POP art

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POP art

Pop art is a visual art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the United States.

Pop art is an art movement of the twentieth century characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and everyday cultural objects.

Andy Warhol, Campbell Tomato Soup 1968

POP art

Early POP ART in Britain was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular culture viewed from afar, while the American artists were inspired by the experiences of living within that culture.

Representatives outside the “cultural elite” such as in film, music and politics are made into icons (e.g. Elvis, Marylyn Monroe, and Jackie Kennedy).

Andy Warhol 1964, Marilyn Monroe

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POP art and fine art

Pop removes the object from its context and isolates it, or combines it with other objects.

The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.

Pop art challenge tradition by claiming that the use of the mass-produced visual commodities in art is a natural direction of fine art.

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Andy Warhol

Pop art is widely seen as a reaction to the ideas of abstract expressionism.

Pop art is emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture through the use of irony.

Product labeling and logos is used in the work of pop artists.

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962. Displayed in Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (1928–1987), was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in pop art.

He is probably the most famous figure in Pop Art.

Warhol attempted to take Pop beyond an artistic style to a life style.

The individual paintings were produced with a semi-mechanized silkscreen process, using a non-painterly style.

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Andy Warhol

American advertising adopted many elements of modern art. Consequently, American artists had to search deeper for dramatic styles that would distance art from the well-designed and clever commercial materials.

American artists being bombarded daily with the mass productions, produced work that was generally more bold and aggressive.

The issue was consumer-isme.

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Roy Lichtenstein (1923 – 1997)

Roy Lichtenstein (1923 – 1997) was a prominent American pop artist, his work heavily influenced by both popular advertising and the comic book style. He described Pop art as industrial painting.

The work of Roy Lichtenstein defines the basic of pop art through parody. Lichtenstein is selecting the old-fashioned comic strip to make parodies reflecting the society.

Roy Lichtenstein, A Girl's Picture, 1965

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Roy Lichtenstein

The paintings of Lichtenstein, like those of Andy Warhol and others, share a direct attachment to the image of American Way of life and popular culture in an impersonal manner clearly illustrating the idealization of mass production.

Roy LichtensteinTakka, Takka 1962

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Comics and fine art images

The popular culture such as comics and advertisement are made into fine art images.

The anti art institution “all is beautiful” and “ugly is beautiful”.

It is not the “cultural elite” who are going to define art, good art, bad art and indifferent art. Art must meet life and get out of the dusty museums.

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Websites

Web-examples

1. http://www.warhol.org/calendar/events_front.php

2. http://www.janetallinger.com/illust.html

3. http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/frames.htm

Tutorial:http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-popart.html

http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-warholphoto.html

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POP art - Characteristics

• Transforming the photography into graphic.• Often it is not originals forming the basis of the

pop artist work (e.g. press photos).• Clean up the image for details.• Common procedure: Take a black/white photo

and put on groups of colours.• Neon colours.• The principle of Collage. • Re-use of material.• If there is any real use of font, often Helvetica

(=Ariel) is used.• Everyday objects are enlarged in the extreme

and places in a new and not expected context.• Highlighting that it is not an original but a copy. • Repetition of the same object.