as one’s own or to one’s own use.”
This entry precisely captures the sense of appropriation which is at stake in this essay. Some performing artists appropriate songs from other
cultures. Some artists take as their subject matter other cultures. Artists take as their own to use styles, motifs, stories, and other artistic
elements. Collectors and museums take as their private property entire works of art. These are all instances of appropriation.

Not all appropriation by artists is cultural appropriation. Almost all artists engage in some sort of appropriation in that they borrow ideas,
motifs, plots, technical devices, and so forth from other artists. In the contemporary artworld, appropriation is often quite self-conscious as
artists borrow, in a manner often described as ‘postmodern’, images from other artists. He has in mind the sort of borrowings in which artists
such as Jeff Koons and Sherri Levine engage. Artists who engage in postmodern appropriation are not, or not necessarily, engaged in cultural
appropriation. Members of one culture take for their own, or for their own use, items produced by a member or members of another culture
(call them insiders). When Robert Bringhurst retells the stories of the great Haida poets, he is taking them as his own to (re)use. Since he is not
a Haida, he is engaged in cultural appropriation. Eric Clapton takes the blues as something for his use. Clapton’s culture is not that in which the
blues originated, so his appropriation is cultural appropriation. Lord Elgin clearly regarded the Parthenon Marbles as something he could take
for his own. Initially, Elgin regarded them as his private property. Only later were the sculptures transferred to the British Museum. Not a Greek,
Elgin’s transfer of the Marbles to Britain was an act of cultural appropriation. As the concept of cultural appropriation is used in this essay, it
does not necessarily carry with it any moral baggage. Someone might prefer to use the concept of cultural appropriation to designate an
objectionable class of transactions. Such people would distinguish cultural appropriation from cultural exchange or cultural borrowing, which
could be unobjectionable.

Continuation on Part II
 3.1. Part II

Types of Cultural Appropriation

Five (5) acts of cultural appropriation

1. Object Appropriation. Object appropriation occurs when the possession of a tangible work of art such as a sculpture or a painting is
transferred from members of one culture to members of another culture. The removal of the friezes from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin is often
regarded as a paradigm case of object appropriation. The transfer of a Native North American totem pole to a European museum would also
be a case of such appropriation. Not all instances of object appropriation are so dramatic. If you were to travel to New Guinea and purchase a
piece of locally produced tourist art, you would have engaged in object appropriation.

2. Content Appropriation. The second sort of item that could be appropriated is intangible. This could be a musical composition, a story, or a
poem. When this sort of appropriation occurs, an artist has made significant reuse of an idea first expressed in the work of an artist from
another culture. A musician who sings the songs of another culture has engaged in content appropriation, as has the writer who retells
stories produced by a culture other than his own. Robert Bringhurst’s versions of Haida myths are examples of content appropriation. Akira
Kurosawa is engaged in content appropriation when he borrows plots from Shakespeare’s plays and reuses them in his films.

3. Style Appropriation. Something less than an entire expression of an artistic idea can be appropriated. Sometimes artists do not reproduce
works produced by another culture, but still take something from that culture. In such cases, artists produce works with stylistic elements in
common with the works of another culture. Musicians who are not a part of African-American culture but who compose original jazz or blues
works can be said to have engaged in appropriation in this sense. Similarly, culturally mainstream Australians who paint in the style of the
aboriginal peoples would be engaged in this sort of appropriation. This sort of activity is a subcategory of content appropriation that may be
called style appropriation.

4. Motif appropriation. Another sort of content appropriation can be identified. This form of appropriation is related to style appropriation but
only basic motifs are appropriated. This sort of appropriation may be called motif appropriation. It occurs when artists are influenced by the
art of a culture other than their own without creating works in the same style. Picasso, for example, appropriated ideas from African carving
in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), but his painting is not in an African style. Similarly, The Green Stripe (1905), by Henri Matisse, is a fauvist
painting, but it self-consciously incorporates certain motifs from African art. In music we can give the examples of Igor Stravinsky (for
example, Piano Rag-Music, 1919) and Darius Milhaud (the jazz fugue in the second section of La Création du Monde, 1923). They were
influenced by the jazz of African-American culture, but the compositions as James O. Young have mentioned are not works in a jazz style.

