Pop Art “The Landscape of Signs” “In the ten years after 1947 the number of televisions in the United States jumped from ten thousand to forty million,...” (Fineberg) Rise of the art market – Newly rich collectors like Robert Scull bought in quantity: “Assisted by the careful promotion of a few key dealers, the price of work by the most fashionable younger artists of the sixties escalated as much as 4,000 percent over the decade [1960s]” (Fineberg)
POP ART BEGAN IN LONDON (left) Francis Bacon (British, 1909-1992), Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef, 1954, British Existential Figuration; (right) Eduardo Paolozzi (British, 1924-2005), Real Gold, collage, 14 x 19 in., 1950, British Pop
The Blitz: From September 7 1940 through May 1941, the German Luftwaffe bombed British cities, especially London, almost nightly. Here London fire fighters extinguish flames following an air raid. More than 43,000 deaths and 1,400,000 people were made homeless, 4 million homes destroyed or badly damaged.
(left) Eduardo Paolozzi Its a Psychological Fact That Pleasure Helps Your Disposition, 1948, collage. Affirmative or adversarial (avant-garde) posture? Shown in his influential 1952 “Bunk” slide lecture that marks the beginning of British Pop. “Bunk” is from Henry Ford: “history is more or less bunk….we want to live in the present.” (right) Hannah Höch, The Beautiful Girl, collage (photomontage), 1919, Berlin Dada / Adversarial posture toward commercial culture – what was Paolozzi’s attitude towards it?
Eduardo Paolozzi, (right) I was a Rich Man's Plaything 1947; (left) Meet the People, 1948, from Ten Collages from 1952 BUNK lecture, collage mounted on card support, 14 x 9.5 in. “The iconography of a new world.”
Richard Hamilton (British, b Richard Hamilton (British, b. 1922) Just What is it That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? Collage (photomontage), 10 x 9”, 1956, KunsthalleTübingen, Tubingen, Germany. British Pop Hamilton defined Pop Art in a letter dated January 16, 1957: "Pop Art is: popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business." 1964
The Independent Group’s “This is Tomorrow” exhibition, 3 installation views, 1956, Whitechapel Gallery (Institute of Contemporary Art) London
Richard Hamilton, (left) Towards a Definitive Statement on the Coming Trends in Men's Wear and Accessories (a) Together Let Us Explore the Stars 1962; (right) $he, 1958-61, both oil & collage on canvas, British Pop
(left) Richard Hamilton, The Large Glass or The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, 1963, an exact copy and homage to (right) Marcel Duchamp, The Large Glass or The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even 1915-23; (center) Photo of Duchamp by Hamilton, c. 1968
Sixties, “There were two Camps, mine and Clement Hans Namuth, photograph marking the 25th Anniversary of Leo Castelli Gallery, 1982. Standing left – right: Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra, Lawrence Weiner, Nassos Daphnis, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, Salvatore Scarpitta, Richard Artschwager, Mia Westerlund Roosen, Cletus Johnson, and Keith Sonnier Seated left – right: Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Leo Castelli, Ed Ruscha, James Rosenquist, and Robert Barry In the late fifties and Sixties, “There were two Camps, mine and Clement Greenberg’s. “ Leo Castelli
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987), Bonwit Teller window decor, NY, April 1961; (left) Dick Tracy, 1960, casein and crayon, 48” high; A Boy for Meg, 1962 oil on canvas, 72” high
Andy Warhol, 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962, acrylic on canvas, screened with hand painted details, 20x16 in. ea (lower right) Ferus Gallery installation, Los Angeles,1962. Warhol’s first gallery show. Five canvases sold for $100 each, but Irving Blum, co-owner of Ferus, bought them back to keep the set intact and later partly gifted them to MoMA NYC http://www.moma.org/audio_file/audio_file/1110/OE_24_CampbellSoupCans_edit.mp3
Jasper Johns (American, b Jasper Johns (American, b.1930), Painted Bronze, hand painted cast bronze, 1960, Proto-Pop (Neo-Dada) (right) Warhol, Campbell Soup Can, 1968, screened acrylic on canvas, Pop Art
Andy Warhol and Gerard Malanga (1967) silk-screening in the Factory, located on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The Factory moved to 33 Union Square West in 1967. Warhol used silkscreen from 1962 on.
