1. POP! GOES THE
WORLD
Professor Will Adams
Valencia College
Spring 2012
2. POP ART
“Once you ‘got’ pop, you could never
see a sign the same way again.
And once you thought pop, you could
never see America the same way
again.”
- Andy Warhol
3.
4. WHAT IS POP ART?
A major art movement from the mid 1950’s in
England and by the early 1960’s was at it’s fullest
potential in new York.
Themes and techniques were drawn from popular
culture (hence “pop” art):
Advertising & mass media
Comic strips
Celebrity photographs
Consumer product packaging
Everyday objects
5. WHAT IS POP ART?
Pop art aims to target a large
audience, but is often academic and
difficult for some people to understand.
The epic, or story, in art was replaced
with the everyday and the mass-
produced was awarded the same
significance as the unique. The division
between “high art” and “low art” was
decreasing.
6. WHAT IS POP ART?
“The term Pop Art was first used by
the English critic Lawrence Alloway in a
1958 issue of Architectural Digest to
describe those paintings that celebrate
post-war consumerism, defy the
psychology of Abstract Expressionism,
and worship the god of materialism.”
- Nicolas Pioch
7. THE NATURE OF POP
Pop Art was an art
movement in the late
1950’s and 1960’s that
reflected everyday
life and common
objects.
Pop artists blurred
the line between fine
art and commercial
Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964, art.
AWF
8. THE NATURE OF POP
“Pop Ar tists did
images that anybody
walking down the
street could recognize
in a split second…all the
great modern things
that the Abstract
Expressionists tried so
hard not to notice at
all.”
Three Coke Bott les, 1962, —Gretchen Berg
AWF
9. THE NATURE OF POP
The Pop artists moved
away from Abstract
Expressionism, which was
the “in” style of art in the
1950’s.
The Abstract
Expressionists evoked
emotions, feelings and
ideas through formal
elements such as:
Line
Color
Shape
Form
Jackson Pollock, Number 4,
Texture
1950 ARS
10. THE NATURE OF POP
Pop Artists used
common images
from everyday
culture as their
sources, including:
Advertisements
Consumer goods
Celebrities
Photographs
Comic strips Roy Lichtenstein, Masterpiece,
1962
11. THE NATURE OF POP
Pop Artists reflected
1960’s culture by using
new materials in their
artworks including:
Acrylic Paints
Plastics
Photographs
Fluorescent and
Metallic colors
Rober t Rauschenberg,
Retroactive II, 1963
12. THE NATURE OF POP
Pop Artists used
bold, flat colors and
hard edge
compositions adopted
from commercial
designs like those
found in:
Billboards
Murals
Magazines
Newspapers Campbell's Soup II,
1969, AWF
13. THE NATURE OF POP
As well as new
technologies and
methods, like:
Mass production
Fabrication
Photography
Claes Oldenburg, Floor Burger
1962, Claes Oldenburg Printing
Serials
14. THE NATURE OF POP
Pop art was appealing to
many viewers, while others
felt it made fun of
common people and their
lives.
It was hard for some
people to understand why
Pop Artists were painting
cheap, everyday objects,
when the function of art
historically was to uphold
and represent culture’s
Listerine Bott le, 1963, most valuable ideals.
AWF
16. ANDY WARHOL
Andy Warhol was one of
the most famous Pop
Artists.
Part of his artistic
practice was using new
technologies and new ways
of making art including:
Photographic Silk-Screening
Repetition
Mass production
Collaboration
Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes Media events
Installation
17. ANDY WARHOL
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was one of the most
influential American artists of the 20th
century.
He drew on images such as comic books,
soup cans, movie stars and the media to
challenge the "highbrow" views of fine art.
In addition to being an artist, Warhol was a
filmmaker, painter, collector, music producer,
commercial designer and illustrator, author,
magazine publisher, and fashion model.
