Ukiyo-e between Pop Art and (Trans)cultural Appropriation: On the Art of Muhamed Kafedžić (Muha)

Abstract

This article is based on a curatorial study of Muhamed Kafedžić’s oeuvre and our collaboration between 2012 and 2015. The work examines the paintings of the Sarajevo-based artist and questions the meaning and applicability of cultural appropriation theories to his work. The goal is to present a complex procedure of the appropriation of processes and styles in art history, usingin Kafedžić’s example of a hybrid of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock printing (17th–19th centuries) and American pop art painting (20th century), predominantly in the style of Roy Lichtenstein. My intention is to emphasize how Muha’s artwork has an element of dislocation, or outside-ness, in both place and national tradition, which consequently develops into a trans-cultural perspective, using Japanese (pop) art as a trans-national networking point.