POP ART
This Pop Art image was
appropriated from comic
books of the time. The dotted
effect, called ‘Benday dots’,
were part of the printing process
of cheap comics, and the effect
was recreated by Lichtenstein on
the painting.
Roy Lichtenstein, (U.S.1923-1997) Crying Girl, 1964, Crying Girl, 1964
Enamel on steel, 117 x 117 cm)
The 1950s and 60s saw a great increase in mass-produced goods, wealth, power
and industrialisation throughout the Western world. Through the 60s and 70s there
were also many social justice issues that were being talked about.
But at the same time, other groups, such as Pop Artists were celebrating the
turbo-charged modernity of the Western world.
Pop art reflected back
the mad mad world of
consumerism – the
disposable; the new; the
flashy; the cheap. It
celebrated it, rather than
criticising it as much
postmodern art does
today. However in
celebrating it, it also
invited the audience to
think about ‘what is art’?
Ed Ruscha, (U.S.b1937) Standard Station, Amarillo
Texas 1963, oil on canvas, 162 x 303cm
Heroic perspective
Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
Waiting, c. 1882, pastel on paper, 43
x 60cm.
Claude Monet (Fr. 1840-1926) , Woman with a
parasol, 1875, 100 x 81cm
Ed Ruscha (U.S. b.1937)Hey with curled edge, c. 1964
Ink and powdered graphite on paper, 29 x 31cm
Use of typography in new and puzzling ways:
Kurt Schwitters & Theo von Doesburg,
Small Dada Soiree, lithograph, 1923. This was
an poster advertising a Dada art event.
Picasso, Man with a hat and violin, 1912.
Barbara Kruger (US, b.1945), Untitled (Your gaze hits the side of my face), 1981.
Ed Ruscha, (U.S.b1937) Hollywood, 8 colour screen-print, 1968, dimensions unknown.
How has Ruscha treated this Hollywood sign in this image?
Ed Ruscha, (U.S.b1937) Oof, 1963,
oil on canvas
181 x 170 cm
Pop art was art of the everyday, and looked outwards to the
advertising signs, posters, comics on the street and in magazines
and movies. It deliberately created art out of stuff that wouldn’t
normally be in a Gallery, but for sale on the street. It was also an
art that tended to be associated with the young and groovy, so
that was attractive. However it also could be confronting, as
youth was associated with the anti-war protests, rock music and
the rising drug culture.
Andy Warhol (US, 1928-1987)
Campbell’s Soup cans, oil on
32 canvases, each canvas 50 x
40cm. Originally exhibited
with each separate canvas
resting on a shelf. Warhol
moved to silk screen printing
in the early sixties. This acted
to further depersonalise the
works.
Warhol: ‘…the reason I’m painting this way is because I want to be a
machine… …I think it would be terrific if everyone was alike…’ (Swanson,
1963)
‘…If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surfaces of my
paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it…’
(Warhol, 1968)
Warhol was deliberately vulgar and
deliberately (but only selectively) antioriginal. He used assistants for his work,
incorporating their mistakes etc. that
occurred, as with the image below.
Ironically, his talk about not being original
and about everyone being the same, was
a sensation in itself, a kind of scandal. A
celebrity cult grew up around him and his
work.
Warhol, Untitled, from Marilyn Monroe series,
Series of 10 screenprints, 91 x 91cm, 1967
Warhol, Big Electric Chair,
screenprint, one of series,
1967
Warhol was obsessed his whole life with news and celebrity. This is much
more common now But in the 60s this was just beginning. This image of an
electric chair (which was used to execute prisoners in New York) was
published in a newspaper after the execution of some famous
criminals. Much of Warhol’s imagery was concerned with death.
HSC Question for your enjoyment….
Q: Ricky Swallow is a contemporary Australian artist. In 2001, he used
computer-aided design to create the iMan Prototype body of work.
Use the postmodern frame to analyse Plates 3 and 4. Refer to Plate 5 in your
response.
Plate 3: Ricky Swallow, b.1974, Australia
iMan Prototypes, 2001
Injected-moulded resin with colour tint,
four pieces, each 16 × 11.5 × 18.5 cm.
Plate 5: Apple design team and Jonathan Ive,
iMac, 1998, personal computer
Manufactured by Apple, 46 × 42 × 38 cm,
Moulded plastic available in five different colours.
Plate 4: Back view of an iMan Prototype, 2001