MEDIA
SPEAKING THROUGH
ART
RONZA YOUSSEF • ALI NASSEH • KRIS CELESTE
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Throughout the years, media has played an enormous role in impacting the art world. The imitation of mass-produced objects such as comic books, newspapers, and packaging design soon flourished into the works of many different artists. This era was soon known as Pop Art. During this time, whether in a negative or positive sense, artists began to respond to new media. Using the impact of pop culture, these artists expressed their feelings towards the rise of media’s dominance in society, through art work that displayed a certain language and examined how we, the viewers, reacted to this language.
CATALOG
ESSAY
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Media Speaking Through Art is an exhibition that helps portray the connection between media and art and how media was communicated through art mainly during the movement of Pop Art. Focusing mainly on three of the most popular pop artists of their time, this exhibition will illustrate the works of Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, and Roy Lichtenstein. The idea of this exhibition is to help illustrate how pop culture has impacted these artists to generate works that communicate the ideas and stereotypes of the media. In addition, these artists are allowing media to be communicated through their art. Not only are people beginning to familiarize themselves with certain products that were once unknown, but they are also perceiving issues in different ways through the artist’s interpretation of the media. Believing that media has an effect on how one perceives certain things, this catalog shows in depth analysis on this matter.
RICHARD HAMILTON
02.24.22 - PRESENT
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ichard Hamilton was born on February 24, 1922. As a successful British painter and printmaker, Hamilton was said to have founded the Independent Group that held discussions concerning popular culture, advertising, and the media and mass art. The Independent Group’s academic latitude was motivated by the belief that culture should imply not the heights of artistic excellence but rather of social practices. Throughout his works, Hamilton was interested in communication theory and how certain issues were communicated to the public. In addition, he was interested in figuring out how advertising shapes our thoughts and perceptions. This idea can clearly be seen through his works, $he (1958-61), Pin-Up (1961), and Just What is it the Makes Today’s Homes so Different, so Appealling? (1956).
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s one enters the exhibition, they will first recognize Richard Hamilton’s Just What is it the Makes Today’s Homes so Different, so Appealing? (1952) This particular piece is one of the most celebrated images of British art in the twentieth-century as it was used for one of the posters for the exhibition This is Tomorrow held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. “Collaged with mages drawn chiefly from American illustrated magazines, it has become an emblem of the Age of Boom.” Just What is it that Makes Today’s Homes so Different, so Appealing was revolved around a concept of using comic books, tinned food, nudes that formed the iconography of Pop art, and usage of the language of advertising. By using sources of media (TV, tape recorder, movie poster, etc.) and reflecting stereotypes of gender roles, this piece becomes relatable to the exhibition theme in allowing media to communicate through art. As media is speaking through Hamilton’s art, it is communicating to us not only the brands and movies in the media but also contrasting the roles of women between pin-up and domestic. For instance, the pin-up woman lying on the couch is portrayed as a sexual object. This reveals how women are being presented with sex in order to sell certain items. If one observes the collage closely they can also see a vacuum cleaner on the stairs as this may also represent the domestic role of women.
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RICHARD HAMILTON’S
JUST WHAT IS IT
THAT MAKES TODAY’S HOME SO DIFFERENT, SO APPEALING?
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ANDY WARHOL 7
08.06.28 - 02.22.87
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ndy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928. During his early career, Warhol attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology where he majored in pictorial design. He later moved to New York and found stability as a successful commercial artist where he produced ink-on-paper images using monotype process. During this time he won several commendations from the Art Director’s Club and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. In addition, Warhol illustrated booklets where he used the same process. In 1960, Warhol soon started producing works that dealt with images of popular culture. His first Pop paintings that included the comic strips of 1960-61, illustrated a new technique. He worked on stretched canvas outlining the images in pencil and then going over them with oil paint and brush. Such works include Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), Disasters (1963), and Marilyns (1967). His various artworks helped him to be considered as a major figure in the Pop Art movement.
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s one makes their way through the exhibition, they will then come across Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans (1962). This piece was among Warhol’s first silkscreen productions. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring twenty inches in height and sixteen inches in width. As Campbell’s soup is a product that is seen by many people everyday as well being something recognizable, this allows it to be relevant to the idea of media speaking through art. Obviously, it is a product seen through media, however, it is approached in a different matter. This allows viewers to perceive the item with a different approach.
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ANDY WARHOL’S
CAMPBELL’S
SOUP CANS
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ROY LICHTENSTEIN
10.27.23 - 09.29.97
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oy Lichtenstein was born on October 27, 1923 in New York City. Lichtenstein was also considered as one of the great artists of the Pop Art movement. “The high-art authority of Lichtenstein’s style was not stable; his style could be appropriated by different groups for different purposes.” He borrowed from mass-culture with ideas about comic books relating to themes of war and romance that were following World War II. Lichtenstein’s paintings distilled gender roles by exaggerating between masculine action and feminine emotion. They emphasized the representational practices through the way comic books helped to define gender. In addition, Lichtenstein’s work illustrated powerfully charged scenes in a more impersonal manner, allowing the viewer to interpret their own meaning to the image.
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he final piece that is exhibited is Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam! (1963). This piece features a fighter aircraft firing rocket into an enemy plane with a yellow and red explosion through the idea of a comic book. The comic form is an aspect of popular culture and therefore the media is helping generate ideas towards the artist for his work. Dealing with issues held within society, Whaam! identifies what the media has to say rather than revealing themes about the artist himself.
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ROY LICHTENSTEIN’S
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WHAAM!
SPRING 2009 • DESIGNED BY KRIS CELESTE