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It's funny that a fresh kind of appropriation theory is thriving on the Internet, what with the ease of copying and mashing-up sound and image files, while the gallery world seems doomed to repeat the tropes it already knows--with only conspicuous "value added" labor as a selling point. I haven't see all this work in person, but here's a few examples of this bad recycling of content in the art world: (1) Sharon Core at Bellwether, who meticulously photographs baked goods in the identical set-ups of famous (but basically lame) Wayne Thiebaud paintings (Thiebaud was always a prettied-up, calendar art version of Pop, and Core appears to be making a calendar of the calendar); (2) Dan Fischer, who does finicky pencil drawings of famous artists posing with their work (or in the case of Cindy Sherman, Felix Gonzales-Torres, and a few others, drawings of the works themselves); and (3) Sharon Lockhart, who's suddenly, inexplicably devoted to the art of Duane Hanson.
In all of this work, we're not talking Sherrie Levine rephotographing Edward Weston, or Elaine Sturtevant researching methods and materials to "repeat" Warhols, Stellas, and Beuyses, both of which projects were touted as critiques of male authorship and prerogative in the art world. (If it is that, it's about 20 years behind the discourse.) Nor is it anything as relevant to current technological practice as the theory around sampling or what Rick Silva calls "uploadphonics." No, it's apparently just an advanced form of fan art, as well as collector bait--if you can't afford a Thiebaud or a Gonzales-Torres or a Hanson, here's the next best thing. And the craftsmanship--ooh, to die for.
Whoops, still tinkering with a post about new "appropriation art" in the galleries. If you got notified by email, sorry, I should have the text back up soon. [UPDATE: Here it is, severely pared down.] In the meantime, here's a nice image by SquareWave: