Shchetinina N.V. Readymade of Marcel Duchamp and Appropriation in American Art of the 1980s - 2000s: Similarity and Difference

Abstract: The subject of the present research article is the differences between the readymade practice in Marcel Duchamp's creative work and appropriation art. At the present time all researches of appropriation art touch only upon similarities between these two artistic practices. The author of the present article describes differences as well. These differences include: prerequisites for readymade and expansion of appropriation art; importance of the actualization of mass culture images for art through textual field; importance of aesthetica categories for artists and their creative work; and different positions of an artist with regard to his/her creative work. In the course of her research Schetinina has conducted the comparative analysis of similar phenomena in the art of the XXth century which allows to demonstrate their similarities and differences. The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the author demonstrates peculiarities of appropriation as an independent phenomenon in terms of the development of American art of that period. The author describes the following peculiarities of appropriation art that make it different from Marcel Duchamp's readymade: the influence of post-modernist discourse viewing the art of modernism as the object of criticism on the expansion of appropriation art; work with conventions and cliches of culture, mass culture and advertising; creation of works which cannot be fully interpreted either from the linguistic or aesthetic points of view; and typical out-of-subject position of an artist. 

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