Pop Art
Pop Art
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Jasper Johns: targets, flags, numbers, letters
Richard Hamilton: Collage
Robert Rauschenberg: Assemblages
Roy Lichtenstein: Comics
Andy Warhol: Silk-screen mass media + videos
Claus Oldenberg: mass media sculptures
As Johns explained, the imagery derives
from "things the mind already knows,"
utterly familiar icons such as flags,
targets, stenciled numbers, ale cans, and,
slightly later, maps of the U.S.
assemblauge: recombining (assembling)
“stuff” to create new meaning.
White Flag, 1955
Jasper Johns (American, born 1930)
Encaustic, oil, newsprint, and charcoal on canvas
Johns, Three Flags, 1958, encaustic on canvas
The Seasons (Summer), 1987
Jasper Johns (American, born 1930)
Etching with aquatint
Johns, Flag, (comp colors), 1965
Jaspar Johns, Field Painting,
1963/64
Roommate with Robert
Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg, Estate,
1963
mass media
advertising
popular culture
advertising
aesthetic of popular culture
popular art + fine art
inspired by Duchamp
advertising
mass media
popular culture
Hamilton
Interior
Screenprint, 1964
created “combines”
combining painting with sculpture
“There is no no more subject in a
combine [By Rauschenberg] than
there is in a page from a
newspaper. Each thing that is there
is a subject. It is a situation
involving multiplicity.” – John Cage
*found materials in trash –
recontextualization
Duchampian
*viewers should find their own
meaning
Rauschenberg, Odalisk, 1955-58
Odalisk combines oil paint, watercolor, crayon,
pastel, paper, fabric, photographs, printed
reproductions, miniature blueprint,
newspaper, metal, glass, dried grass, steel
wool, a pillow, a wooden post and lamps on a
wooden structure mounted on four casters
and topped by a stuffed rooster.
"Every time I would show them to people,
some would say they're paintings, others called
them sculptures. And then I heard this story
about Calder," he said, referring to the artist
Alexander Calder, "that nobody would look at
his work because they didn't know what to call
it. As soon as he began calling them mobiles,
all of a sudden people would say 'Oh, so that's
what they are.' So I invented the term
'Combine' to break out of that dead end of
something not being a sculpture or a painting.
And it seemed to work."
Rauschenberg, Estate, 1963
oil, silk screen, collage
• primary colors
recognizable images
vs.
everyday images
Rauschenberg aimed in the silkscreened paintings “to make a
surface which invited a constant
change of focus and an examination
of detail.”
Rauschenberg, Retroactive I, 1963,
oil, silkscreen, collage
Robert Rauschenberg Collage Project
This project is inspired by the collage techniques and visual aesthetics of Robert
Rauschenberg and Richard Hamilton. You will need to consider what images are
most iconic to the 21st century (Presidents, celebrities, electronics, politics,
religions, etc.). Using only newspapers and magazines, create a collage in the style
of Retroactive I & Retroactive II that speaks directly to life in 2014.
Requirements:
1. Use only images from newspapers and magazines: you may need to bring
some from home…
2. Project must include primary colors from oil pastels, paint, colored pencils,
etc.
3. The collage must be unique and creative (think about placement of images,
texture, cropping, etc.)
4. Size must be 8.5 x 11 (printer paper size)
5. We will work in class tomorrow and present the following day
*benday dots
Lichtenstein, MMaybe (A Girl's
Picture), 1965
Lichtenstein, Blam, 1962
mass produced silk screen prints
were sold to fund Warhol’s
independent films.
“The Factory”
repetition causes numbness
Interview
Andy Warhol, Brillo Soap Pads, 1964–1969
Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1965, silkscreen
Merv Griffin Interview, 1965
Andy Warhol famously told Art News interviewer Gene Swenson, "The reason I'm painting this
way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I
want to do."
Liz #1 (Early colored Liz)
acrylic and silkscreen
Warhol "was not after a picture-perfect, sharpedged result; he wanted the trashy immediacy
of a tabloid news photo."
Warhol, Elvis I & II, 1964
Independent Films by Warhol
Andy Warhol Eating a Hamburger, 1981
Flesh, 1968
Claus Oldenburg, Floor Cake, synthetic polymer paint and latex on
canvas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, 1962
After watching the short video on Floor
Cake, answer the following questions:
1. What are your impressions on this
work of art?
2. Do you like this piece? Yes/No WHY
3. What makes this sculpture POP Art?
Oldenburg, Claes, & Coosje Van Bruggen,
Spoonbridge and Cherry, 1988
Oldenburg, Clothespin, 1976
Oldenburg, Coltello Knifeship II, 1986
Oldenburg & Van Bruggen, Torn Notebook,
1992-96