POST 3 : Pop Art Myths

Collage advertising comics
Collage has been inherited from Cubism and Dadaism but Pop adds subversive and allegorical elements. Hamilton's Just what is it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing ? (1992) may be the first truly pop image. Andy Warhol also gave birth to Pop Art thanks to his first collages. The insertion of comics in art was first done by  Blake and Hamilton but Warhol and Lischenstein were the first to print comics-strips into large format paintings. They used comics so as to represent a myth for example.

Just what is it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing ?
Richard Hamilton, 1992

Emblems
Thanks to the massive development of medias in the mid-20th century, people were flooded with advertising, which gave a torrent of ideas to Pop artists such as Jasper Johns and Peter Blake. Later on, Warhol started to represent everyday objets like Campbell's soup cans or Heinz ketchup boxes, and he stencilled various words such as "hug" or "eat" to turn them into emblems.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box

Andy Warhol, 1964

Myths
Hollywood became a "myth-making machine". Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor... turned into idols for people and became a source of inspiration for Pop artists. British artists were able to combine American cinematographic figures with elements from their own culture to create their own myths.

Marilyn Monroe
Andy Warhol, 1962


The Beatles
Peter Blake, 1962

Portraits
Pop art brought a new perspective to the genre of portrait painting. The aim isn't to reproduce reality, but to precede it, so the portrait becomes a simulacrum. "The portrait fades away and becomes a virtual image". Artists use diferent methods like the reflected image (Allen Jones) or the immediacy of Polaroids (David Hockney)

Composite polaroid Stephen Spender
David Hockney, 1982

Landscapes Interiors Still Lifes
Because of our consumer culture, Pop artists reinterpretated traditional genres of paintings (landscapes, interiors, still-lifes) through objects bearing arbitrary meanings. "The genres are adapted to the contemporary urban milieu". Still-lifes turned into a public commercial space. Some relevant artists may be Patrick Caulfield, Wayne Thiebaud, Ed Ruscha or Allen Jones.

Café interior : Afternoon
Patrick Caulfied, 1973


Three Strawberry Shakes
Wayne Thiebaud, 1964

Urban Eroticism
In the mid-20th century, eroticism was spread in every sphere of society. Thus, Pop Art immediately integrated erotic metaphores. Ladies and automobiles are turned into objects of desire and women become a sexual symbol. Some artists such as Lichtenstein, Polke or Richter aim to convey a meditation on the banality of appearances.


M-Maybe
Roy Lichtenstein, 1965


Nude woman
Tom Wesselmann, 1979

History Painting
Pop Artists looked forward to reinterpret and rethink recent and past history because of the profusion and dissemination of events through medias. Some figures such as Mao Zedong, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon for example, are the protagonists of the works of Rauschenberg, Warhol, Rotella and Richter. In Spain, artists such as Equipo Realidad o Eduardo Arroyo, used history painting to show the irony of the historical amnesia that afflicted the country during the Franco-era.


Mao
Andy Warhol, 1973


Los cuatro dictadores : The four dictators
Eduardo Arroyo, 1963

Art about Art
In pop art, the topic of art about art consists in asking questions about the evolution of art directed at older painters. For example, Warhol creates new versions of Boticelli's Venus using diferent techniques. But art about art can be used as a strategy of political denunciation : Equipo Cronica realized a new version of Las Meninas by Velazquez.


El Intruso
Equipo Cronica, 1969


The Living Room
Equipo Cronica, 1970