the
‘IT’
Edie Sedwick was the “It” girl of the 1960’s and Andy warhol’s muse. Andy claimed her as his “superstar” and featured her in many of his films and photography. She bcame a part of Andy’s pop art lifestyle; visiting
piece
the Factory frequently. Her fashion and personality was bold just like pop art. Edie, an actress, model and sociallite’s fame skyrocketed when she became a close friend of Andy warhol. But like most excessive lifestyles like that in which sedgwick lived, her life ended from a suspected drug overdose. Edie was a frequent alcoholic drinker and drug abuser but doctors were unsure if the untimely death was on purpose or by accident.
Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol Sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art www.warhol.org/ www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/frames.htm
Myself Pop art is by far my favorite era of art. Why? I’m attracted to the bold colours and subject matters. I like the idea that your art doesn’t really need to mean anything and you can take any ordinary objects and turn it into art. It has influenced me greatly on the way I produce my artwork and designs through the use of repetition, colours and bold outlines.
Megan Louie Presents
The era of
POP ART
POP ART T his bold art movement emerged onto the scene during the mid 1950’s in Britain and late 1950’s in the United States of America. Pop art challenged tradition in the sense of breaking the rule of fine art. It removes it’s subject from it’s context and isolates it, or combines it with other objects for contemplation. This idea of pop art refers more to the attitude of the artists directing this art movement than the artwork itself. Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, which includes advertising, comic books and ordinary mundane objects. It has been widely interpreted as a reaction to the ideas of abstract expressionism, but also as an expansion upon them. Pop art has been compared to its similarity to Dada due to its utilization of objects and images. The artists use rendering and reproduction techniques
Triple Elvis, Andy Warhol
to emphasize the banal elements of any given culture and is most often done through the means of irony. Andy Warhol’s quote about Coca-cola, “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better
coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” Pop art thrived in America during the 1960s. By this time, American advertising had adopted many elements and inflections of modern art and functioned at a very sophisticated level. Consequently, American artists had to search deeper for dramatic styles
that would distance art from the well-designed and clever commercial materials. And thus pop artists began producing work that was bold and aggressive.
Statue of liberty
Peter Max,
[ Jasper Johns ] Pop Artists come in all shapes and forms just like anything else. Two important painters in the establishment of America’s pop art vocabulary were Jasper Johns and Robert Raushenberg. Their main subject and concern was with social issues of the moment; using topical events of everyday life in America. Their work is unique and visually distinct from the ‘classic’ American pop art.
American Flag, Jasper Johns
[ ROY
Litchtenstein ]
And then you have Roy Lichtenstein whose work probably defines the basic premise of pop art better than any other through parody. His work features selected old-fashioned comic strips and reproduced hard-edged, precise compositions that documents while it parodies in a soft manner.
Detail, Roy LIchtenstein
[ Andy warhol ] Of course, probably the most famous and well known of all the pop artists, may I introduce you to Mr. Andy Warhol who, created a lifestyle based around pop art. Andy most definitely took pop art to a new level, creating short videos about life and slowing it down to really capture the beauty of the moment. His “factory” that he created became the place to be after he had it covered in silver and became a piece of art all on its own.
Campbell’s soup, Andy Warhol
The paintings of Lichtenstein, like those of Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann and others, share a direct attachment to the commonplace image of American popular culture, but also treat the subject in an impersonal manner clearly illustrating the idealization of mass production.