(right) Warholstars group portrait by Gerard Malanga, 1968( (right) Warholstars group portrait by Gerard Malanga, 1968(?); (left) film still and poster for Warhol's film Exploding Plastic Inevitable, 1966, with the Velvet Underground. The Andy Warhol Museum owns 273 Warhol films and almost 4,000 videotapes. “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am… There’s nothing behind it.” - Andy Warhol
Warhol, (left) Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962, acrylic, silkscreen and oil on canvas; (right) Marilyn, 1962. Series followed Monroe’s (probable) suicide in August 1962.
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962, acrylic silkscreen on canvas
Andy Warhol, 210 Coca-Cola bottles, 1962, Silkscreen, ink & synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 6’10” x 8’9”
Warhol, (left) Jackie, The Week That Was, 1963 (right) Suicide 1963, Acrylic and silkscreen, 6’ H
Warhol, Five Deaths Eleven Times in Orange, synthetic polymer paint, silk-screened on canvas, 1963
Warhol, (left) Lavender Disaster, 1971; (right top and below) Electric Chair, 1971, screenprints. “Everything I do is connected with death.” (Warhol, 1978)
At the Tate Modern: the conundrum Andy Warhol, Brillo Box, 1964, acrylic and silkscreen on plywood, 17 x 17 x 15 in At the Tate Modern: the conundrum “Greenberg’s narrative … comes to an end with Pop … It came to an end when art came to an end, when art, as it were, recognized there was no special way a work of art had to be.” - Arthur Danto (1964) After the End of Art, 1997 “Is an endless playing with the definition of art all that art now has to offer?” - Charles Harrison “Conceptual Art” (Themes)
Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997), cover of Newsweek, 1966, New York Pop Art
Roy Lichtenstein’s educational background: (left) Reginald Marsh (Lichtenstein’s teacher at the Art Students’ League, NYC), Why Not Take the “L”?, oil on canvas, 1930 (right) Flash Lab, Ohio State, where Lichtenstein studied 1942-44
Roy Lichtenstein, Girl With a Ball, 1960 compare with Andy Warhol, Dick Tracy, 1960, New York Pop Art. When Warhol saw Lichtenstein’s cartoon paintings in 1960 he stopped making them.
Roy Lichtenstein screened and hand- painted ben day dots, a method of mechanical color printing, evident below in detail from a 1964 painting http://www.lensculture.com/lambrecht.html?thisPic=2 See slide show of Roy Lichtenstein studio / process
Roy Lichtenstein, WAAM! 1963, Magna on canvas, 2 panels; 68 x 166 inches overall; source: a 1962 issue of DC Comics' All-American Men of War “Lichtenstein was not painting things but signs of things.” Fineberg
James Rosenquist, President Elect, oil on masonite, 12 feet wide, 1960-1 (New York Pop Art); (right) mockup for painting and (below) artist in studio “I’m interested in contemporary fission – the flick of chrome, reflections, rapid associations, quick flashes of light. Big-bang! Bing-bang! I don’t do anecdotes; I accumulate experiences.”
Rosenquist,(left) right & left halves of F-111, installation, oil on canvas and aluminum, 23 sections, 10 x 86 feet, 1964-5, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Marisol, Baby Boy, 1963 Marisol, The Family, 1963 http://vodpod.com/watch/4830179-theartview-power-up-female-pop-art-at-kuntsthalle Marisol, Baby Boy, 1963 Marisol, The Family, 1963
Claes Oldenburg, Snapshots from the City, performance with first wife, Pat Muschinski, at Judson Gallery, Judson Memorial Church, New York. February 29, March 1-2, 1960. Performance / Happening at Oldenburg’s “Ray Gun Theater” (right) The Street installation 1960
“I am for an art that is political-erotic-mystical, that does Claes Oldenburg, The Store, Dec. 1, 1961 - Jan. 31, 1962, Ray Gun Mfg. Co., 107 East Second Street, New York. Roast Beef, 1961, inside studio/store (with artist), view looking out, poster, Green Gallery sponsor. “I am for an art that is political-erotic-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.”
