Rob Scholte: reproductie verplicht : schilderijen = Rob Scholte : reproduction obliged : paintings

Abstract

Rob Scholte (Amsterdam, 1958) is the king of copyright. His paintings are based on images from fine art and advertising, and from everyday life. He shows no shame in taking existing images and appropriating them, introducing skilful additions, alterations and shifts in context, making unlikely connections and juggling with meanings. Originality and rights of ownership apparently mean nothing to him. Reproduction in all its forms is the defining feature of Scholte’s art, and it is reproduction that ensures his work reaches a wide audience. ‘The most reproduced artwork is [thus] the most important’, he once said. As the unmistakable exponent of the turbulent 1980s, Rob Scholte is the most discussed living Dutch artist, belonging to the international postmodernist movement. His art is as idealistic as it is commercial, alternatively critical and coolly kitschy, ironic and deadly serious, and above all – like a common thread running through all his work – always paradoxical--Back of cover.