POP
ART
MoMA 2010
rebels with a cause
pop art takes over
A new kind of art transpired from the explosive rise of the 1960’s, challenging the definition of art and reacting to the status quo. Pop Art was taking over, storming the city with its vibrant colors and every day familiarity of subjects. This new “hip” style of art was kicking Abstract Expressionism to the curb and showing the capital of art and commerce that there was a new way to make art that everyone could enjoy. “The world that people knew, that they worked in and looked at every day, was the subject of the most contemporary painting and sculpture again.” Pop artists of the 60’s were striving to make a strong visual impact on the g eneral public by using the popular culture of the day. Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Peter Max, and Robert Rauschenberg were just some of the pioneers of this movement, constantly pushing the limits and welcoming the world to this
new kind of self-expression. Other artists such as Jim Dine, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and James Rosenquist were also prominent members of the Popart regime and a large part of the reason why Pop-art is still admired today. For most people now and then, a trip to an art museum seemed more like a tedious search through rows of obscure paintings that were neither entertaining nor comprehensible. These artists broke this trend and brought to our attention for the first time something that could instantly be recognized and appreciated. Art could now be made from anything and these artists were serving our world on a silver platter of whatever materials they deemed appropriate no matter how “low-brow or trivial.” Popart turned museums and galleries into things that could be enjoyed, and in turn, they became more relevant and relatable to society. Art is something to be appreciated
and to relate to and these pop artists helped make that possible. They did something radical, unheard of even, for the time, and changed the art world forever by reflecting the reality of contemporary America directly to its inhabitants. Most importantly, Pop-art was and still is one of the most popular styles of art that succeeded in getting through to the general public. Few other modern art movements ever made such an impression on society nor have they since. We welcome you to this exhibition to celebrate these amazing artists and the art that changed society forever.
This new “hip”style of art was kicking Abstract Expressionism to the curb & showing the capital of art & commerce that there was a new way to make art...
robert indiana
Robert Indiana, born as Robert Clark, began his career as an abstract painter and wood sculptor, later joining the Pop-art movement in the early 1950’s. He is best known for his graphic image “Love,” which first appeared in the 1960’s on Christmas cards and stamps and was later replicated in various sculptural forms. His work evolved into “hard-edged” graphics containing mostly words, logos, and typographic forms. Today, he is known as one of the country’s leading contemporary artists. Indiana was born in New Castle, Indiana in 1928 where he later graduated from Arsenal Technical High School and had his first solo show of watercolor paintings. These paintings have been compared to works of Reginald Marsh, Edward Hopper, and Charles Sheeler. In 1945, he began Saturday classes at the John Herron Art Institute studying under Edwin Fullwinder. One year later, he joined the Army Air Corps, disregarding his scholarship to the institute. During his service he attended classes at Syracuse University and studied under Oscar Weissbuch at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute. He continued his studies at the Chicago School of the Art Institute from 1949 to 1953 and received his BFA from the University of Edinburgh. After his thorough schooling throughout the United States and Europe, he finally settled down in Coenties Slip, New York. Nearby, other artists such as Jack Youngerman and Charles Hinnman lived and worked, too. Although he has worked in many forms, Robert Indiana was,
and still remains, an important figure of the Pop-art movement. He has referred to himself as a sign painter as he incorporated symbols, signs, letters, and words into his art, but he is also known for creating poems, paintings, sculptures, silk screens, and posters. Old trade names, traffic signs, machines, and commercial stencils have inspired his work. The idea of symmetry as well as color and form are also
seen throughout Indiana’s images. The content of his pieces incorporate the times and his surroundings while addressing politics, religion, and the human condition. These themes are not only apparent in his art but much of the work seen in the pop art movement. He is a celebrated artist whose “realist approach” to his images has helped in defining future generations of artists and their work.
