You are on page 1of 5

POP ART

Pop art is now most associated with the work of New York artists of the early
1960s. Pop artists celebrated commonplace objects and people of everyday
life, in this way seeking to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art. Pop
artists seemingly embraced the post-WWII manufacturing and media boom.
The actual term "Pop art" has several possible origins:
the first use of the term in writing has been attributed to both Lawrence
Alloway and Alison and Peter Smithson, and alternately to Richard Hamilton,
who defined Pop in a letter
the first artwork to incorporate the word "Pop" was produced by
Paolozzi. His collage

I Was a Rich Man's Plaything (1947)


Edouardo Paolozzi
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T01/T01462_10.jpg
Great Britain: The Independent Group
The members of the Independent Group were the first artists to present mass
media imagery, acknowledging the challenges to traditional art categories
occurring in America and Britain after 1945.
Britain in the early 1950s was still emerging from the austerity of the post-war
years, and its citizens were ambivalent about American popular culture.
In 1952, a gathering of artists in London calling themselves the Independent
Group began meeting regularly to discuss topics such
as mass culture's place in fine art, the found object,
and science and technology. Members included
Edouardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton, architects
Alison and Peter Smithson, and critics Lawrence
Alloway and Reyner Banham.

Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today's


Homes So Different, So Appealing? (1956)

http://www.phaidon.com/resource/acvr-059a.jpg

Solomon R. Guggenheim 1967, Richard Hamilton


http://annex.guggenheim.org/collections/media/902/67.1858_ph_web.jpg

Capitalist Realism in Germany


In Germany, the counterpart to the American Pop art movement was Capitalist
Realism, a movement that focused on subjects taken from commodity culture
and utilized an aesthetic based in the mass media. The group was founded by

Sigmar Polke in 1963 and included artists Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg as
its central members. The Capitalist Realists sought to expose the consumerism
and superficiality of contemporary capitalist society by using the imagery and
aesthetic of popular art and advertising within their work.
Girlfriends, 1965 Sigmar Polke,
http://www.artfund.org/assets/what-to-see/exhibitions/2014/sigmar
%20polke/Sigmar-Polke-Girlfriends-(Freundinnen).jpg
Nouveau Ralisme in France
In France, the equivalent of Pop art was Nouveau Ralisme, a movement
launched by the critic Pierre Restany in 1960, with the drafting of the
"Constitutive Declaration of New Realism," that proclaimed, "Nouveau Ralisme
- new ways of perceiving the real."The declaration was signed in Yves Klein's
workshop by nine artists who were united in their direct appropriation of mass
culture.
Key proponents of the movement are Yves
Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, Francois Dufrne,
Raymond Hains, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Christo.

Anthropometrie de lpoque bleue, 1960, by


Yves Klein
http://www.yveskleinarchives.org/works/large/ant82.jpg

Op Art

Op, or Optical, art typically employs abstract patterns composed with a stark
contrast of foreground and background - often in black and
white for maximum contrast - to produce effects that confuse
and excite the eye. Op artists being drawn to virtual movement.
It seemed the perfect style for an age defined by the onward
march of science, by advances in computing, aerospace, and
television. But art critics were never so supportive of it,
attacking its effects as gimmicks, and today it remains tainted
by those dismissals.
It was launched with Le Mouvement, a group exhibition at
Galerie Denise Rene in 1955. It attracted a wide international following, and
after it was celebrated with a survey exhibition in 1965, The Responsive Eye, at
the Museum of Modern Art in New York,
Victor Vasarely (1906 1997), was a HungarianFrench artist, who is widely
accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the short-lived op art movement.

Vega Victor Vasarely 1957 Acrylic on canvas 195x130cm


https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?
q=tbn:ANd9GcRGZYmbAS9WK6AJI77j2CXj2U8iUME2VCwEGujwTXB_bgcYnAKA
Viennese Actionism (1960-1971)
The term Viennese Actionism refers to a violent, radical, and explicit form of
performance art that developed in the Austrian capital during the 1960s.
Memories of life under the Nazis had a huge psychological impact on members
of the group. Actionists were frustrated by what they saw as the limits and
conventionality of abstract painting. Instead of paint they used organic
materials such as blood, urine, milk, and entrails; instead of canvas they used

naked bodies as 'sites' or 'surfaces' in their carefully controlled performances.


It was through pushing their aktions beyond legal limits that they cemented
their reputation as the most extreme of twentieth century performance artists.
Key artists Gnter Brus, Otto Mhl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-12-01-4522.jpg
Arte Povera (1962 -1972)

Arte Povera - "poor art" or "impoverished art" - was the most significant and
influential avant-garde movement to emerge in Europe in the 1960s. Believing
that modernity threatened to erase our sense of memory along with all signs of
the past, the Arte Povera group sought to contrast the new and the old in order
to complicate our sense of the effects of passing time.
In addition to opposing the technological design of American Minimalism,
artists associated with Arte Povera also rejected what they perceived as its
scientific rationalism.
Luciano Fabro was an Italian artist, theorist and author associated the Arte
Povera movement, and is often cited as the
unofficial father of the movement
Floor Tautology (1967)
http://www.theartstory.org/images20/pnt/pnt_arte_povera_1.jp

Neo-Expressionism (1970-1990)
Because Neo-Expressionism accepted and rejuvenated historical and
mythological imagery -- as opposed to the modernists' tendency to reject
storytelling some scholars believe that Neo Expressionism played an important
role in the transition from modernism to postmodernism.
Many artists have practiced and revived aspects of the original Expressionism
movement. Georg Baselitz led a revival that dominated
German art in the 1970s. By the 1980s, this resurgence had
become part of an international return to the sensuousness
of painting - and away from the stylistically cool, distant
sparseness of Minimalism and Conceptualism.

The Gleaner, Georg Baselitz


http://annex.guggenheim.org/collections/media/902/87.3508_ph_web.jpg
Performance Art (1910- )
Performance is a genre in which art is presented "live," usually by the artist but
sometimes with collaborators or performers. It has had a role in avant-garde art
throughout the 20th century, playing an important part in anarchic movements
such as Futurism and Dada.
Some varieties of performance from the post-war period are commonly
described as "actions." German artists like Joseph Beuys preferred this term

because it distinguished art performance from the more


conventional kinds of entertainment found in theatre.

Beuys during his Action How to Explain Pictures to a Dead


Hare
http://www.phaidon.com/resource/beuys-deadhare2.jpg

Bibliography
http://www.theartstory.org/
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collectiononline/movements/195230

You might also like