The first photograph I decided to edit for my appropriation brief was Marilyn Monroes famous white dress photography. I knew I wanted to edit something that was very well known and would be recognisable to almost every viewer. I combined the body of Marilyn Monroe to with Kim Kardashians face. I did this because I thought both women were/are very influential and think that both can be considered icons, of different times. I also wanted to create something that could be viewed as a triptych as I think these can be very effective.
The original images:
I then decided to look into politicians, and one of the most famous and iconic to British history being, Winston Churchill. I used a photograph of him doing his famous pose and combined this with David Camerons face. I thought combining an older, iconic politician with our present day one would be interesting in that viewers would be reminded of how times have change and combine what Britain would have been like during his power, and during Camerons.
The original images:
For my final appropriation piece I decided to combine Elvis Presleys body with Justin Biebers face. I think this was my least successful piece as during feedback it wasn’t completely obvious whose body it was. With photos of combinations like this, they need to be really obvious who they’re about and why it’s them. I think i achieved this for my first 2 photos, but this one seemed less successful. I wanted to combine 2 famous singers and during Elvis’s era the was the biggest one there was, and now during todays pop culture, Justin Bieber is one of, if not the most influential singer. If I were to change this I would use a more obvious picture of Elvis Presley, maybe when he’s wearing his iconic white trousers and jacket.
Original images:
In conclusion I enjoyed combining the old and the new celebrities together. My main goal was to show the viewer how the people we admire as an audience have changed. I purposefully picked iconic people from past eras who were, and are still, very admired and combined them with people who are constantly in the media for negative reasons. This could be described as combining the people who were loved, with the people who are hated and how our icons have changed into people who aren’t represented positively.
Yes, Rasta by Richard Prince