Claes Oldenburg (American, born Sweden, 1929). Pastry Case, I. 1961-62 Claes Oldenburg (American, born Sweden, 1929). Pastry Case, I. 1961-62. Painted plaster sculptures on ceramic plates, metal platter and cups in glass-and-metal case, 21 x 30 x 15," New York Pop Art "I make my work out of my everyday experiences, which I find as perplexing and extraordinary as can be.“ Oldenburg, 1960
Claes Oldenburg. (American, born Sweden, 1929) Claes Oldenburg. (American, born Sweden, 1929). Green Gallery Installation (2 views), 1962; Floor Cake (right) 1962. Synthetic polymer paint and latex on canvas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, 58 3/8" x 9' 6 1/4" x 58 3/8“. Pop Art
Claes Oldenburg, Bedroom Ensemble, life size, wood, vinyl, metal, artificial fur, cloth, paper, 1963, National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa. Oldenburg took a perspective drawing of a set of bedroom furniture from a newspaper advertisement, built his furniture in 3-D, giving them the forms they had in 2-D. “This is the kind of reality that if you intrude it vanishes.” Oldenburg http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artist_e.jsp?iartistid=4095
Oldenburg, Soft Toilet, 1966; Dormeyer Mixer,1965
Oldenburg, Giant Lipstick, erect (left) and limp (center), Yale University, 1969. Anti-Vietnam war
Claes Oldenburg, Clothespin, 1976, Cor-Ten and stainless steels, 45 ft Claes Oldenburg, Clothespin, 1976, Cor-Ten and stainless steels, 45 ft. x 12 ft. 3 in. x 4 ft. 6 in., Centre Square Plaza, Philadelphia. Scale. Carnivalesque humor in public art, as well as inside art world joke in allusion to Brancusi’s 1909 Kiss (above).
Wayne Thiebaud (US, b. 1920), Five Hot Dogs, 1961, o/c, 18 x 24 in, Whitney MAA Thiebaud earned a BA degree from Sacramento State College in 1941 an M.A. degree in 1952.
Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963
Edward Kienholz (US, 1927-1994), Back Seat Dodge ’38 (two views), 1964, tableau with truncated Dodge and mixed materials (plaster casts, beer bottles, chicken wire, artificial grass, etc.) Los Angeles Funk
Edward Kienholz, The Wait, 1964–65 Edward Kienholz, The Wait, 1964–65. Tableau: wood, fabric, polyester resin, flock, metal, bones, glass, paper, leather, varnish, black-and-white photographs, taxidermed cat, live parakeet, wicker, and plastic, 80 × 160 × 84 in. (life size) overall. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Kienholz, Ed, The State Hospital (INTERIOR), 1966, Tableau: plaster casts, fiberglass, hospital beds, bedpan, hospital table, goldfish bowls, live black fish, lighted neon tubing, steel hardware, wood, paint 96 x 144 x 120 in. Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Kienholz, Ed, The State Hospital (EXTERIOR), 1966, Tableau: plaster casts, fiberglass, hospital beds, bedpan, hospital table, goldfish bowls, live black fish, lighted neon tubing, steel hardware, wood, paint 96 x 144 x 120 in. Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, mixed-media assemblage, 1972 Joseph Cornell, Medici Boy
Robert Arneson, (American, 1930-1992)
Robert Arneson, John with Art, 1964, glazed ceramic with polychorme epoxy, life size, Seattle Art Museum gift of Manuel Neri
Robert Arneson, Typewriter, 1966, glazed ceramic, around 6 x 11 x 12,” UC Berkeley Art Museum
1966-76
New Realism (Nouveau Réalisme) International, Paris-centered movement named after the eponymous exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York in 1962 AKA the “Slice of Cake School” (Time magazine)
