The concept of Pop Art - Essay Example

Client Pop Art: The Exaltation of the Every Day Pop art has developed from the fusion of the industrialized and consumerist culture that has developed in the late 20th century. As art had always been an elitist fascination, suddenly it was reflecting the every day mundane. In the work of artists like Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Tom Wesselmann, and Roy Lichtenstein, a reflection of everyday life is found at its most basic incarnations. The rise of the concept of branding in marketing became incorporated in the way that the Pop Art movement would be celebrated as images of products became representative of generations. The images of the materialistic and celebrity driven popular culture became the subject of artwork that was then mass produced and sold back in quantity to that culture. Pop Art creates a sentimentality even in its ironic commentary on the mundane. As marketing is merged with real life and where the iconic imagery of what life is suppose to be influences how a culture perceives it is the niche in which Pop Art is grown. Works of art that are classified as in the Modern Art period were created in the late 19th and the 20th century. When the Modernists began to emerge, a sense of experimentation procreated a series of movements which included impressionism, surrealism, the Nabis, the Fauvres, cubism, neo-plasticism, and expressionism (Brettell iiv). The work of the neo-plasticism movement is best found in the example of Piet Client Last Name 2 Mondrian where a sense of the perfect and the aspect of design merged to create his work. Figure 1. Piet Mondrian Yellow, Blue, and Red. 1937-1942 The concept of design of composition being the strongest element within a work that was developed in the Modern Art period carried into the Pop Art period. According to Sagart, “The movement focused on pure form, spiritual harmony, and order” (223). However, the movement disregarded the concept of a real object in favor of the movement of graphic images within line and space. Abstract Expressionism, a part of the postmodernism movement that created an artistic counter-culture to modernism, also had a place in creating the culture in which Pop Art would thrive. Influenced by the work of Surrealists such as Hans Hoffman, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Thomas Hart Benton who had dripped and flung paint onto their work (Ratcliff 3), this form of painting, which is also referred to as ‘action painting’ is typified by the work of Jackson Pollock. According to Rochberg, “The color explosion Client Last Name 3 that was Abstract Expressionism seems to have been born of post-Cubism, early Expressionism, and Surrealism” (194). For the most part, objects no longer have a place in painting for the Abstract Expressionist. The movement of color becomes a sometimes chaotic and aggressive expression that exists purely to “delight the eye” (Rochberg 193). Figure 2. Jackson Pollack. No. 5, 1948 Pop Art was a result of the experimental nature of the modernists and the post-modernists. Pop Art became a mirror that reflected the social experience of a consumerist, media driven culture that worships celebrity and perceived perfection. The repetitive prints of Andy Warhol that exalted the Campbell’s Soup can or the Coca- Cola bottle created a commentary on how the culture of the mass produced created an equity for the social classes. Warhol conceptualized daily life as a place of reverence in which he embraced the dichotomy of the elitist versus the trivial objects of mass production. “Warhol not only wanted to turn the trivial and commonplace into art, but Client Last Name 4 also to make art itself trivial and commonplace” (Osterwold 167). In creating a commentary on the way that mass produced items were the same for the rich and for the poor. “You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke. Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get a better Coke” (Kleiner 984). Figure 3. Andy Warhol. Three Coke Bottles In choosing to celebrate icons of the consumerist culture, Warhol created a dialogue for the new arts to discuss the way in which image was beginning to take precedence over substance. Warhol’s work put into question the very definition of art as he used mundane objects to evoke a certain sentimentality that was combined with the Client Last Name 5 notion that in its commonality was the possibility for something truly unique. According to the art critic, Robert Hughes, “Warhol loved the peculiarly inert sameness of the mass product; an infinite series of identical objects - soup cans, Coke bottles, dollar bills, Mona Lisas, or the same head of