Pop Art
"You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you." -Andy Warhol
Context: 1950s Consumerism
Click the image for an interactive lesson on 1950s Consumerism
Key Terms:
Mass (Popular) Culture is defined as cultural products that are both mass-produced and for mass audiences. Examples include mass-media entertainments—films, television programs, popular books, newspapers, magazines, popular music, leisure goods, household items, clothing, and mechanically-reproduced art.
Consumer Culture describes a lifestyle hyper-focused on spending money to buy material goods. It is often attributed to, but not limited to, the capitalist economy of the United States. During the 20th century, market goods came to dominate American life, and for the first time in history, consumerism had no practical limits.
Commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities.
Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.
Pop Art Movement
The Pop art movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mass-produced cultural objects.
One of its aims is to use images of popular (as opposed to elitist) culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. These are just some of the pop art facts that you need to know to better understand this art movement.
(Source of text: Medium)
Pop Art Characteristics
Appropriation: Appropriation is the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of existing images and objects. A strategy that has been used by artists for millennia, it took on new significance in the mid-20th century with the rise of consumerism and the proliferation of images through mass media outlets from magazines to television. Pop art artists appropriate images and icons from popular media and products. These graphic images include photos of celebrities, body parts, everyday objects like soup cans (Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol), water bottles, product labeling, mobile phones, cigarettes, furniture, road signs, and other items popular in the commercial world. Today, appropriating, sampling, and remixing elements of popular culture is common practice for artists working in many different mediums, but such strategies continue to challenge notions of originality and authorship, and to push the boundaries of what it means to be an artist.
Bright colors: Pop art is characterized by vibrant, bright and saturated colors. By using these vibrant colors & bold outlines, pop artworks grab the attention of the audience instantly
Irony and satire: These were some of the main components of Pop art. Pop art artists use humor and irony to make a statement about current events.
Innovative techniques: To quickly reproduce images in large quantities, many pop art artists used printmaking processes. Andy Warhol used silkscreen printing process (ink is transferred onto paper or canvas through a mesh screen with a stencil). Roy Lichtenstein used lithography technique (printing from a stone or a metal plate with a smooth surface).
Mixed media and collage: Pop art artists often combined different materials and utilized a variety of different types of media. Some of the pop artists that used collage in their works are Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake. They combined disparate images, newspaper prints and paper cut-outs into a single canvas to create a new whole. For making pop art collage, even brand names and logos were added.
(Source of text: Medium and MoMALearning)
Artist Spotlight
Pop Art Gallery
Andy Warhol Shot Marilyns
Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup Cans
Andy Warhol Cow Wallpaper
Roy Lichtenstein Crying Girl
Roy Lichtenstein Hot Dog
Roy Lichtenstein Spray
Keith Haring Untitled
Keith Haring Crack is Wack
Keith Haring Best Buddies
Richard Hamilton Lobby
Richard Hamilton Lobby II
Richard Hamilton Self Portrait
Robert Indiana Love, 1967
Eduardo Paolozzi Meet the People
Robert Rauschenberg Estate
Jasper Johns Three Flags
Claes Oldenburg Spoonbridge and Cherry
Sir Peter Blake Sources of Pop Art 7
David Hockney Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)
Banksy Girl with a Balloon
Yayoi Kusama Tentacles
Takeshi Murakami Mr. dub And Bunny
Wayne Thiebaud Dessert Tray
Jeff Koons Coloring Book #4
Discussion & Reflection
DISCUSS: Rauschenberg said, “Painting relates to both art and life…. I try to act in that gap between the two.”
What does Rauschenberg mean by "the gap"? Converse with a friend.
REFLECT: Andy Warhol famously said that “everyone is an artist.” Do you agree or disagree, and what reasons do you have for your opinion? In your journal make a half page MINDMAP of the criteria it takes to be an artist.
Apropriation and your AP portfolio
From the Course and Exam Description:
Pg. 38 "Although the use of appropriated images is common in the art and design world today, AP Art and Design students who use images made by other as a basis for AP Art and Design Portfolio Exam work must show substantial and significant development beyond duplication." Here is another explanation
Assignment
Find an image on a billboard or in a magazine, photograph it, and import it into Photoshop or another image processing software. Manipulate the image by cropping, adding text or images, or changing the color. See what kind of statement you can make.