The Perfect Plagiarist and the Masters of Art

By Mona Monsefi

The Ludwig Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts are exhibiting some of the most famous masterpieces of art.
The Ludwig is hosting Glenn Brown’s paintings. There have always been stories around Brown’s artworks. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2000 but didn’t win the prize because he was accused of plagiarism. One of his paintings was very similar to a science fiction illustration by Tony Roberts. Brown is an English artist born in 1966. He adheres to the Appropriation Style, which means he adopts, borrows, recycles or samples aspects or the entire form of man-made visual culture to create new artwork. Many critics and artists defended him after the accusation of plagiarism. The chairman of the Turner Prize jury told BBC that the painting was not a form of plagiarism. He said: “Glenn Brown has frequently used the work of other artists in developing his own works, but that is true of Picasso too and this is not new.” He was right. Brown appropriates and borrows images by other artists such as Rembrandt and Salvador Dalí.
The aim of Appropriation is to create a new situation and give new meanings to a familiar object or an existing art work. But it raises the question of originality and copyright. Some professionals argue that as long as you give credit to the original artwork and artist you can recreate their works, but some critics believe that Appropriation Style destroys art. Artists such as Glenn Brown think differently. In 2009, Brown claimed that "to make something up from scratch is nonsensical. It’s impossible to make a painting that is not borrowed , even the images in your dreams refer to reality.”
Now, one has the opportunity to view Brown’s original paintings in the Ludwig Museum. If you go there, be ready; you may find your favorite painting hanging on the wall of the gallery but under the name of Glenn Brown! (Left and below: examples of Brown’s work—the second is deliberately set upside down.)
Another rare opportunity for art-goers is presented by the Degas to Picasso Exhibition: the Museum of Fine Arts is exhibiting fifty-five paintings from Pushkin Museum. They are from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century , the beginning of the Avant-garde. They are outstanding paintings by well-known artists: Degas’ Dancer, Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies, the Tahitian paintings of Gauguin, In the Prison Courtyard by Van Gogh and Picasso’s Harlequin and his Girlfriend.
This collection was hidden away by Stalin in the vaults of the Pushkin and Hermitage museums during the Second World War. Part of it was exhibited in 1978 in Budapest for the first time. It is exhibited now for the second time and no one knows when it will be exhibited again. Viewing the original paintings by masters such as Courbet, Corot, Renoir, Matisse, seeing the trace of their brushes on the canvas, is not something that you can experience whenever you wish. The show runs until 25th of April.