Feb 2/ 2010 Pop Art: It was artistic movement that took place in London and US, becoming characterized by: 1. The indiscriminate use of visual commodities of popular culture (advertisement, movies, product design, comic books, technology, etc.) 2. By the abandonment of despair or disgust as regards contemporary civilization and 3. By the systematic use of ready‐made strategies. Pop Art put popular culture and High Art Together. London (mid ‐ 1950s onward): Independent Group: Artists Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, John McHale, Eduardo Paolozzi, William Turnbull. Architectural Critic‐ Reyner Banhay Critic‐ Lawrence Alloway United States (mid – 1950s to the late 1960s): Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg , Claes Oldenbury, Roy Lichtensteiu, Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Edward Ruscha, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, among others.
The label “ Pop Art” was first use by British artist Eduardo Paolozzi in a 1947 lecture, later used by Richard Hamilton’s collage what is it that makes our Hemes Today so different, so Appealing? (1956), and finally consecrated by critic Lawrence Alloway in his 1958 article “ The Arts and the Mass Media”. Different Contexts: In London, it revealed the incorporation of American popular culture after World War II and the debates of the independ Group. In the US, it revealed the optimistic spirit of the 1960s, which began with the election of John F. Kennedy and ended at the height of the Vietnam War. The context of both movements is new consumerist society. Andy Warhol: “ Someone said that Brecht wanted everybody to think alike, I want everybody to think alike “. The critical understanding in difficult: London: Neo‐ avant‐garde movement. US: Contemporary Art or Post‐ Modernism Definitions Neo avantgarde: reenactment of avant‐garde strategies, but as a “ spectacle” for the cultural and artistic markets. Contemporary Art: the continuation of critical conditions of art production and commercialization. Post Modernism: Abandonment of a critical project to promote the understanding of art as a commercial product.
Three great reactions against Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s. 1st Reaction: Pop Art Against its emotional aspect: It is hand‐made approach to art intellectual aspect concentration on the purity painting (autonomy) Emphasis on the subject (subjectivism) Notion of history as the result of a critical evolution. 2nd Reaction: Conceptual Art against its emphasis on hand‐ made art objects. 3rd Reaction: Minimalism against its emphasis on expressivity. The great artistic References was Marcel Duchamp ( ready‐ made) the Dadaists ( May Ray) Ready‐ mades were ordinary manufactured objects that Duchamp selected and modified as an antidote against “ retinal art”, by simply choosing the object ( or objects) and repositioning or joining, and titling and signing it, the object became art. Fountain ( 1917)
Differentiation between the two notions of the readymade. Marcel Duchamp: Appropriation of an industrial product. Pop Art: Appriciation of an image of advertisement, which is already an appropriation of the industrial product ( image of an image) Interpretations: The return of representation ( mainly through the use of photography) after fifty years of abstractionism raised the problem of interpretation 1. 2. 3. 4.
How is it possible to understand the return of representation? What is the meaning of Pop Art? Is it conservative? Did it bring a social critique through the recouise of irony?
Notion of “ simulacrum” = generally means “ likeness”, “ similarity”. In the field of art, it became associated with inferiority, pointing out an image without the Simulacrum in Plato
Idea; Truth; Identity
Copy of this idea ( real world) – 1. Degree away from the truth. Copy of a copy ( field of art) 2. Degrees away from the truth. The release of the image consequently also means the release of the artist.
Pop Art in the US, and London. London: mid 1950s The Independent Group ( IG) was born in association with the Insitute of Contemporary Art ( IAC), which was a museum – art institution that was founded in 1946 in the same bases of the Museum of Modern Art of New York. Emulation of the New York art world. US: early 1960s onwards The beginning is based on the works of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg in the 1950s. The work of Roy Lichtenstein in the early 1960s, the use of comic strips in his paintings. The exhibition “ The New Realists” organized by the Sidney Janis Gallery that associated American Pop Artists with the movement Le Nouveau Realism: which was created by French critic Pierre Restany. 1962 exhibition at Pasadena Art Museum “ New Painting of Common Object”. 1963 exhibitions “ Six Painters and the Object” ( Lawrence Alloway) at Guggenheim Museum. Supported by the Green Gallery, Sidney Janis Gallery and Leo Castelly Gallery, among others.