Stewart Home (ed.): Plagiarism: Art as Commodity and Strategies for its Negation (1987)

“This is a pamphlet intended to accompany the debate that surrounds ‘The Festival Of Plagiarism’, but it may also be read and used separately from any specific event. It should not be viewed as a catalogue for the festival, as it contains opinions that bear no relation to those of a number of people participating in the event.

Presented here are a number of divergent views on the subjects of plagiarism, art and culture. One of the problems inherent in left opposition to dominant culture is that there is no agreement on the use of specific terms. Thus while some of the ‘essays’ contained here are antagonistic towards the concept of art — defined in terms of the culture of the ruling elite — others use the term in a less specific sense and are consequently less critical of it. Since the term ‘art’ is popularly associated with cults of ‘genius’ it would seem expedient to stick to the term ‘culture’ — in a non-elitist sense — when describing our own endeavours. Although culture as a category appears to be a ‘universal’ experience, none of its individual expressions meet such a criteria. This is the basis of our principle objection to art — it claims to be ‘universal’ when it is very clearly class based.

Hopefully this pamphlet, and the festival itself, will go some way towards demonstrating that there has been an opposition to art since the term took on its modern meaning in the eighteenth century.” (from the Introduction)

Publisher Aporia, London, 1987
ISBN 0948518871, 9780948518874
No copyright
30 pages

The Last Word: Art Strike, Word Strike, Plagiarism and Originality (by Mark Bloch)

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