Julia Curtin: Appropriation Artist

When I was visiting the lens culture website, I came across the artist Julia Curtin, another photographer who uses appropriation in her work. However, rather than just reusing another artist’s work, adjusting the image slightly (or not at all) and altering the context so that it differs from its original state, Cutin uses the photographs to create sculptures! The UK born artist has created three-dimensional photographic sculpture representations or “appropriations” of two-dimensional depression-era photographs taken by the well-known photographers Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange - both photographers that became central in defining aspects of the documentary genre. Curtin deconstructs and subsequently reconstructs the three dimensional models of settlement that are depicted in their original images. The images shown below are a selection from the series which she calls ‘Resettlement’, shown at the LCC BA Photography Degree Show in 2009...

Original image by Walker Evans, 1936

Appropriation by Julia Curtin

Resettlement focuses on the vernacular architecture, the transient, makeshift structures inhabited by the migratory victims of the 1930s Great Depression. - Julia Cutin

Original image by Dorothea Lange

Appropriation by Julia Curtin

In conclusion, I find the work of Julia Curtin aesthetically pleasing. When compared to Sherri Levine’s series, I would presume that Curtin’s 'appropriations' change the appearance and perspective of the original image, rather than its original conceptual idea.