Pop Art

Pop Art

Popular Art

The definition below is from Wikapedia. I think it is interesting that icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis keep being rediscovered from one generation to the next. If we step back from the world we live in daily and view it from afar or even with a different eye as Warhol did and many of the Pop Artist it helps us to understand culture in a way we might not. I think that is one of the functions of the artist. Jung called it "artist as shaman". The artist can interpret or translate the world we live in with an almost spiritual intellectual view.

There are times when the average person does not understand what an artist, or art movement is conveying. At times it seems not to make sense and with that frustration people will reject or ridicule the art or artist. But as with Warhol and the Pop artists we begin to see the what the influence of mass culture and commercialization had on us as individuals and as a society.

"Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States.^[1] Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art. Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation.^[1][2] The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.^[2]

Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.^[3] And due to its utilization offound objects and images it is similar to Dada. Pop art is aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony.^[2] It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques.

Much of pop art is considered incongruent, as the conceptual practices that are often used make it difficult for some to readily comprehend. Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of Postmodern Art themselves.^[4]

Pop art often takes as its imagery that which is currently in use in advertising.^[5] Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, like in the Campbell's Soup Cans labels, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the shipping carton containing retail items has been used as subject matter in pop art, for example in Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box 1964, (pictured below), or his Brillo Soap Box sculptures."

The statement below gives us insight into what Warhol was thinking and his meaning in creating Marilyn.

It makes one think what will be the next art movement and what will it tell us about our own mass culture now. Who will be the shaman artist that reveals that to us? It is exciting to me to ponder.

"Warhol is a pop artist, meaning he takes images from popular culture, commercial products and advertisements and recontextualizes them within the framework of the art world. By using a familiar image like Marilyn Monroe, he flattens the image of her to show our shallow understand of her. She has become an icon of pop culture, and no longer a person with depth and character. Her iconographic portrait is a symbol for beauty and fame, and no longer for the person she is/was." W.C. Chatton