Pop artist Andy Warhol is one of the most significant figure of the pop art, in fact it's the name most people think of when talking about contemporary art. What is pop art and what makes it so relevant to this day? Flourished in the 1950s, Pop art became an international phenomenon in the mid 20th century, predominantly in America and Britain. Artists continued to defy traditional arts by reintroducing imagery from mass media and popular culture, highly influenced by the consumer culture, they extracted elements from advertisements, comic strips and everyday items reinterpreting them as art.
Pop artist, Richard Hamilton's collage, Just what is it that makes today's home so different, so appealing? features imagery from comic books, advertisements and film publicity, acknowledging that mass media is challenging the status of fine art. The collage which is considered one of the earliest works of pop art was made to promote The Independent Group's (IG) This is Tomorrow exhibition. Influenced by the modern American culture post war, the British group was an assembly of young ambitious artists who challenged the place of mass culture in arts, and were also into
the idea of " found art". Besides Hamilton, other leading members included Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, critic Lawrence Alloway and architect Alison and Peter Smithson. Although The Independent Group is considered the beginning of pop art, the movement can be traced back to Marcel Duchamp once again whose notorious urinal ( Fountain, 1917 ) and shovel (In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1964 ) broke boundaries in the art world by reinterpreting common objects as art and later inspired Warhol's Brillo Box, 1964.
Pop art soon took over America by storm after its emergence in Britain. Both concept were however distinctly different, British Pop Art was based on the American culture viewed from a distance whereas Americans incorporated their everyday lives into their artwork. After the second world war, the American economy grew enormously with the innovations of technology and experimentation, which led to the rise of consumer culture. New generation of artists incorporated these " popular " elements, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Campbell soup cans, comic strips and advertisements. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein were profilic artists who had contributed to the pop art movement by appropriating elements from popular culture. Lichtenstein's made parodies of comic strips using oil or Magna paint for some of his best known works such as the Drowning Girl. Warhol took advantage of consumerism by mass producing his silk screen paintings of already well-known and highly recognizable imagery. By changing the context of his artwork, his works transformed from a regular advertisement into iconic representations of pop art.
Pop art was incredibly diverse as it became a international phenomenon, marking a major shift in not only the art world by the culture of modern society. These artists broke the barriers between high and low art by drawing inspiration from the everyday mundane life utilizing "found" objects and images that people could easily relate to. Despite the decline of Pop art in the 1970s, artists such as Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami of the neo-pop movement further pushed the boundaries of art by redefining the line between commodities and art.
References
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Julian Gooneratne. ( 2016, Febuary 28 ). Pop Art: The Exchange of Creativity and Culture. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0RzaHwv_UM
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