Creative Assignment 1

 La Condition Humaine, 1933, René Magritte

Telephone Pole, 1982, David Hockney

The first image I chose to appropriate was La Condition Humaine, 1933 by René Magritte. Magritte was a Belgian Surrealist painter. Before this, he spent many years as a commercial artist, creating advertisings and book designs, the influence of which you can see in the illustrative elements of his work. As a surrealist painter, he was very interested in window paintings, and paintings within paintings, which can both be seen in La Condition Humaine. The title, which translates to “The Human Condition”, refers to human brain seeing the painting in the painting and wanting to believe that it is an accurate depiction of what is behind it, but in reality, because the entire this is a painting, no one can say that either is an accurate representation.

            I chose this piece because of the surrealist idea Magritte uses of images within images that play mind games. In my appropriation, I wanted to create the same idea but in modern times, which I why I used a computer monitor instead of a canvas. I also changed the image on the computer to not exactly match the world outside the window. I added fountain that anyone familiar with Purdue would know doesn’t belong, but someone who doesn’t know Purdue well might believe it is the reality.  

            The second image I chose to appropriate was Telephone Pole, 1982 by David Hockney. Hockney started off as one of the original British Pop Artists in the 1960’s. He began experimenting with photography in the 1970’s, bringing in abstract qualities from his previous work by creating photocollages. In his collages, he pushes the two-dimensionality of photography and shows the subject in action and from multiple views, giving the image a cubist flair.

            Though Telephone Pole doesn’t show movement, I really liked how it put the space together in a very abstract way. I took this aspect and attempted to make it more cubist by constructing a space made of photographs from different views. I also wanted to add to the space by placing the fountain directly next to the Bell Tower and including details like the light post and my feet at the bottom, which can be seen in Hockney’s original.

Magritte Appropriation

Hockney Appropriation