Marylyn Monroe, silk-screened over and over again”. (Haig 237). In creating art that was instantaneously recognizable, the art could belong to anyone who viewed the work. Not only were brands subject to the artistic commentary of Warhol, but the images of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe created a commentary on the way in which a person would be packaged and marketed in the selling of their celebrity. Through a series of repeating prints, Warhol created a sense of the product of a person who has been designated a celebrity. As in the Coke, the celebrity was an owned commodity. “A character on-screen is exactly a person who is no longer merely herself but recast as a presence, a piece of material, an eternally available icon. You only have to go to the cinema to see her, you do not have to go all the way to some Italian villa or craggy alpine mountain” (Herwitz 242). Pop Art reflects the consumer based society and both sentimentalizes and satirizes the marketed identity of the late 20th century culture. The context of the ordinary was a realm in which Rauschenberg explored his creativity. Of the work he said, “the simple fact of a theatrical setting or a gallery setting, could transform ordinary time or ordinary materials into a work of art”(Banes 61). This concept that would exalt the mundane which was later shared by Warhol was explored in works that Rauschenberg called The Combines as he reinforced the concept of the combination of reality and imagery not Client’s Last Name 6 through representation, but through real objects. Figure 4. Andy Warhol. Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962. Figure 5. Robert Rauschenberg. Canyon, 1959. Client’s Last Name 7 Robert Rauschenberg began to find recognition in the 1950’s. The work he created was a combination of painting and sculpture that added a unique dimension to the art pieces. Scouring the streets of New York, he found objects that he would then utilize within his work. These objects could create a sense of the unusual as surprising elements would appear within the work. Rauschenberg said in an interview: I wanted something other than what I could make myself and I wanted to use the surprise and the collectiveness and the generosity of finding surprises. And if it wasn’t a surprise at first, by the time I got through with it, it was. So the object itself was changed by its context and therefore it became a new thing. RB (the interviewer) Why a surprise? RR. To feed my curiosity. The objects uniqueness were what fed my curiosity. They didn’t have a choice but to become something new. The you put them in juxtaposition with something else and you very quickly get a world of surprises (Brooks) Out of trash, Rauschenberg created a commentary on the very nature of art. The work translated form into being through the insertion of these found items that could then be used to establish an elevated nature to the items that were discards of society. In regenerating an item into a something new and making it into art, the item that was once trash has now been elevated. As Pop artists used culturally recognizable images and icons, the movement reflects the identification that the culture has developed with those images. As the marketed identity has taken over the cultural identity, the sexualization of art and the media can be seen through the artist. Although Tom Wesselmann denies his association with the Pop Art movement, his work cannot be denied as part of this genre. “Wesselmann incorporated actual photographs, advertisements, reproductions of artworks, and objects, including television sets - another means by which he attempted to Client’s Last Name 8 bridge the gap between art and life” (Farmer 94). The nude studies of Wesselman, that have such a strong influence from Matisse, broke through the boundaries of sexual expression. The way in which he uses this imagery is to objectify the female body which exemplifies the commercialization of the desire for the female form. In describing his work, Richard Leppert says that “The painting is a slice of modern life as commodity, in which nothing is more dramatically commodified than the naked female body” (Leppert 140). Figure 6. Tom Wesselmann. Sunset Nude with Matisse Odalisque, 2003. Client’s Last Name 9 As the sensual nature of consumerism is explored, the basic needs and desires of the sexual drive can be seen in the way that Wesselmann utilizes the concept of the ‘pin-up girl’. This objectification exemplifies how the female form is a symbol of worship for consumerist adoration which then associates products to sexuality. This association is most often created to connect a product to sexual idealism. “In