andy warhol Andy Warhol is without a doubt one of the most well known pop artists of his time and still remains a legend today. He is seen by many as the ”High Priest of Popart,” and has achieved worldwide fame for not only his artwork but also his lifestyle. His work revolved heavily around iconography of the time period ensuring that his images would be instantly identifiable and never forgotten. Born into a family of Slovak immigrants in 1928, Andy Warhol grew up in the city of Pittsburgh where he proved his artistic talents at a very early age. He was a gifted painter and drawer early on and after graduating high school he continued his studies in commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Warhol graduated in 1949 and traveled to New York to start his career. In no time, he was one of the most sought after commercial illustrators in New York. In the sixties, following numerous renowned art exhibitions, Andy began painting mass-produced objects well known to the average person such as Campbell Soup cans and Coke bottles. He also started making silk-screen prints of internationally known stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. In 1962, Warhol founded The Factory, where he could mass-produce his own images in his very own art studio. His workers helped to create mostly prints and posters of his images as well as other items designed by Warhol himself. The Factory also served as a filmmaking studio used for mostly experimental underground films. His work took a radical turn after the attempted
assassination on him by one of his workers. Andy’s mass production point of view turned to a very entrepreneurial style, as he started to work on mostly portraits of the famed and fortunate such as Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. He also started a magazine, Interview, opened a nightclub, and even wrote a book on his philosophies regarding art. Andy Warhol’s art is based around the idea of removing the separation between the fine arts and the commercial arts seen in magazine illustrations, comic books, record albums, and ad-
vertisements. Warhol worked to blend this rigid division by becoming exceptionally well versed and talented across many medias such as drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, and films. His works revolved around iconography made known by TV, advertising, and the news. Images such as atomic bomb mushroom clouds, electric chairs, car crashes, and race riots were all influential in his artwork. By using these well-known symbols, his images were instantly recognizable and therefore created mass appeal across society.
jasper johns Jasper Johns was an early pioneer of the Pop-art movement during the 1950’s. He is said to have paved the way for Pop-art by breaking the hold of abstract expressionism on modern American art. He has given art lovers across the globe numerous sculptures, lithographs, prints, and paintings. Among these works of art, “False Start,” was bought in 2006 by private collectors for $80 million, making it the most expensive painting by a living artist. Johns was born in Augusta, Georgia, during the middle of the Great Depression. He endured a rocky childhood but he persevered and eventually graduated from high school in 1946. For some time he drifted without any noticeable focus in mind and after three aimless semesters at the University of South Carolina, he moved to New York and entered a commercial art school. He remained a student there until 1951 when he consequently dropped out and began supporting himself with random jobs. In 1954, he was introduced to Robert Rauschenberg, a fellow artist, and the two became good friends supporting themselves by creating various works of art used by stores such as Tiffany & Co. and Bonwit Teller. After finally finding his focus, Jasper was selling his artwork and supporting himself solely with his art. This change was a crucial step for his future as an artist and in reinventing himself. Following this revelation, John’s work began to really take shape and possess substance. His use of pop culture images and materials, classified him as a pop artist,
but his artistic expression through the use of inventive and intellectual techniques that differed from the modern commercial art of his fellow pop artists, are what led him to such success. He was very interested in experimentation and in turn, he learned to work with encaustic paint, a method that combined pigments and hot wax before application to the surface of the painting. Following the idea of Pop-art and the recognizable, the subjects he chose were usually too common to be closely noticed and consisted of mostly targets and flags. He took these objects and gave them individuality by using techniques that improved and lessened their familiarity at the same time. Later, Johns met Marcel Duchamp and was heavily influenced by his Dadaist work that
questioned the predetermined idea of what was or was not accepted as “art.” Duchamp took every day objects and presented them as objects of art rather than items for everyday use. Jasper embraced this idea and made it his own by using objects in his paintings put in complex arrangements rather than the spontaneity of Duchamp’s images. He also added crosshatching into these pieces as a way of conveying a sense of something that you hastily looked upon and later, turned into art. Following his Neo-Dadaist work, he tried his hand at designing sets, costumes, and posters for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as well as book illustrations. It is obvious that his work was some of the most innovative and irreplaceable of the time period.
peter max One of the most famous living and working artist’s, Peter Max, is an icon of the Pop-art movement and pop culture alike. He is known for his intense works of art full of inspirational and inspiring imagery that have influenced generations of people across America. His passion for art has made him one of the best in the industry and in turn, you can find his work just about anywhere. Peter Max’s rise to fame stemmed from his unbound childhood full of culture and the freedom to express himself creatively and imaginatively. He grew up across the globe starting in Germany then China, Tibet, Israel and France before he reached his final destination, America. With his pancultural background, it was no surprise that his work would be come so rich and full of life. His parents were extremely supportive and their encouragement continued as the family moved across the globe. Peter made it his life goal to spend his time discovering himself through art and the freedom of creativity. He studied numerous art styles through paintings from the movements of Fauvism, Classical art, and Realism. Possibly one of the most influential times in his life was his simultaneous studying of art and astronomy, two of his key passions, which can be seen in much of his work. Ultimately, his quest for self-discovery and creative selfexpression ended in New York City where the pop art culture of fashion, automobiles, and movies were thriving. The mid-60’s was the beginning of the psychedelic explosion
that was Peter Max’s work. He was a radical visionary of his time and he was in demand. His style consisted mostly of cosmic characters against bold, vibrant colors that grabbed your attention and influenced most of the graphics of the 60’s and beyond. He worked mostly with the art of collage to really capture the time period and he reflected the work of many Dada artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray as well as Salvador Dali, a surrealist. Although collage was an established technique of Modernism, Peter Max put his own flair on things by using photographic images like the
ones in kaleidoscopic patterns to create a new flair. His work was also heavily manipulated by the expansion of the print industry with four-color web presses. Peter could now turn his original artwork into posters and share them with the entire community. He could now create color combinations right on the printing press by using a split fountain technique that enabled you to blend colors as they were being processed through the ink rollers. Now, his work could be seen across America in college dorm rooms and still today for numerous corporations from General Electric to Burlington Mills socks.