5. Subject appropriation. A final sort of appropriation can be identified that differs from the other sorts. In many discussions of cultural
appropriation, concerns have been raised about outsiders who represent in their artworks individuals or institutions from another culture.
The Canada Council, the Canadian federal government’s agency for the funding of the arts, recognizes as a form of appropriation “the
depiction of . . . cultures other than one’s own, either in fiction or non-fiction.” When this sort of appropriation occurs no artistic product of a
culture is appropriated. Instead artists appropriate a subject matter, namely another culture or some of its members. Subject appropriation
has sometimes been called ‘voice appropriation’, particularly when outsiders represent the lives of insiders in the first person.

Issues on Cultural Appropriation

Watch and learn from this video clips. Find out whether it shows cultural appreciation or cultural appropriation.
https://slideplayer.com/slide/5718942/ Music and Appropriation

Cultural appropriation, at times also phrased cultural misappropriation, is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture by members
of another culture. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures.

According to critics of the practice, cultural appropriation differs from acculturation, assimilation, or equal cultural exchange in that this
appropriation is a form of colonialism. When cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by members of a dominant culture, these
elements are used outside of their original cultural context—sometimes even against the expressly stated wishes of members of the
originating culture.

Cultural appropriation is considered harmful by various groups and individuals, including Indigenous people working for cultural
preservation, those who advocate for collective intellectual property rights of the originating, minority cultures, and those who have lived or
are living under colonial rule. Often unavoidable when multiple cultures come together, cultural appropriation can include exploitation of
another culture's religious and cultural traditions, fashion, symbols, language, and music.

Those who see this appropriation as exploitative, state that the original meaning of these cultural elements is lost or distorted when they are
removed from their originating cultural contexts, and that such displays are disrespectful or even a form of desecration. Cultural elements
that may have deep meaning to the original culture may be reduced to "exotic" fashion or toys by those from the dominant culture. Kjerstin
Johnson has written that, when this is done, the imitator, "who does not experience that oppression can 'play', temporarily, an 'exotic' other,
without experiencing any of the daily discriminations faced by other cultures". The African-American academic, musician and journalist Greg
Tate argues that appropriation and the "fetishising" of cultures, in fact, alienates those whose culture is being appropriated.
The concept of cultural appropriation has been heavily criticized. Critics note that the concept is often misunderstood or misapplied by the
general public, and that charges of "cultural appropriation" are at times misapplied to situations such as eating food from a variety of cultures
or simply learning about different cultures. Others state that the act of cultural appropriation as it is usually defined does not meaningfully
constitute social harm, or the term lacks conceptual coherence. Still others argue that the term sets arbitrary limits on intellectual freedom,
artists' self-expression, reinforces group divisions, or itself promotes a feeling of enmity or grievance rather than liberation.

Where is the line between fair use and exploitation? Between inspiration and appropriation? Between honoring and commodifying? These are
important questions today as consumers, artists and musicians, product developers, retailers, and regulators try to make decisions about
what is and is not appropriate use of other peoples’ intellectual property.

Many of us show our awareness of intellectual property restrictions when we buy books or pay to download music, knowing that we cannot
duplicate and sell additional copies. But those questions become more difficult to answer when dealing with cultural heritage and
distinguishing between cultural borrowing and appropriation. This is especially the case with indigenous cultural heritage, which is still too
often viewed as public domain.

Continuation on Part III

 3.2. Part III

Ownership of Art

Watch and learn from this video.

https://slideplayer.com/slide/5293436/ Copyright

In some respects, the ownership of art raises no more or no fewer philosophical puzzles than owning any artifact. You may pay an artist to
paint your portrait and pay a carpenter to make you a bed, and the transaction is straightforward. Special issues come up, however, in several
areas: The limits of appropriation of work by one artist by another or the difference between copying and creatively responding to another’s
work; control over the reproduction of the artwork, the right to benefit economically from his or her art; the right of an artist to prevent her works
of art from being mutilated or destroyed; the right of nations or communities to assert ownership over works of art as part of their identity; the
concept of stolen art. Let us consider some of the issues involved.

