Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Artwork description & Analysis: Like many Pop artists, Rosenquist was
fascinated by the popularization of political and cultural figures in mass
media. In his painting President Elect, the artist depicts John F.
Kennedy's face amidst an amalgamation of consumer items, including a
yellow Chevrolet and a piece of cake. Rosenquist created a collage with
the three elements cut from their original mass media context, and then
photo-realistically recreated them on a monumental scale. As
Rosenquist explains, "The face was from Kennedy's campaign poster. I
was very interested at that time in people who advertised themselves.
Why did they put up an advertisement of themselves? So that was his
face. And his promise was half a Chevrolet and a piece of stale cake."
The large-scale work exemplifies Rosenquist's technique of combining
discrete images through techniques of blending, interlocking, and
juxtaposition, as well as his skill at including political and social
commentary using popular imagery.
Oil on masonite - Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
BLAM (1962)
Artist: Roy Lichtenstein
Bunnies (1966)
Artist: Sigmar Polke
Artwork description & Analysis: Hannah Höch is known for her collages
and photomontages composed from newspaper and magazine clippings
as well as sewing and craft designs often pulled from publications she
contributed to at the Ullstein Press. As part of Club Dada in Berlin, Hoch
unabashedly critiqued German culture by literally slicing apart its
imagery and reassembling it into vivid, disjointed, emotional depictions
of modern life. The title of this work, refers to the decadence, corruption,
and sexism of pre-war German culture. Larger and more political than
her typical montages, this fragmentary anti-art work highlights the
polarities of Weimer politics by juxtaposing images of establishment
people with intellectuals, radicals, entertainers, and artists.
Recognizable faces include Marx and Lenin, Pola Negri, and Kathe
Kollwitz. The map of Europe that identifies the countries in which
women had already achieved the right to vote suggests that the newly
enfranchised women of Germany would soon "cut" through the male
"beer-belly" culture. Her inclusion of commercially produced designs in
her montages broke down distinctions between modern art and crafts,
and between the public sphere and domesticity.
Cut paper collage - National Gallery, State Museum of Berlin
Beginnings
Great Britain: The Independent Group
By the mid 1950s, the artists working in New York City faced a critical
juncture in modern art: following the Abstract Expressionists or rebel
against the strict formalism advocated by many schools of modernism.
By this time, Jasper Johns was already troubling conventions with
abstract paintings that included references to: "things the mind already
knows" - targets, flags, handprints, letters, and numbers.
Meanwhile, Robert Rauschenberg's "combines" incorporated found
objects and images, with more traditional materials like oil paint.
Similarly, Allan Kaprow's "Happenings" and the Fluxus movements
chose to incorporate aspects from the surrounding world into their art.
These artists, along with others, later became grouped in the movement
known as Neo-Dada. The now classic New York Pop art of Roy
Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol
emerged in the 1960 in the footsteps of the Neo-Dadaists.
The Pop art collages of Paolozzi and Hamilton convey the mixed
feelings Europeans maintained toward American popular culture; both
exalting the mass-produced objects and images while also criticizing the
excess. In his collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so
different, so appealing? (1956), Hamilton combined images from various
mass media sources, carefully selecting each image and composing the
disparate elements of popular imagery into one coherent survey of post-
war consumer culture. The members of the Independent Group were
the first artists to present mass media imagery, acknowledging the
challenges to traditional art categories occurring in America and Britain
after 1945.
Pop Art - Art History
Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997). Live Ammo (Blang!), 1962. Oil and Magna
acrylic on canvas. 68 x 80 in. (172.7 x 203.2 cm). Photo © Douglas M. Parker Studio,
Los Angeles. The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Collection, Los Angeles / © Estate of Roy
Lichtenstein
Pop Art was born in Britain in the mid 1950s. It was the brain-child of several
young subversive artists - as most modern art tends to be. The first application of
the term Pop Art occurred during discussions among artists who called
themselves the Independent Group (IG), which was part of the Institute of
Contemporary Art in London, begun around 1952-53.