18. ANDY WARHOL
Andy Warhol often
appropriated (used
without permission)
images from
magazines,
newspapers, and
press photos of the
most popular
people of his time
Silver Liz [Ferus
Type], 1963, AWF
19. ANDY WARHOL
Warhol used the
repetition of the
images of tragic
media events
to critique and
reframe cultural
ideas through his
art
Jackie Paintings, 1964,
AWF
20. ANDY WARHOL
Warhol took common everyday items and gave them impor tance
as “ar t” He raised questions about the nature of ar t:
Knives, 1981, AWF Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964, AWF
What makes one work of ar t better than
another?
25. QUOTABLE WARHOL
“Everybody will be famous for 15 minutes.”
“I’d asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions.
Finally one lady friend asked the right question,
‘Well, what do you love most?’ That’s how I
started painting money.”
“I’ve decided something: Commercial things really do
stink. As soon as it becomes commercials for a
mass market it really stinks.”
“When I got my first television set, I stopped
caring so much about having close relationships.”
33. DAVID HOCKNEY
Born in 1937, Hockney is
the best-known British
artist of his generation.
He has often been
regarded as a playboy of
the art world.
He has had lascivious
relationships, & run among
strange and crazy artistic
circles.
Yet, he has always retained
his constant and tireless
devotion to his work.
39. FRANK STELLA
Printmaker and painter
Frank Stella was born in
1936 in Massachusetts. He
attended Princeton
University and majored in
history.
Stella soon found himself
influenced by figures the
likes of Franz Kline and
Jackson Pollock while in
school, and visits to the art
galleries of New York subtly
shaped Stella’s techniques.
43. JASPER JOHNS
The American Abstract
Expressionist-Pop painter
is best known for his
painting Flag (1954-55),
painted he had a dream of
the American flag.
His work is often
described as Neo-Dadaist,
though his subject matter
includes images & objects
from pop culture, leading
many to classify him as a
pop artist
46. THE LEGACY OF POP
Pop artists stretched the
definitions of what art could
be and how it could be
made.
“The Pop idea, after all,
was that anybody could do
anything, so naturally we
were all trying to do it all.”
- Andy Warhol
The art world today reflects
many of the ideas, methods,
and materials pioneered by
the Pop Art movement.
47. THE LEGACY OF POP
In Untitled, 1991,
Barbara Kruger uses
the iconography of
the American flag
and hard edge
graphics to pose a
series of provocative
questions about
American cultural
values.
48. THE LEGACY OF POP
With Rabbit, 1986,
artist Jeff Koons
cast a mass-
produced inflatable
Easter bunny in
highly polished
stainless steel.
The sculpture
became iconic of art
in the 1980’s.
49. ENDANGERED
SPECIES SERIES
Andy Warhol created a series of ten color screen-
prints that portrayed endangered animals from
around the world: Siberian tiger, San Francisco
silverspot, orangutan, Grevy's zebra, black
rhinoceros, bighorn ram, African elephant, pine
barrens tree frog, giant panda and bald eagle.
He used brilliant colors - characteristic of his
signature style - and expressions suggestive of
the animal's fate.
Look for the tension between art and reality.
50.
51.
52. ENDANGERED
SPECIES SERIES
The images that Warhol created, and the
publicity that they received in the media
sparked a conversation about endangered
species, and caused people to wonder:
Why do animals, plants, flowers become
endangered?
How does this effect us?
What can we do about it?
53. ENDANGERED
SPECIES HOMEWORK
1. Choose an endangered or threatened species list: reptile, plant,
flower, bird, fish, etc., and find a picture of it (Feel free to use
The Dreaded Google).
2. Recreate that picture by creating an image of your own
measuring 6” x 6” with a ½” black border on all sides, in the style
of Warhol.
3. You may create your image out of paint, colored pencil, marker,
photo collage, or colored paper – you may NOT use a digital
image!
4. On the back of your image, list out the following information:
What is the species? Where does it live? Why is it
endangered? What can people do to help?
5. Due in class in one week.