“I think a painting is more like the real world if it’s made out the real world.” - Robert Rauschenberg
“Pop Art is industrial painting. I think the meaning of my work is that it is industrial, it’s what all the world will soon become. Europe will be the same way, soon, it won’t be American; it will be universal.” - Roy Lichtenstein
jim dine Jim Dine was an advocate of the Pop-art movement as well as the Neo-Dada who specialized in “ready-mades” and Happenings. He is world renowned today, for his witty intellect and clever creativity that has helped him constantly challenge himself and generate more than three thousand paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, poetry, and more for over four decades. Dine remains a pertinent figure in the Pop-art movement and is a part of numerous permanent collections of museums around the world. Jim Dine was born in Cincinatti, Ohio in 1935 where he grew up amidst the beautiful Midwest, which has become a large part of his work. He began his studies at the University of Cincinatti and the Boston School of Fine and Applied Arts in Massachusetts from 1953 to 1957. In 1957 he received a BFA from the Ohio University, Athens and just two years later he moved to New York. Dine’s earliest art, Happenings, a developing form of Pop-art, emerged in the late 1950’s backed by abstract expressionism and action painting. Happenings were works of art in a theatrical form like staged performances or demonstrations. Around the same time, household tools became the subjects of much of his work, characterizing the pieces as hands-on. They combined elements of painting, sculpture, and installation as well as various medias. Although he worked closely with everyday objects in his art, he wanted to break away from the impersonal temperament of pop art by mak-
ing pieces that brought together the personal passions of people and common experiences. His use of repetition in his personal, yet recognizable objects such as robes, hands, tools, gates, and hearts became a signature of his artwork. He used many metaphors for himself and other objects such as the human body, which he’d convey through fragmented body parts and items of clothing. Also seen in his early work, Dine used a lot of assemblages, where he took actual objects and attached them to the canvases. Overall, his work
was very much a combination of different techniques and handwritten text along with every day objects and abstract backgrounds. In 1967, Jim and his family moved to London where his focus changed and he dedicated most of his time to printmaking and drawing, later moving on to sculpture in the early 80’s. The objects and subjects of his artwork were really a representation of his feelings about life. His most recent art focuses on imagery borrowed from ancient Greek, Egyptian, and African objects, slightly different and new from what we are used to seeing.
roy lichtenstein One of the leading pop artists, Roy Lichtenstein was known for his instantly recognizable style derived from making comic-strip graphics into a form of art. His work portrayed the “trivialization” of culture prevalent in the contemporary American life. He defined the Pop-art movement best with his use of parodies. There are thought to be a total of 4,500 pieces of his art in circulation, today. Roy Lichtenstein was born and raised in New York City where he studied at the art Students League then went on to enroll at Ohio State University. After a brief three years of service in the army, he returned to Ohio State University to receive his master’s degree and later, teach. When he returned to New York City in 1951, he taught at both New York State College of Education and Douglass College. Throughout the 1950’s, Lichtenstein utilized the basic techniques of abstract expressionism alongside his own themes of cowboys and Indians and paper money. While working at Douglass College he became interested in the work of a fellow colleague, Allan Kaprow, in turn starting his use of comic strip and cartoon figures in his work. Primary colors, with the occasional green, outlined in black, became his preferred method of color. Rather than using solid color, he used the Ben Day dot, a method used to create images and portray the density of tone transformed in printing. One of his processes was to take a comic strip scene, recompose it, and project it onto his canvas to fill in with the Ben Day dots. Through his tech-
niques, he found a way to make his images look massive although most of them were rather small. In his familiar style, he painted sunsets and landscapes as well as designed ceramic tableware and graphics. Much of his inspiration for these works came from Monet, Mondrian, and Picasso. His later work, in the 70’s and 80’s, began to show a less rigid and more expansive style
from what he had been doing before. Lichtenstein began a series of “Artist’s Studios” that incorporated elements of his past work. He also dabbled in some surreal work, as well as sculptures made from metal and plastic. Overall, Lichtenstein strived to make his art look planned and impersonal or unwelcoming to mirror society at the time.
