Beg, Steal and Borrow ─ Artists against Originality

"Art is theft," Picasso once proclaimed. The wily old Spaniard was being provocative – he often equated theft to what could more benignly be called influence. But increasingly much of the best and, even, most original art involves an act or two of unequivocal, overt theft – an act of simple copy and paste.

This book looks at modern-day art theft from all angles: art-historical (tracing the lineage from Duchamp to Richard Prince), legal (looking at recent key copyright cases), cultural (drawing links to literary mash-ups and musical sampling), educational (Kenneth Goldsmith's famous 'Uncreativity' classes) and, of course, in terms of current art practice. It will look at the practices of major artists working across a variety of media.

Combining a sharp selection of color images with an insightful text, this book offers a comprehensive and provocative survey of a timely and complex subject – a subject that is destined to grow in relevance across the coming years.

Robert Shore is the editor of the visual-arts quarterly Elephant and was previously deputy editor at Art Review magazine. As an arts journalist he has contributed to the Sunday Times, the Guardian, and Metro.