In abstract art, how do you tell original from derivative?

Answer 1

What makes an artwork original vs derivative? When an artist makes derivative work, they are closely imitating another artist's work. Making derivative work is not a creative act. Original work is creative regardless of influences or appropriation. I mention influences and appropriation because artists don't exist in a vacuum; the art they look at and think about is bound to come through in their work.

In a broader sense, the only way to recognize if art (abstract or otherwise) is derivative is to look at as much art as possible, past and present. If an artist copies Basquiat but you aren't familiar with Basquiat's work, you won't recognize that the work is derivative of Basquiat. But once you learn about Basquiat, you will start to recognize the artists who rip him off as well as the artists who have been influenced by him.

To go a little deeper, I'm going to quote a fantastic article by Dennis Zhou from Hyperallergic about the influence of pre-Colombian art on the famous and celebrated abstract artist Josef Albers:

"In a letter to his Bauhaus colleague Wassily Kandinsky, Albers writes that Mexico “is truly the promised land of abstract art. For here it is already 1000s of years old.” This realization freed Albers to draw inspiration from Mexican abstraction without caricaturing it.

In his landmark book, Interaction of Color (1963), Albers writes, “To honor the masters creatively is to compete with their attitude rather than with their results, to follow an artistic understanding of tradition – that is, to create, not to revive.”"

You can read the whole article here: How Pre-Columbian Art Influenced Josef Albers (hyperallergic.com)

I will leave you with an exercise in exploring this question further. Analyze the following statement in terms of original and derivative art: "to honor the masters creatively is to compete with their attitude rather than with their results." -Josef Albers, Interaction of Color (1963)

Please get in touch if you are interested in pursuing this topic and more along with discussions, assignments, and texts that will help you analyze and talk about art.