Pop Art Research Paper

Pop Art is Alive and Kicking In the post-war era of the 1950’s there was a movement gaining popularity in the art world. Artists could not ignore the rapidly changing world they lived in. Post-war prosperity fueled an age of consumerism and commercialism and art began to celebrate this popular commercial culture. Advertisements, billboards, television, film, comic books, newspapers, magazines, and even automobile styling inspired artists. This movement was described by Richard Hamilton, as “Popular, Transient, Expendable, Low Cost, Mass Produced, Young, Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous; and Big Business” (qtd. in Kaizen 28). This easily accessible, cool, exciting and relatable phenomena became to be known as Pop Art. Its influence was
far reaching and still influences our modern day culture although fifty years later. The western industrial societies during 1950’s were undergoing a transformation.
By 1953 fifty percent of Americans had televisions and commercial advertising was widespread. Rock and Roll was the music of the time and fast food was being born in the name of McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Pop Art fed off of this shift in society and in doing so rejected the supremacy of 'high art'. By overthrowing tradition, they attempted to bring art back to the material realities of everyday life. As it gained popularity it closed the gap between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. Colin Self described it as the first truly popularist, democratic art movement. “Pop Art was the first art movement for goodness knows how long, to accept and reflect the world in which it lives. Before Pop all Art hid behind being ‘Arty’. Art had reached such a state of insincerity and pretentiousness, Pop was a real revelation” (qtd. in Bigham
18). Pop Art descended from Dada, an 'anti-art' movement in the 1920's which aimed to destroy the traditional values of art. Julia Bigham wrote, “Dada elevated the vulgar and the ordinary to the status of art object and in so doing questioned the whole concept of art and paved the way for Pop’s development” (18). Pop Art replaced the satirical, destructive elements of Dada with a concentration on mass culture and consumerism. It reflected the values, morals and obsessions of a consumer society. Critics had no appreciation for this iconoclastic art and viewed it as “vulgar, sensational, nonaesthetic, and a joke”(Pop art. Encyclopædia Britannica). It caused great debate as to whether it was to be considered art at all. Abstract Expressionism was dominating the art world at that time, which was very serious in nature, mainly abstract, highly personal and appealed to an elite art society. Pop Art rebelled against the pretentiousness of Abstract Expressionism, and was defiantly representational. It depicted emotionally detached images of popular culture including Coca Cola bottles, hamburgers, comic strips, vacuum cleaners and pop idols. Richard Hamilton collage Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? (1956) is considered emblematic of the 1950’s. (see fig. 1). In England, coming out of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, (ICA), was the Independent Group (IG). It comprised artists, designers, critics and architects and met regularly between 1952 and 1955 to discuss the emerging popular culture. Lawrence Alloway who was a member of this group wrote, “the visual explosion of the twentieth century, with its wealth of vivid imagery, became a direct source of art”(Alloway 57). Eduardo Paolozzi, another member of the IG, was fascinated with popular culture and technology and created collages from magazines given to him from American ex-servicemen. I Was A Rich Man’s Plaything, (1947) was shown at the first meeting of the IG at the end of 1951 (see fig. 2). Peter Blake, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London, explained in an interview, “What I was attempting to do was make an art that was equivalent to pop music… I was aiming for the fans of Elvis Presley who would listen to Elvis and look at my art...” He also attributes the origin of the term Pop Art to Alloway. At a dinner party hosted by Alloway, Blake was discussing his work with him and said, “I was trying to describe what I was trying to do and he said “What, a type of Pop art?” Blake is probably most famous for the cover design for the Beatles album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Meanwhile across in America, independent of the activities in the UK, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were paving the way. Johns transformed the appearance of easily recognizable objects such as flags, targets, stenciled numbers and maps, and aimed to transform the way we perceive symbols. The American flag was the subject of a series of pieces produced in the 50’s. Rauschenburg experimented with silk-screen prints of magazine photographs and then covered them over with brush strokes. Using this combination he found he could comment on the society by using the same images that was helping to create this society. In their continuous rejection of ‘high’ art, Pop Artists explored new and different mediums and methods. Newspaper clippings, photos, acrylic paint, plastics, and metallic and fluorescent colours were found in their work. They explored techniques of repetition, collage, silk-screen, and mass production. Roy Lichtenstein developed a personal style borrowing from comic books. His art featured black outlines, bold colours and tones achieved by Benday dots (a method of achieving toned used by comic strips). Claes Oldenburg created large-scale soft sculptures of mundane objects such as Floor-burger (1962). He stitched sailcloth together and stuffed it with foam rubber and paper cartons then painted it. Of all the artists, Andy Warhol embodied the Pop Art movement and is the most famous of all Pop artists.
He created some of the most recognizable images ever produced. Warhol appropriated images from magazines and newspapers and silk-screened them onto canvases enabling him to produce similar images multiple times. Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can (Tomato) (1962), a silk-screen print on canvas with colour painted on, is one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century. His colours were flat, bold and bright with contrasting black outlines and silhouettes. He selected the most powerful visual images from the media and conveyed them as the iconic symbols of the
time. Pop Art is alive today and modern day Pop Artists are thriving and continue to ‘bank’ on popular culture. The American pop singer-songwriter, Lady Gaga was described as a “Warholian pop-art project” (Weiner). Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger launched his Spring Summer 2012 collection, which was inspired by a fusion of preppy and Pop Art and pays homage to the 60’s. In the summer of 2009, DKNY launched a limited edition of its iconic apple-inspired fragrance Be Delicious. The campaign was all Lichtenstein, complete with ben-day dots, lettering and speech bubbles (see Fig. 3). It consisted of six poster images, a two-page comic strip and limited-edition packaging. These images were seen everywhere, from full-page ads to beach towels. Pop Art is indeed a phenomenon that is very much alive and kicking and will live on for many decades to come.