Yves Klein (Nouveau Réalist, French,1928-1962) (left) Monochrome Blue 3 (IKB [International Klein Blue], 1960, pigment & resin on canvas on wood, c. 6’ H; Compare (right) Kasimir Malevich, Black Suprematist Square, 1914-15, and (below) compare exhibitions: 1960 Klein and (right) 1915 Malevich (Russian Suprematism) Klein produced 194 monochromes between 1955-1961
Yves Klein, Anthropométrie performances, Paris, 1960 Anthropométrie de l’époch bleue (Anthropometry of the Blue Epoch), pure pigment in resin on paper mounted on canvas, 1960, Nouveau Réalisme
Yves Klein, (left) Le Vide (The Void), Iris Clert Galérie, Paris 1958, gallery installation; (right) Leap into the Void, March 9, 1960, New Realism, altered photograph
Daniel Spoerri (Swiss, born Romania, 1922), Hungarian Meal, Trap Picture, 1963, assemblage: metal, glass, porcelain, fabric on painted chipboard In the gallery, which was converted into a restaurant, dishes prepared by Spoerri - who was a great cook - were served by famous critics. After the mean, the guests constructed their own Trap-Pictures by gluing down what was on their tables as is. Called “Eat Art” by Spoerri who later founded the Eat Gallery in Dusseldorf
Christo Javacheff (Bulgarian-American, 1935 - ) Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism), Wall of Barrels, Iron Curtain, 1961-2, 240 oil barrels, 168” high; (right) Wrapped Wheelbarrow, 1963 (Christo met Jean-Claude, his lifetime partner, in Paris in 1958)
Niki de Saint-Phalle, (New Realist, French-American, 1930-2002), Crucifixion, 1963, Fabric pasted over an armature of wire mesh and various affixed objects, 100” high; (right) Jean Dubuffet (Postwar Existentialism, French 1901-1985) A Tree of Fluids, 1950
“In 1961 I shot at: Daddy, all the men, small men, tall men, important men, fat men, men, my brother, society, church, school, my family, my mother, all the men, Daddy, myself, men again.” Niki de Saint-Phalle “Shoot” paintings
Niki de Saint-Phalle, Hon ("She" in Swedish), 1966 Niki de Saint-Phalle, Hon ("She" in Swedish), 1966. 6 ton colossus (82'/20'/30'). With Jean Tinguely and Per Olaf Ultvedt as a temporary installation at the Moderne Museet, Stockholm. One of a series of “Nana” sculptures The Carnivalesque
Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, Pompidou Center kinetic Stravinsky fountain from the top floor of the Beaubourg art museum & cultural center. (left) view of fountain at pavement level
Jean Tinguely (Nouveau Réalist, Swiss 1925-91), Homage to New York, Kinetic event-sculpture that self-destroyed in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art. New York, March 17, 1960
Tinguely’s Nouveau Réalisme Sources: Dada: Marcel Duchamp, (left) Bicycle Wheel (readymade), 1913; (right) Duchamp, Rotorelief, rotative plaques, glass, metal, motor, 1920, kinetic art; (below left ) Francis Picabia (French, 1879-1953), Amorous Parade, 1919 Tinguely’s Homage to New York 1960
Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg, Living With Pop, 1963: a performance of “Capitalist Realism.” The Düsseldorf artist group (Richter, Lueg, and Sigmar Polke) mounted an installation of objects in a local furniture store, installing themselves with the commodities for sale (“living sculptures”) as a demonstration of "Capitalist Realism." To what earlier, state-supported realisms was "Capitalist Realism" responding? Richard Hamilton, 1956
(left) Richter and Sigmar Polke, 1965, from Richter/Polke exhibition catalogue (right) Richter, 1998, from Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting exhibition cat.
