Roy Lichtenstein, (U.S.1923-1997) Crying Girl, 1964, Crying Girl, 1964Enamel on steel, 117 x 117 cm)

This Pop Art image wasappropriated from comicbooks of the time. The dotted effect, called ‘Benday dots’,were part of the printing process of cheap comics, and the effect was recreated by Lichtenstein onthe painting.

POP ART

The 1950s and 60s saw a great increase in mass-produced goods, wealth, power and industrialisation throughout the Western world. Through the 60s and 70s there were also many social justice issues that were being talked about.

But at the same time, other groups, such as Pop Artists were celebrating the turbo-charged modernity of the Western world.

Ed Ruscha, (U.S.b1937) Standard Station, Amarillo Texas 1963, oil on canvas, 162 x 303cm

Pop art reflected back the mad mad world of consumerism – the disposable; the new; the flashy; the cheap. It celebrated it, rather than criticising it as much postmodern art does today. However in celebrating it, it also invited the audience tothink about ‘what is art’?

Heroic perspective

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917) Waiting, c. 1882, pastel on paper, 43 x 60cm.

Claude Monet (Fr. 1840-1926) , Woman with a parasol, 1875, 100 x 81cm

Ed Ruscha (U.S. b.1937)Hey with curled edge, c. 1964Ink and powdered graphite on paper, 29 x 31cm

Picasso, Man with a hat and violin, 1912.

Use of typography in new and puzzling ways: Kurt Schwitters & Theo von Doesburg, Small Dada Soiree, lithograph, 1923. This was an poster advertising a Dada art event.

Barbara Kruger (US, b.1945), Untitled (Your gaze hits the side of my face), 1981.

Ed Ruscha, (U.S.b1937) Hollywood, 8 colour screen-print, 1968, dimensions unknown.

How has Ruscha treated this Hollywood sign in this image?

Ed Ruscha, (U.S.b1937) Oof, 1963, oil on canvas181 x 170 cm

Pop art was art of the everyday, and looked outwards to the advertising signs, posters, comics on the street and in magazines and movies. It deliberately created art out of stuff that wouldn’t normally be in a Gallery, but for sale on the street. It was also an art that tended to be associated with the young and groovy, so that was attractive. However it also could be confronting, as youth was associated with the anti-war protests, rock music and the rising drug culture.

Andy Warhol (US, 1928-1987) Campbell’s Soup cans, oil on 32 canvases, each canvas 50 x 40cm. Originally exhibited with each separate canvas resting on a shelf. Warhol moved to silk screen printing in the early sixties. This acted to further depersonalise the works.

Warhol: ‘…the reason I’m painting this way is because I want to be a machine… …I think it would be terrific if everyone was alike…’ (Swanson, 1963) ‘…If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surfaces of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it…’ (Warhol, 1968)

Warhol, Untitled, from Marilyn Monroe series, Series of 10 screenprints, 91 x 91cm, 1967

Warhol was deliberately vulgar and deliberately (but only selectively) anti-original. He used assistants for his work, incorporating their mistakes etc. that occurred, as with the image below. Ironically, his talk about not being original and about everyone being the same, was a sensation in itself, a kind of scandal. A celebrity cult grew up around him and his work.

Warhol, Big Electric Chair, screenprint, one of series, 1967

Warhol was obsessed his whole life with news and celebrity. This is much more common now But in the 60s this was just beginning. This image of an electric chair (which was used to execute prisoners in New York) was published in a newspaper after the execution of some famouscriminals. Much of Warhol’s imagery was concerned with death.

Q: Ricky Swallow is a contemporary Australian artist. In 2001, he usedcomputer-aided design to create the iMan Prototype body of work.Use the postmodern frame to analyse Plates 3 and 4. Refer to Plate 5 in yourresponse.

Plate 3: Ricky Swallow, b.1974, AustraliaiMan Prototypes, 2001Injected-moulded resin with colour tint,four pieces, each 16 × 11.5 × 18.5 cm.

HSC Question for your enjoyment….

Plate 4: Back view of an iMan Prototype, 2001

Plate 5: Apple design team and Jonathan Ive,iMac, 1998, personal computerManufactured by Apple, 46 × 42 × 38 cm,Moulded plastic available in five different colours.