225 ISCC 3 (2) pp. 225–241 Intellect Limited 2012 Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture Volume 3 Number 2 © 2012 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/iscc.3.2.225_1 Keywords Greek photography postmodernism appropriation pastiche parody critical practice PeneloPe Petsini University of Patras Appropriative strategies vs modernist orthodoxies: Postmodern concepts in contemporary Greek photography AbstrAct This article addresses the appropriative paradigms that marked the western art world from the mid-1970s, delineating first some of the wider issues raised by the term and then outlining their introduction into Greek photography from the early 1980s onwards. As a term in art history and criticism, appropriation is associated with the rise of postmodernism and the introduction of critical theories of repre- sentation reflecting on the conditions of authorship. As such, it has a contiguous relationship to the long-standing debate between ‘originality’ and ‘imitation’. The Greek photography world of the 1980s, defined by a modernist orthodoxy which was (and still is) largely predicated on the triumph of compositional originality could not accept any challenging of the authenticity of a work of art or, even more, of the nature of authorship itself. In effect, the reception of postmodern ideas such as appropriation involved selective understandings and distortions. Photography prac- titioners in Greece produced works that were postmodern in sensibility, but they were only understood and framed in a modernist discourse. This article introduces ISCC_3.2_Petsini_225-241 .indd 225 10/29/12 11:06:53 AM