Appropriation of works of art by other artists has been a vexing concern in recent years, but in some respects the practice of some kind of
appropriation has been commonplace in the history of art. We might prefer to call this links in a chain of inspiration: Virgil was inspired by
Homer, Dante was inspired by Virgil, James Joyce was responding to Homer or Picasso was painting in reply to Velasquez, but there is some
appropriation involved as well. There are clear cases of forgery (van Meegeren forged paintings he attributed to Vermeer) and legitimated
cases of when one artist learns from another and problem cases that are probably best resolved in copyright law rather than in a book on
aesthetics. The other matters also are probably best settled by convention but they do involve the philosophy of property, as when someone
who owns your painting may seek to use a photograph of it for commercial purposes.

It is an interesting point to resolve in owning an artwork: Do you also have free rights to make any use of it at all? As for the question of
national identity and when a work of art is stolen there are clear cases. When the Germans occupied France in the Second World War and
confiscated French masterpieces, these were clearly stolen objects requiring a return to France. Probably the most famous difficult case,
however, in terms of propriety concerns the sculptures from the Parthenon that were removed from Greece by Lord Elgin and are now on
display in the British Museum. Daniel Shapiro offers his overview on the current state of play concerning the sculptures:

“Without question, they belong to and are part of Greece’s identity and inalienable heritage, and are universally recognized as such, including in
their display at the British Museum. But for some, Greek and non-Greek alike, the recognition that the Parthenon’s sculptures are Greek is not
enough. Their return to Greece is sought, even though they can no longer be affixed to the Parthenon and, as in London, should be housed in a
museum. Yet, for those who seek their return, their absence is a loss that is believed to diminish Greece and prevent the sculptures from being
fully appreciated or understood. For others, what Elgin did, if otherwise questionable, at least saved the sculptures from destruction by the
Turks, Greek lime kilns, and other disasters, and preserved them as part of all humanity’s heritage, resulting in increased appreciation and
understanding of ancient Greece.” (Shapiro 1998, 121)

Comprehension Check-up

Answer completely the following questions:

1. What does appropriation mean? cultural appropriation? What art forms are commonly appropriated?

2. When does stealing or misusing a culture exist? How may these issues be properly addressed to government authorities?

3. When may appropriation of artistic works be allowable? Support your answer.

4. What contemporary art forms or art expressions utilize the principle of appropriation?

5. What have you learned about cultural appropriation, borrowing and ownership? Illustrate how they are related with each other.

References:

Cultural Appropriation and the Arts, Young, 2008,pp.1-7 published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd – Academia
- https://www.academia.edu/17884088/Cultural_Appropriation_and_the_Arts

Cultural Appropriation and the Arts, James O. Young, 2008, pp.1-7(PDF file downloaded online
- https://www.academia.edu/17884088/Cultural_Appropriation_and_the_Arts )

Bioneers Organization – Native Appropriations – A 2015 Bioneers Indigeneity Curriculum

https://issuu.com/rigolicreative/docs/cultural_20appropriation_20curricul

A Much-Needed Primer on Cultural Appropriation, Katie J.M Baker 2012 post by Jezebelhttp://jezebel.com/a-much-needed-primer-on-cultural-
appropriation-30768539

Appropriation in Contemporary Art - Inquiries Journalhttp://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1661/appropriation-in-contemporary-art

https://slideplayer.com/slide/5718942/ Music and Appropriation

https://slideplayer.com/slide/5293436/ Copyright

https://slideplayer.com/slide/4409822/ The Politics of Cultural Appropriation and Participatory Culture Part One

Wikipedia
 3.3. M11F1

https://college.neu.edu.ph/mod/forum/view.php?id=62399
 3.4. M11A1

https://college.neu.edu.ph/mod/forum/view.php?id=62413