Contemporary Art and Pop Culture

Popular Culture Themes: The rise of the cult of celebrity The perception-transforming power of mass media Leveling of hierarchies (of taste, class, brands, art, etc.) The merge of art and business

Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? 1956

“What’s great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same thing as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola and you can know that the president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke 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 Cokes are the same, and all Cokes are good.” Warhol, Coca-Cola, 1962

Andy Warhol’s installation at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1962

Warhol, 32 Cans of Campbell’s Soup, 1962 Irving Blum (owner of the Ferus Gallery) bought the whole series for $3000 in 1962, then sold them to MOMA in 1996 for around $15 million (5,000 times what he originally paid!!)

Warhol, 100 Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962

Warhol, Detail of Campbel’s soup cans

Warhol, 100 Brillo Boxes, 1960

Warhol, Brillo Boxes, 1964 “Why is something that looks exactly like a Brillo Box a work of art, but a Brillo box is not?”

Warhol, Gold Marilyn, 1962

Warhol, Marilyn, 1962

Warhol, Marilyn Monroe’s Lips, 1962

Warhol, National Velvet, 1963

Warhol, Triple Elvis, 1962

Warhol, Mona Lisa, 1963

Warhol, Red Race Riot, 1963

Warhol, Saturday Disaster, 1964

What connects products, celebrities, and disasters (Warhol’s subjects) What connects products, celebrities, and disasters (Warhol’s subjects)? Why do you think he focused on these subjects? What themes in common can you identify?

Warhol was often critiqued for his “vulgarity”—what do you think Warhol was often critiqued for his “vulgarity”—what do you think?   Is Warhol’s art vulgar, or is it a mirror of a vulgar culture?

Andy Warhol, 200 One Dollar Bills, 1962 (sold for $43,762,500 in 2009)

What is the proper role for art in society. What should art do What is the proper role for art in society? What should art do? What should art be concerned with? What should art look like?

Warhol’s cover for the Velvet Underground, 1967

Warhol’s design for the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers, with actual zipper, 1971

Roy Lichtenstein, Image Duplicator, 1963

Lichtenstein, We Rose Up Slowly, 1964

Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl, 1963

Lichtenstein, I Know How You Must Feel, Brad, 1963

Lichtenstein, Femme Au Chapeau, 1962

Lichtenstein, Little Big Painting, 1965

The Neo-Dadaists (Johns, Rauschenberg, Oldenburg) and the Pop artists (Warhol, Lichtenstein) all bring back subject matter to art, after the Abstract Expressionist rejection of subjects. How would you characterize the differences between Neo Dada and Pop use of and portrayal of subject matter (what kinds of subjects does each group use, and how are the subjects presented or represented)?

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (We don’t need another hero), 1985 Postmodern works often use ambiguous language: who is “we”? Who is speaking? Questions traditional roles and values

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (You Rule By Pathetic Display), 1985

Jenny Holzer, Truism Series, 1982 Strategies of mass media and advertising Aphorisms/slogans/clichés: different meanings of each type? Often contradictory Who is speaking? Can they be trusted?

Jenny Holzer, Truism Series, 1982 Full list of Truisms

Ashley Bickerton, Tormented Self-Portrait, 1986-87 "What exactly constitutes our notion of individual identity? We wake up in the morning and select our individuality from a finite catalogue of readymade possibilities."

Jeff Koons, Art Magazine Ads (Artforum), 1988-89

Jeff Koons, Art Magazine Ads (Art in America), 1988-89

Jeff Koons, Made In Heaven, 1989

Koons, Jeff and Ilona (Made in Heaven) 1989

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

Damien Hirst with shark

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007 Platinum cast of a skull set with 8,601 diamonds, total carat weight of 1,106.81, and original teeth. Cost £14 million to produce, sales record is very sketchy, leading to questions about the nature and true amount of the sale, if there was one. Hirst claimed he sold it for £50 million cash, which is unsubstantiated.

David Byrne, “I don’t care about contemporary art anymore?” I go into a gallery now and—rightly or wrongly—immediately think, “inoffensive tchotchkes for billionaires and the museums they fund.” It’s sad—I used to be able to convince myself that contemporary art was some kind of forum for ideas and feelings about the world we live in. But hang on! It is! Those ideas and feelings are now about money and sucking up to those that have it and will part with a little bit of it. That is the world we live in!

David Byrne, “I don’t care about contemporary art anymore?” I can’t see the work or any ideas behind most of it anymore—if there even are any. The ideas might be there. The artists might be holding on to their integrity and be maintaining their distance from the dirty business of buying and selling… Could painting—the sine qua non of arty baubles—become irrelevant and uncool not because of some reductionist spiritual aesthetic (as with Malevich’s work), but because it as a medium eventually loses all depth and human relevance due to economically inspired alienation?

Zbigniew Libera, LEGO Concentration Camp, 1996 “Nowadays, wars are no longer conducted just with the use of weapons, but also through consumption and culture.”

Tom Sachs, Hello Kitty Nativity, 1994 (Barney’s Christmas Window)

Margaret Kilgallen, To Friend and Foe, 1999

Barry McGee (Twist), Untitled, 2009 (at SFMOMA)

Takashi Murakami, Tan Tan Bo Puking, AKA Gero Tan, 2002 “I think that those who were able to enjoy consumer culture and the world of consumerism were the countries that were victorious during the war…I mean the U.S. and the British. Societies that lost the war, like Japan, envied the consumerism of the winners but they still wanted at least to be able to borrow what they envied. “

Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton collaboration

Takashi Murakami—Versailles, 2010

Takashi Murakami Miss Ko2, 1997 Murakami, Interview at Versailles