Originality in postmodern art and appropriation in Turkey's art scene

This study goes into the discussions on the concept of originality in postmodern art, and itexamines the method of appropriation met in Turkey's art scene mainly after the 1990s. Inspiration and imitation have always been there in the practice of art; however, it was by modernism when art turned to a kind of reckoning with the past, when it made use of the works of the past, and when it objected to the past to a certain extent. Especially in the 1960s with postmodern repercussions in art, the relation of modernism to the so-called high art and its tone far from the cultural memory were criticised; this criticism brought about an increase in the artists' use of artistic repertoire. This use in question involved sometimes respect, and sometimes an infringing manner. Thus, by challenging the myth of holy artist and holy work of art, artists made this criticism by their own works. In this respect appropriation came out as a method. On discussing the method of appropriation, the study examines kitsch and popular culture as the concepts generated with modernism. The assessment of this imminence in question is crucial to understand and centralise the changes in postmodern art. Within the scope of the study, views on originality in art are included by taking modern art as basically the starting point; the perception of the subject in the postmodern period will be enlarged in detail. Turkey's art scene witnessed the evolution of modern and postmodern art in a quite different way from the West. The examples in Turkey which pioneered – in a way - the method of appropriation before postmodernism in the country are examined in two lines: the will of Turkey for an articulation into the Western art and its will to use its own tradition. The use of appropriation in a postmodern sense began with the works of Nur Koçak in the 1970s when she made use of the popular culture; but actually it was the works of Bedri Baykam and İsmet Doğan that paved the way in the 1980s. Such a tendency intensely witnessed in the 1990s and 2000s is explained in the dissertation through the grouping of the favourite subjects of the artists. Another point mentioned in the study is in which way the originality of a work of art and the concept of appropriation are perceived by the actors in Turkey in the postmodern period. In this context, the concepts of copyright and of plagiarism are also examined.