the pin-up genre, the body functions as a sociocultural design product: a perfect physique accomplished through a regime of diet, exercise, and/or surgery; beautiful features drawn out with the help of make-up, manicure, hair and body styling or enhanced through syringe or scalpel” (Paasonen, Kaarina, and Saarenmaa 96). The nature of the female body within the work of Wesselmann is idealized, even within the abstraction of the form. There is a distinct sexuality that is at the forefront of the work. Sexuality has a prominent place in the work of the Pop artists. Collage work by Richard Hamilton reveals cut-outs of pin-up girls infused with other images of modern life. In his work Just What is it that Makes Today’s Homes so Different, so Appealing? (1956) features a cut-out of a body-builder combined with a nude female form that is layered with images of mid-twentieth century images of the television and the tape-recorder and with the image of a woman on the stairs using a vacuum cleaner. A British artist influenced by the American trivialization of culture, “The collage reveals three things: first a mixture of fascination and irony with respect to the symbols of American affluence; second the significance of collage as a typical Pop technique, derived from Cubist, Dadaist, and Surrealistic practice; and third, the intelligence and sophistication of a composition rife with allusions and ambiguity” (Ruhrberg et al 303). Client’s Last Name 10 According to Lobel, Robert Indiana said , “Pop is everything art hasn’t been for the last two decades. It is basically a U-turn back to a representational visual communication, moving at a break-away speed in several sharp late models”(29). This concept of a return to the representational sensibility is the distinction that separates Pop Art from its predecessors. Even though the work has strong symbolism and sometimes a surreal sensibility, the work is representational as the objects and subjects can be related to the tangible world. Lobel quotes Indiana as saying “It is an abrupt return to Father after an abstract 15-year exploration of the Womb“ (29). The concept of realism as seen in the soup cans and soda bottles creates a connection to the aspect of realistic representation that had been completely diminished through the Modern period. The concept of form came back into art in a very strict sense as, not only representations, but real objects were not integrated into the work. This revolutionary work “it’s revival of subject matter, its intrusion of the commonplace into the hermetic realm of abstract art” (Ruhrberg 304), created new ways in looking at the tangible world. The concept of Pop art is that it became the absolute opposite of Abstract Expressionism. The gender association that became identifiable associated Abstract Expressionism to the very masculine Jackson Pollack and the femininity of Pop Art to Andy Warhol. However, in contrast to the feminine qualities of Warhol, Rauschenberg, and others in the movement, Lichtenstein became the masculine voice within the Pop Art movement (Lobel 30). Cecil Whiting said of Lichtenstein “the artist turns his aestheticizing gaze on consumer culture but never falls victim to its powerful seductions - helped to remasculinize the figure of the artist” (Lobel 30). Part of the masculinity of the Client’s Last Name 11 work is the way in women are portrayed. A sense of the traditional gender roles establish clear lines within the work. In this way, the male and the female become once again aligned within the art. Lichtenstein used the influence of the comic book in order to create his work. He chose this form because of the way in which the comic book was designed to be a disposable form of literature. The permanence of his artwork in contrast to this disposability defined the way in which it touched upon the consumerist sensibility. He was also influenced by the comic book aesthetic because of the strong emotions that are tied to the simplified images. Lichtenstein said that “One of the things a cartoon does is to express violent emotion and passion in a completely mechanized and removed style” (Kleiner 983). Figure 6. Roy Lichtenstein. Drowning Girl, 1963. Client’s Last Name 12 Pop art has the dichotomy of being both consumer based while commenting on the consumerist culture. The work has been proliferated onto products that have been sold commercially, all the while the art elevated the concept of branded products to a place of elitism. In using found objects, the regeneration of an item into a piece of art creates a symbolic rejuvenation of the object as it is now not trash, but art. By using culturally recognizable icons and images, the artists