claes oldenburg Claes Oldenburg is regarded as one of the major pop artists, mostly known for his sculptures of replicated every day objects. He worked to blend reality and fantasy into a beautiful, harmonious image. Although he experimented with Happenings and other performance and installation arts, he is best known for his contribution to Pop-art through his turning of commonplace objects into pure pieces of art and changing societies preconceived perceptions. Claes Thure Oldenburg was born in January of 1928 in Stockholm, Sweden. His family moved often due to his father’s membership in the Swedish Foreign Service, but they finally settled in Chicago in 1936. He focused mostly on art and literature while studying at Yale University and after graduating with his B.A., he returned to Chicago to work as an apprentice reporter at the City News Bureau. While working, he continued to take classes in painting, figure drawing, and anatomy at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1956, Oldenburg took to New York City and developed an active membership in the art community. He worked to expand his art history knowledge as well as to move beyond the constraints of Absrtact Expressionism like numerous other artists at the time. Like Red Grooms, Jim Dine, and Robert Whitman, Claes looked at art as an experiment in pushing limits and questioning what art really is. Oldenburg saw his art in a philosophical way and himself, as a realist. He believed art must relate to life realistically and to the everyday life of people. Ironically so, his
work consisted of taking these every day objects and putting them out of context to create parodies. A writer for The Economist said his work “muddled up the usual association of the sense.” Oldenburg tended to create multiple variations from one theme and had numerous sources of inspiration. In turn, he encouraged his viewers to develop many conclusions from his work and make as many associations as they believed possible. His style seemed to change over the years and develop into its own which can be seen through his various works in a variety of media and modes. He made drawings, paintings, created films, and even sculptures. His early art is said to have been influenced by a lot of tribal art, comics, graffiti, children’s drawings, and the artwork of Jean Dubuffet. In 1963, his style changed to a more precise and polished look that was very indus-
trialized. This marked the start of his soft sculpture phase where his materials changed from paper, canvas, plaster, and so on, to vinyl, Formica, and Plexiglas. His pieces during this time took objects of the modern technology made of very rigid materials and turned them into their counterpart; an elastic, moveable form. These new pieces could take on different identities as they were moved, touched, and hung. During the mid-60’s, Oldenburg also began to create works for giant sculptures. Although most of these were based on pure fantasy, he believed some of the ideas were actually practical and realistic. Oldenburg was the definition of radical and thought provoking. He pushed his work to the limit and forced viewers to reassess what they’d come to believe all along. His work became a social commentary on the pop culture and the general approach to life of Americans.
robert rauschenberg
Considered one of the main predecessors of the Pop-art movement, Robert Rauschenberg is known today mostly for his work in “Combines.” Rauschenberg strived to create pieces that consisted of emotion and feeling that could be viewed differently by each person. He spent his time challenging himself and experimenting in new ways of making art on a daily basis. Robert Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1925 imagining one day to be a minister or even a pharmacist. It wasn’t until over twenty years later he realized his real calling; to be an artist. In 1947, while in the U.S. Marines he discovered his talent in drawing and his interest in the artistic way everyday objects and people were represented. While studying on the G.I. Bill in Paris, he quickly became disheartened with the European art scene and moved to North Carolina to study under some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the time. Although there was so much to learn there, North Carolina soon became too small and suffocating so Rauschenberg took off to New York in hopes to make it as a painter. It was the chaotic and exciting city life that revealed just how far Robert could go with his artistic talent. Rauschenberg, like many other artists of the Pop-art movement, was hard set in rejecting the seriousness and rigid qualities of Abstract Expressionism. In response, he took his love for pop culture and his desire to rid the art world of Abstract Expressionism to find a new way of painting through embrac-
ing materials not traditionally used by artists. His art was transforming from abstract to drawings that he dubbed, “combines.” These revolutionary images took non-traditional materials and objects and presented them in inventive combinations to create a three-dimensional collage. This new style cemented his place in the art world and forever in art history. In the 60’s, Rauschenberg began to stray away from these combines and he began to work in two-dimensions using photographs from magazines of current events and pop culture to create silk-screen prints. He would transfer the familiar images and then collage them with painted brush strokes, combining his love for combines and painting. From afar, they looked like abstracted
images but up close, the images actually related to each other. He realized he could make a statement on contemporary society using the foundations of society. From the 60’s on he continued this experimentation in prints and began printing on aluminum, Plexiglas disks, clothes, and other random surfaces. His main goal was to challenge the viewer and make them a part of the work of art. Into the 80’s and 90’s, Rauschenberg maintained his investigations in art and worked with collages and new ways of transferring photos. Throughout his working life he was constantly challenging the art world and the perception of what it was really shaping and influencing the second half of the century.
