Technically, we call this unacceptable and non-discursive (as opposed to the acceptance and discursiveness of appropriation art) form of artistic parasitism plagiarism, that is: issuing another’s work as your own, in opposition to forgery, which is issuing your own work as another’s. My argument here will, on the one hand, be to assess why plagiarism of an artistic style must necessarily be the most embarrassing thing an artist can do, and on the other hand why plagiarism is artistically necessary as well. As the argument is not an ontological one, but a historical one, the paradox proposed here is a question to the future of art.