of the pop art movement have reflected the consumerist lifestyle that has become infused in the culture through the use of the media influence. While the sense of equality between the rich and the poor has developed a sense that Coke, as an example, is accessible to all classes without a differentiation based on an economic ability to pay more, the sense that art is now just as accessible has become a theme within the work that has been done since the evolution of this thought in the 1950’s. Pop art is an accurate portrayal of a confused society that has yet to discover the path to what is real and what is created by a consumer based media. Pop art is a vital part of the way in which society is expressing its cultural identity. While the world has changed dramatically in the last hundred years, the art has developed on an even steeper learning curve, denying the real for the abstract, and then returning to the core of what is real in the use of consumer images and icons that are symbolic of the perception of reality. Client’s Last Name 13 Works Cited Banes, Sally. Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1987. Brettell, Richard R. Modern Art, 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation. Oxford history of art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. University Press of New England, 1998. Brooks, Rosetta. 1 December 2005. “Rosetta Brooks Interviews Robert Rauschenberg” ArtInfo. 1 December 2005. 4 May 2009 Farmer, John Alan. The New Frontier: Art and Television, 1960-65. Austin, Tex: Austin Museum of Art, 2000. Haig, Matt. Brand Royalty: How the Worlds Top 100 Brands Thrive & Survive. London: Kogan Page, 2006. Herwitz, Daniel Alan. Making Theory/Constructing Art: On the Authority of the Avant- Garde. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Honnef, Klaus, Karl Ruhrberg, Christiane Fricke, Manfred Schneckenburger, and Ingo F. Walther. Art of the 20th Century. Köln: Taschen, 2000. Kleiner, Fred. Gardners Art Through the Ages A Global History. Gardners Books, 2008. Leppert, Richard D. The Nude: The Cultural Rhetoric of the Body in the Art of Western Modernity. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 2007. Client’s Last Name 14 Lobel, Michael. Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Osterwold, Tilman. Pop Art. Köln: Taschen, 2003. Paasonen, Susanna, Kaarina Nikunen, and Laura Saarenmaa. Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture. Oxford: Berg, 2007. Ratcliff, Carter. The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. Rochberg, George. The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composers View of Twentieth-Century Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. Sagert, Kelly Boyer. The 1970s. American popular culture through history. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2007. Client’s Last Name 15 List of Illustrations Figure 1. Piet Mondrian. Yellow, Blue, and Red. 1937-1942. Available at http://en.wi kip edia.org/wiki/File:Mondrian_CompRYB.jpg Figure 2. Jackson Pollack. No. 5, 1948. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/File:No._5,_1948.jpg Figure 3. Andy Warhol. Three Coke Bottles. Available at http://www.art.com/prod ucts/p10116380-sa-i953906/andy-warhol-three-coke-bottles.htm?aff=c onf&ctid=887951592&rfid=990417&tkid=15042734& Figure 4. Andy Warhol. Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962. Available at http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.sear ch.yah oo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dgold%2Bmonroe%2Bwarhol% 26fr%3Dyfp-t- 501%26toggle%3D1%26cop%3Dmss%26ei%3DUTF- 8&w=383&h=491&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F3292%2F2325891807_859eb99 9c3.jpg &rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fh ouseofsecrets%2F232589180 7%2F&size=151.5kB&name=Andy+Warhol+- +Gold+Marilyn+Monroe&p=gold+monroe+warhol&type=JPG&oid=579acc8185 2899b2&fusr=House+Of+Secrets+Incorporated&tit=Andy+Warhol+- +Gold+Marilyn+Monroe&hurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2 Fhouse ofsecrets%2F&no=2&tt=154&sigr=11na5l4pc&sigi=11g1536p6&sig b=138gdltm3&sigh=11c7en4na Figure 5. Robert Rauschenberg. Canyon, 1959. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wik i/File:Robert_Rauschenberg%27s_%27Canyon%27,_1959.jpg Figure 6. Tom Wesselmann. Sunset Nude with Matisse Odalisque. Oil on Canvas. 2003. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%27Sunset_Nud e_with_Matisse_Odal isque%27,_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_-- Tom_Wesselmann--_2003.jpg Figure 6. Roy Lichtenstein. Drowning Girl, 1963. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File:Roy_Lichtenstein_Drowning_Girl.jpg Read More