“…photography. . .had no style, no composition, Gerhard Richter (b. Dresden, 1932), [Nazi officer] Uncle Rudi, 1965, oil on canvas (right) Administrative Building, 1964, Oil on canvas, 38 1/4 x 59 “ photo sources – family snapshot and encyclopedia “I believe in nothing” [Richter] “…photography. . .had no style, no composition, no judgment. It freed me from personal experience. That’s why I wanted to have it – not to use it as a means to painting but to use painting as a means to photography. - Richter
Gerhard Richter, Aunt Marianne, oil on canvas, 1965, 47 x 51 in from a photograph of Richter as a baby with Aunt Marianne “Whenever I behaved badly I was told you will become like crazy Marianne.”
Gerhard Richter, Phantom Interceptors, 1964, oil on canvas, 55" x 6' 3“ (right) Alpha Romeo (With Text), 1965, oil on canvas, 60” x 59” What is grisaille?
Richter, Eight Student Nurses, 1966, oil on canvas, 8 individual paintings, each c. 36 x 27 in
Compare Gerhard Richter’s Eight Student Nurses, 1966 with Andy Warhol’s Jackie: The Week That Was, 1963
(left) Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting, 1976, oil on canvas, 26 x 23 in. “After the gray paintings, after the dogma of ‘fundamental painting’ whose purist and moralizing aspects fascinated me to a degree bordering on self-denial, all I could do was start all over again. This was the beginning of the first color sketches.” Compare concept of Rauschenberg’s Factum I & II, 1957
Gerhard Richter, October 18, 1977: Baader-Meinhof series, Confrontation 1 and 2, 1988, oil on canvas, all 45” H. The subject is Ulrike Meinhof, the Baader-Meinhof group - or gang – part of the Red Army Faction, was the first of the Marxist terror groups that killed bankers, politicians and bystanders across 70s Europe.
October, 1977, news photo of protesters in Stuttgart at funeral of Andreas Baader
Final paintings in Gerhard Richter’s October 18, 1977 Baader-Meinhof series titled Tote 1, 2, and 3
(left) Gerhard Richter, Betty (Richter’s daughter), 1988, oil on canvas, 40 x 23“ (right) Richter, October 18, 1977 [Ulrike Meinhof] : Baader-Meinhof series, Confrontation 1, 1988. Both oil paintings were made in 1988.
(left) Gerhard Richter, Iceberg in Fog, 1982, oil on canvas, 27 x 39 in compare (left) Caspar David Friedrich (German Romantic Painter, 1774-1840) (top) Monk by the Sea (1809) and (bottom) Polar Sea (1823)
Gerhard Richter, Untitled, 1987, oil on canvas, 118” square
Richter, Betty, 1988, oil on canvas, 40 x 23“ compare (right) Untitled, oil, 1987, 118” “Painting is the form of the picture, you might say. The picture is the depiction, and painting is the technique for shattering it.”
Lichtenstein, cover Of Newsweek, 1966 Sigmar Polke, Bunnies, 1966, acrylic on linen, 58 x 39” A “raster” painting (commercial printing process showing “benday” dots) Warhol, "Marilyn," 1964
Sigmar Polke (German,1941-1910), (left) Modern Art, 1968 (right) Polke, Lovers II, 1965, oil and enamel on canvas, 6 ft 3 in x 55 in
Ralph Goings, 2011 exhibition poster, Airstream,1970, oil on canvas 152 x 214 cm. MUMOK, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Vienna
Richard Estes (born Kewanee, Illinois, 1932) Telephone Booths, 1968, acrylic on masonite, 48 x 69 in., Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Signature subjects are urban street life – mostly New York City – of the late ‘sixties and ‘seventies.
Duane Hanson (US, 1925–1996), Woman with Dog, 1977, cast polyvinyl polychromed in synthetic polymer, with cloth and hair, 46 × 48 × 51 in. overall. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Chuck Close (US, 1940) Self-Portrait, 1967-8, acrylic on canvas, c Chuck Close (US, 1940) Self-Portrait, 1967-8, acrylic on canvas, c. 9 x 6 ft., Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.