5/16

One question that our professor asked that piqued my interest is: Should art, from different countries, go back to where it originated? And is it cultural appropriation? These questions remind me of a piece of artwork by Barbara Kruger called “Who Owns What?” This work was assigned on a different day, but since it is relevant to today’s post, I chose to use it now. She is an American conceptual artist and collagist. This piece was from the media section of Tate Modern. This art piece has some obvious political themes in it. This art piece is political in general, especially with the question right in the middle. “Who Owns What?” an obvious question about capitalism, in my eyes, and also presently the idea of cultural appropriation and misappropriation. The funny thing is cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture. Cultural appropriation is sometimes portrayed as harmful, framed as cultural misappropriation, and claimed to be a violation of the collective intellectual property rights of the originating culture. Cultural appropriation has value as it brings about education and understanding from different points of view. It’s just when there is a violation of culture that it is misappropriation. If we started going down the rabbit hole of returning artwork where it belonged who’s to say where this “cultural appropriation” reclaiming would stop? Should zoos be affected? Maybe even aquariums? Heck, maybe it could even apply to people buried in cemeteries where they were not born. My point is this question has an obvious answer in my point of view. No and no. As this art piece says “Who Owns What?” One question remains, who owns what art piece?