Pop Art appreciates popular culture, or what we also call “material culture.” It
does not critique the consequences of materialism and consumerism; it simply
recognizes its pervasive presence as a natural fact.
The movement was officially christened by Lawrence Alloway in his article "The
Arts and Mass Media," Architectural Record (February 1958). Art history text
books tend to claim that Richard Hamilton's Just What Is It that Makes Today's
Home So Different and So Appealing? (1956) signaled that Pop Art had arrived
on the scene. The collage appeared in This Is Tomorrow at Whitechapel Art
Gallery in 1956, so we might say that this work of art and this exhibition mark the
official beginning of the movement, even though the artists worked on Pop Art
themes earlier in their careers.
Pop Art, for the most part, completed the Modernist movement in the early
1970s, with its optimistic investment in contemporary subject matter. It also
ended the Modernism movement by holding up a mirror to contemporary
society. Once the Postmodernist generation looked hard and long into the mirror,
self-doubt took over and the party atmosphere of Pop Art faded away.
HISTORIC PRECEDENT:
The integration of fine art and popular culture (such as billboards, packaging and
print advertisements) began way before the 1950s. Gustave Courbet's (1855)
symbolically pandered to popular taste by including a pose taken from the
inexpensive print series called Imagerie d’Épinal which featured moralizing
scenes invented by Jean-Charles Pellerin. Every schoolboy knew these pictures
about of street life, the military and legendary characters. Did the middle class
get Courbet's drift? Maybe not, but Courbet did not care. He knew he had
invaded "high art" with a "low" art form.
Picasso used the same strategy. He joked about our love affair with shopping by
creating a woman out of a label and ad from the department Bon Marché Au Bon
Marché (1914) may not be considered the first Pop Art collage, but it certainly
planted the seeds for the movement.
ROOTS IN DADA
Early Pop artists followed Duchamps' lead in the 1950s by returning to imagery
during the height of Abstract Expressionism and purposely selecting "low-brow"
popular imagery. They also incorporated or reproduced 3-dimension objects.
Jasper Johns' Beer Cans (1960) and Robert Rauschenburg's Bed (1955) are two
cases in point. This work was called "Neo-Dada" during its formative years.
Today, we might call it Pre-Pop Art or Early Pop Art.
Richard Hamilton
Edouardo Paolozzi
Peter Blake
John McHale
Lawrence Alloway
Peter Reyner Banham
Richard Smith
Jon Thompson
R. B. Kitaj
Peter Philips
Billy Apple (Barrie Bates)
Derek Boshier
Patrick Canfield
David Hockney
Allen Jones
Norman Toynton
Andy Warhol understood shopping and he also understood the allure of celebrity.
Together these Post-World War II obsessions drove the economy. From malls
and to People Magazine, Warhol captured an authentic American aesthetic:
packaging products and people. It was an insightful observation. Public display
ruled and everyone wanted his/her own fifteen minutes of fame.
Roy Lichtenstein
Andy Warhol
Robert Indiana
George Brecht
Marisol (Escobar)
Tom Wesselmann
Marjorie Strider
Allan D'Arcangelo
Ida Weber
Claes Oldenberg - common products made out of odd materials
George Segal - white plaster casts of bodies in everyday settings
James Rosenquist - painting that looked like collages of advertisements
Rosalyn Drexler - pop stars and contemporary issues.
Billy Al Bengston
Edward Kienholz
Wallace Berman
John Wesley
Jess Collins
Richard Pettibone
Mel Remos
Edward Ruscha
Wayne Thiebaud
Joe GoodeVon Dutch Holland
Jim Eller
Anthony Berlant
Victor Debreuil
Phillip Hefferton
Robert O’Dowd
James Gill
Robert Kuntz
SOURCES:
Lippard, Lucy with Lawrence Alloway, Nicolas Cala and Nancy Marmer. Pop Art.
London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1985.