Pop Art: The Landscape Of Signs

Art is used in mass media to influence people, especially people in the generation and culture we live in today. The majority of art young people receive in our culture is through television and in particularly popular culture networks, like MTV. The television show on MTV called The Hills is an example of a show that promotes dominant ideology to young children/ teenagers. Slightly opposite of that would be another show on MTV called Jersey Shore, which is an example of a show that partly reinforces and partly challenges dominant ideology to the same type of audience. The two shows are looking at people who are in their 20s and there life as they live it in their current situation, they both claim to be reality television with no scripts.

Pop Art is defined as art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values. “To Americans, Pop Art was an artistic manifestation which reflected their own culture.” (Elmaleh 1) Many artists or writers will take normal, everyday things in nature, and will turn them into brighter things. This was considered to be a new movement because it was right after the war, so it was a darker time period. Throughout the text, Joe Hill tried to convey many things with his short story about Art using his own culture and what he knew, but I think the most obvious message that he tried to convey is emotion.

After the World War II, the United States went through a time were economic and political growth. This was time when Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe were the peak of their fame and television had replaced the radio. In the 1950’s and the 1960’s there was a new cultural revolution. This new cultural revolution of activists, thinkers, and artists. This was the time were new generation of artists were appeared in Britain and in the United States. During the late 1950’s the pop artists began to look for inspiration in everyday things. They were getting inspiration from consumer goods and mass media. They began with bold colors, and they also adopted the silk-screening. They also established and idea were there work had its own originality. Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were very aware of the past however there idea was to connect fine art with pop culture. There ideas came straight from the televisions, advertisements, films, and cartoons. Nevertheless the famous creations of Warhol and Lichtenstein and other artist, managed to stamp the 1950 and 1960 as the pop art era.

In this life, there are many forms of art or art “movements” to speak of. How we interpret art is a very subjective thing. What a person sees and feels when looking at art greatly depends on their upbringing, their values, and even their mood at the time of viewing. Could something dark and lacking color be art? What about a comic strip in the newspaper or the billboard down the street? Again, interpretation and taste in art is individual. I elected to explore into the two art movements I like the least to potentially better understand them, and to potentially link them together.

In order to discuss pop art I have chosen to examine the work and to some extent lives of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol who were two of the main forces behind the American movement. I intend to reflect the attitudes of the public and artists in America at this time, while examining the growing popularity of pop art from its rocky, abstract expressionist start in the 1950s through the height of consumer culture in the 60s and 70s to the present day.

Attention Getter: The American culture is so engulfed into consumerism that we take every day items and objects for granted we don 't necessarily realize the impact and importance to have on our life and how we live vicariously through them. Today I 'm going to talk about one man that took these concepts into his artistic ability and thereby created a whole new culture in what we see is art today. This man who is considered one of the fathers of pop art goes by the name of Andy Warhol.

Doubtlessly, Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol is the symbol of Pop Art movement for me; however, I like to express my reaction to Before and After, 1961, by Andy Warhol. The foremost reason for choosing this piece is I just saw it and my reaction is so fresh!

If you were to go open a dictionary and look up the definition of art, you would see that it has art as “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination…” (“Art” 2017) and “Works produced by human creative skill and imagination.” (“Art” 2017). From these definitions, graffiti is art, yet in most cases, it’s considered vandalism because it is done without permission of the property. When graffiti is done in a designated place or with the permission of the property owner, then it can truly be considered art. But even if these circumstances are not met, if the graffiti goes beyond a simple tag, it is art.

Pop Art was a Modern art development that developed during the mid-twentieth century in both England and America. It first started to pick up acknowledgment in the early 1950's, after around twenty years of Abstract, as specialists changed their consideration and looked to change. In the late 1950's and early 1960's, Pop Art got to be substantially more prominent to the overall population and fruitful for the development's art because of the world becoming drained of the repetitive types of Abstract. Found in the Menil Collection, Seated Woman and Lavender Disaster are two illustrations of Pop Art. The correlation of these two pieces shows in spite of the fact that they vary in medium and topic both Seated Woman and Lavender Disaster offer

The start of Andy Warhol’s career as an artist was when his pieces were featured in commercials. The pop art movement began in Britian during the 1950’s. Pop art paintings used identifiable

Pop Art emerged in Britain in the late 50’s and the United States in the early 60’s.(Mamiya 1992) Pop Art is generally known today as a representation of celebrating popular culture and consumerism, however it’s background and origins are far more broad and extensive. There are many factors and influences that lead to the creation of the Pop Art movement such as adjusting to life after World War II, new technological advances that lead to mass cooperate growth, the evolution of Abstract Expressionism and also social issues in the media such as feminism. (Smith 2001; Mamiya 1992) Many of these factors overlap and act as a catalyst in the creation of Neodadaism and eventually Pop Art. (Livingstone 1992) Pop Art does not have a soul distinct style nor just one major influence and this can be proven by looking at key artists of the movement such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist as well as female Pop artists such as Martha Rosler. (Brauer, Edwards, Finch & Hopps 2001) Exploring these artists and the major influences of their work will break down Pop Art and establish the movement’s purpose as well as its evolution.

Art. Art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” (google). That’s kind of a lot. Basically, art is anything created as a product of human creativity and imagination to portray a message, trigger an emotion, or just, look good. That being said, what isn’t art? Anything, from the mona lisa to the projects sitting around this room were made by human imagination and creativity to portray a message or just be beautiful. What if you were told, that all of the hard work that was put into those projects and paintings, was illegal? Not accepted by some people as art, and frowned upon.

There were two major art movements during the 1960’s: Pop Art and Minimalism.The two movements are still relevant and influentiantial now in the 21st century. These two art movements do not meet the standard of arts original idea. Pop art represents popular culture, comic books, advertising and television. Pop art movement appeared in the mid 1950’s. It challenged traditional art, it is loud and aggressive, filled with vibrant colors. Once you are familiar with a some Pop art paintings, its unique style is easy to distinguish among the rest. It represented more everyday life than anything. Minimalism and Pop art can be very similar but yet have countless differences that vary from artist to artist. Minimalism isolates the material and blurs out any emotional content and personal expressivity. Minimalism reduces everything to its essential elements. The events that occurred during these movements, such as the Civil rights and the Vietnam War influenced artist to try to challenge other type of art forms and go beyond just “fine art”.

Pop art got its name from Lawrence Alloway, who was a British art critic in 1950’s. The name “Pop Art” reflected on the “familiar imagery of the contemporary urban environment” (kleiner, 981). This art form was popular for its bold and simple looks plus its bright and vibrant colors. An example of this type of art is the oil painting done by Andy Warhol, “Marilyn Diptych” (Warhol, Marilyn Diptych) in 1962. The Pop art movement became known in the mid-1950 and continued as main type of art form until the late 1960’s. The Pop art movement, was a movement where medium played a huge part in the society, with it reflecting on advertisements, comic strips and even celebrities, like Marilyn. This movement also has a large

‘pop art was open to all forms of communication and popular information in its attempt to embody all of reality in its own language’’ (Parmesani, 2012, P: 72).