Sarah Sik

    
Sarah Sik
Assistant Professor of Art History, Art Department,
The University of South Dakota

Sarah.Sik@usd.edu
http://www.usd.edu/fine-arts/art/sarah-sik.cfm


Biography

Dr. Sarah Sik received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2010. She specializes in modern European art history, with a secondary focus on Asian and Islamic art and issues of cultural exchange. Her publications include “John Scott Bradstreet: The Minneapolis Crafthouse and the Decorative Arts Revival in the American Northwest,” “Pirated Posters: International Print Politics and the Graphic Art of Maurice Biais,” “Reframing the Modern: National Image and J.M. Olbrich’s Designs for the St.

Performance

“Appropriate Appropriations”
Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century alongside a new flourishing of printed images ushered in the first era of mass media.  While printing efficiently multiplied texts and objects and increased their accessibility, this very reproducibility opened the door for questions concerning the monetary value of the printed image and the intellectual rights of its maker.  The digital age has exponentially increased access to information and has enabled artists to borrow easily and liberally from varied sources, raising not only legal concerns but also questions regarding the social right to cite, parody, and satirize the mass media that bombards our collective imagination.  This new frontier of the information age makes issues related to appropriation and fair use particularly timely subjects for artists, educators and historians.

This interactive panel explores appropriation and fair use across time and place, focusing in particular upon how printmaking intersect with these subjects.  The format for the panel is itself an act of appropriation and homage, modeled on Steve Allen’s PBS series Meeting of the Minds.  Albrecht Dürer (Matthew Presutti), Mary Cassatt (Sarah Whorf), Andy Warhol (Stephen Black), and Jeff Koons (Johntimothy Pizzuto) will participate in a dynamic roundtable discussion with Steva Allen (Sarah Sik) moderating.  The roundtable discussion will be followed by a question-and-answer period open to the audience.