Examine either overt or covert relationships with the work of particular artists or movements and the political contexts in which they where made.

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Examine either overt or covert relationships with the work of particular artists or movements and the political contexts in which they where made.

Art movements through out history have been created in the midst of various political upheavals. Even though the larger part of art has always given an impression of no politicisation as it would have liked itself to be known as an autonomous entity functioning with no political aspirations, or under the banner of any political correctness. Having itself looked upon as a form of expression with the sole purpose of providing aesthetic pleasure. Which was very much the view provided by prominent art critics and the more mainstream galleries. But the authenticity of this ideological concept was contradicted and faced head on in the late 1950’s with the emergence of a predominately American Art movement by the name of Pop Art. Pop emerged in the late 50’s and managed to thrive in the 60’s and way in to the late seventies. It utilized the imagery and techniques of consumerism and popular culture.

Many perceived pop as a mere continuation of abstract expressionism, well at least in part, or if anything more a reaction against it. Emerging from a shift of various sources. Surrealism with its appeal to the subconscious was replaced by dada, with its concern with the frontiers of art. This was not a purely intellectual choice. There were forces within abstract expressionism that propelled artists towards the new mode. For example, as abstract expressionism began to exhaust its impetus, prevailing interests in texture led artists to ever-bolder experiments with materials1. Which had very much been inspired and coherently gone hand in hand with the sociological conditions of the time. For example pop had been given a well-needed push to reflect upon the homogenous social conditions of conformity that encouraged it to deviate from the normal and thrive for the new. This artistic transition was made in the face of fierce opposition from well-established institutions, inadvertently making pop a very overt voice of protest and an integral part of the broader cultural happenings of the time.

To better understand this concept it is imperative we take an analytical approach at looking at the 50’s an era which provided the right cultural, social and political conditions for the emergence of this new art phenomenon in the 60’s. As the 50’s were seen as a period of immense prosperity and conformity, this homogenous conformist environment was created through almost every thing being mass-produced. From food, to housing to culture, identical units of consumer products were being produced in the millions. This mass conformity would later have a very important impact on popular culture; pop used this as a focal point as it replicated images of mass consumerism to near life like status with a satirical view of western society and its obsession with consumption.

This new aesthetic mode confronted art lovers as well as ordinary people with everyday objects, which gained a new quality. Giving art a new accessibility to people of modest social stature with imagery that they could relate to as it reflected upon their own lives and incorporated all aspect of their society, areas that were previously thought of as ‘’no go areas’’, giving true insight into reflections of a corporate America, showing everything for its actual face value without the aesthetically pleasing work over, such as racial division, poverty, excessive consumption, social injustice, which prior to pop art were virtually non existent. Art was seen upon as a point of interest only for the elitists, with a purpose of glorifying imperialist/capitalist societies with colossal images that either reflected nobility, power, religion, immortality, nature or just plain aesthetic beauty with the purpose of visual enticement for elitist gentry.  

Art critics and mainstream cultural institutions of the time that were rather conservative had alienated pop art and its concepts. They did not respond very nicely to change especially in the form of pop. Critics back then, as is the case even till this day carried immense clout in the art world, one could say they could ‘’make’’ or ‘’break’’ artists.        

Pop ran contrary to all that the critics and the mainstream had deemed expectable. Pop favoured figured imagery and the reproduction of everyday products such as Campbell soup cans, comic strips and advertisements, giving art a new realism in its most contemporary form. As Marcos Livingston would have us believe that pop artists did not work very programmatically, giving a series of theoretical definitions. Firstly that pop involves the use of existing imagery from mass culture already processed into two dimensions, preferably borrowed from advertising, photography, comic strips and other mass media sources. Pop emphasis flatness and frontal presentation. Pop artists, especially in America have a preference for centralized composition and for flat areas of unmodulated and unmixed colour bound by hard edges. They use mechanical and other deliberately inexpressive techniques that imply removal of the artist’s hand and suggest the depersonalised process of mass production2.

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Andy Warhol (1928-1987) who, more then any other pop artist, took on the sheer mind-numbing overload of American mass culture, his Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962 oil on canvas) are about sameness (although with different labels): same brand, same size, same paint surface, same fame as a product. They mimic the condition of mass advertising, out of which his sensibility had grown. They are much more deadpan than the object, which may have party, inspired them, jasper john’s pair of bronze Ballantine ale cans. This affectlessness, this fascinated and yet indifferent take on the famous object, became the key to ...

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