james rosenquist James Rosenquist, a prominent and influential figure in the Pop-art movement, whose work mirrored that of Claes Oldenburg, has exemplified what it is to use your imagination freely. He is most well known for his large, billboard style pieces that never failed to make a statement on the ever-present consumer world and society. Rosenquist was born in North Dakota, in the heart of the Great Plains giving him a vast array of interesting landscapes and visual perspectives to draw and take inspiration from. His family moved to Minneapolis when he was nine, and although he continued to draw, he had no formal art instruction or exposure to the fine arts. In junior high, he won a scholarship to the Minneapolis School of Art and he began to contemplate a career in the arts. After high school he began his studies at the University of Minnesota and went on to study Western painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. As he worked over the summers, he mostly painted commercial signs on water tanks and grain elevators taking into account the odd union of the advertising images and logos as well as the changing landscape of the world around him. In 1955, he won a scholarship to study at the Art Students League in New York City and soon he was surrounded by the international art scene of the city, dominated by abstract impressionism. He studied under many modern masters including George Grosz and Robert began to form the ambition and drive to make a personal statement in his art.
Rosenquist began working with billboards again, subsequently to earn a living, but he came to discover the industrial techniques of this style and carried it over to his own work. He took the paint from his job and in his small studio he would use the colors of spaghetti and beer from the billboards, and apply them to his own canvases creating something similar to the imagery of the advertisements. Although he relied on the techniques and illustrations of the advertisements, his placement of color and the way he applied them gave them a very different meaning and purpose. In 1960 he decided to devote himself completely to his art and he began his first series of major works using fragmented, broken imagery of advertising art to make a statement on America’s con-
sumer culture. As his career blossomed and he became a leading figure in the Pop art movement, his work began to incorporate found materials like barbed wire, plastic, and even parts of machines. Many viewers read into Rosenquist’s work getting a sense of political meaning hidden in his images though Robert insisted he strayed away from any political involvement. During the 70’s, he continued to pursue his fascination with alternative and unusual materials and site-specific installations. The early 90’s brought more of his signature large works along with pieces in lithography, printmaking, sculpture, and collage. Even as he entered the sixth decade of his career, Rosenquist continued producing his signature images and inspiring artist’s around the world.
ed ruscha
His works are considered to be “among the smartest cultural products of the last half-century.” His works span from painting to film and dazzle us with the unlikely blend of text and image teeming with multiple meanings. It is safe to say, Ed Ruscha has certainly made an impact on the art world and the Pop style with his word paintings. In December of 1937, Edward Joseph Ruscha IV was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Around second grade, Ruscha’s mother began to encourage his artistic tendencies and transferred him to Hawthorne Elementary School away from the repressive parochial school he had previously been attending. In fourth grade he met Bob Bonaparte, a neighborhood friend and cartoonist, who exposed him to his first real art encounter and Ruscha began drawing his own cartoons. In 1948, Ruscha enrolled in a painting class but his love for cartoons still held his attention. Ed enrolled at Classen High School in Oklahoma City and began taking art classes spiking an interest in typography and printing. After graduating high school in 1956, Ruscha drove to California in hopes of making it as a commercial artist. There, he began his formal studies at the Chouinard Art Institute, a fine arts school, and begins to paint in the abstract expressionist style so common to the times. 1957, just a year into college, Edward abandoned the idea of becoming a commercial artist and fully commited himself to painting. In the early 60’s, the prime of the Pop-art movement, Ruscha was a pivotal part of the shift from Abstract Expressionism to Pop-Art
and in establishing the identity of West Coast art. His earlier work consisted of “pseudo-expressionist splatters” and objects of everyday life like Spam tins, comics, and newspapers but soon became increasingly streamlined. At this time, Ruscha began his series of photographic books that featured the architectural surroundings of Los Angeles and presented the warped fabrication of the city. He continued with this style of work as well as making realist paintings and in the early 70’s he began making
images out of unlikely combinations of words and materials. In the 80’s and 90’s his work explored the airbrushed, monochrome, playful style of images and the varied subject matter from gothic expressions to silhouettes of ships. In his more recent works, Ruscha has returned to color and works with a combination of text and image. His work, then and now, has given the viewer a beautiful image and a plethora of statements about society.