"Most of the failures of this world
"Most of the failures of
this world are failures of imagination." - Robert Inman, Home Fires Burning
Life isn’t a support system for art.
“Life
isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”— Stephen King
%2B-%2BThe%2Bwriter%2BWalter%2BMehring%2C%2B1925.jpg)
Georg Grosz (German, 1893 – 1959) - The writer Walter Mehring, 1925
%2B-%2BThe%2Bwriter%2BWalter%2BMehring%2C%2B1925.jpg)
%2B-%2BPortrait%2Bof%2Ba%2Blady%2Bin%2Bgreen.jpg)
%2C%2B1885%2C%2Boil%2Bon%2Bcanvas.jpg)
Art for the Pop of It: Keith Haring review: the political side of a pop-a...
Art for the Pop of It: Keith Haring review: the political side of a pop-a...: Keith Haring: the Political Line, an exhibition of the late artist’s work, opened at San Francisco’s De Young last week just days after ...
Pop to popism: The language of pop
The largest survey of pop art
to be shown in Australia, Pop to Popism at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
highlights how the movement continues to influence contemporary art today
Pop art created some of the
most recognisable works of art in the world, from Andy Warhol’s soup cans to
Roy Lichtenstein’s Look Mickey. Yet many aspects of the pop movement have gone
under the radar, such as the Australian artists who worked in bold ways ahead
of their time, and the female artists whose work had to dramatically push
boundaries to compete with the men. By looking beyond the iconic works and
allowing these lesser known elements to come forward, the Art Gallery of New
South Wales’ latest exhibition Pop to Popism, part of Destination NSW’s Sydney
International Art Series, tells the story of a language ¬– not just an art
movement – that is still widely used today.
When pop art emerged in the
early 1960s it transformed how audiences understood art. As a reaction to the
gestural and painterly styles of abstract expressionism, and with the
introduction of mass media, artists wanted to create more accessible work
relevant to everyday life. They turned towards communications, advertising,
television, film and comic books as materials to reflect these changes and the
impact of technology in a rapidly evolving world.
“Pop artists were saying –
actually, let’s look at real life. Let’s look at how people are actually
living, let’s look at the popular culture that’s all around us, and bring that
into the art gallery”, describes Wayne Tunnicliffe, curator of Pop to Popism.
The exhibition begins with the
vibrant emergence of pop art in the early sixties and continues geographically
and chronologically. Swinging London looks at artist groups such as The
Independent Group that included Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton, and
aimed to revitalise art in the postwar era. Classic American pop art features
the famous works of Ed Ruscha and Robert Rauschenberg, and the European
movement presents works by Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. Australian pop is
a significant part of the exhibition, with artists including Richard Larter and
Robert Boynes. Late pop art includes work made in the early to mid seventies,
like Duane Hanson’s Woman with Laundry Basket, which begin to reflexively look
back at the pop culture as defining a lifestyle.
The exhibition finishes on
Popism, a term which reflects the values of pop art that have continued to
influence contemporary art, particularly the methods of mechanical
reproduction, the un-expressionist style, and the emergence of art that
combines media. The merging of art forms, with an emphasis on appropriation and
remix, brings into focus the idea of pop as a language, with its trademark
values of borrowing material from modern everyday life.
Throughout the exhibition there
is a particular focus on demonstrating the strength of female artists at the
time with works by artists such as Niki de Saint Phalle, Rosalyn Drexler,
Martha Rosler and Vivienne Binns. “Any female artist in the 1960s had to be
pretty tough to compete with the men, so they often did quite tough work as
well”, Tunnicliffe points out.
Tunnicliffe believes now is the
perfect moment to look back at where pop art came from. “To think what
relevance it has now and to put Australian artists into that context, because
there’s never been a pop survey to show Australian artists with their
international peers before.”
The Australian pop artists
reacted to many of the same things as their international counterparts, but
were much bolder when it came to pushing social boundaries.
“Australian pop is often quite
erotic, there’s quite a strong hedonistic sexual element” says Tunnicliffe. Pop
artists such as Martin Sharp and Mike Brown were among those charged with
obscenity over references in their works: Sharp’s involvement in the cover art
of underground OZ magazine in 1964, and Brown’s Paintin’ a-go-go exhibition in
1965, were both anti-establishment reactions against the art market.
“Australia was intensely
socially conservative during that period and the artists were amongst those
pushing against it, trying to bring about greater liberalization.”
While the retrospective gives
context, a significant part of the exhibition is also a reminder of how the
language of pop art is used today. Tunnicliffe points to the work of many
contemporary Aboriginal artists such as Richard Bell, Tracey Moffatt and Tony
Albert, who explore race in similar ways to how Australian artists from the
sixties, such as Sharp and Brown, were using pop art to oppose conservative social
issues.
“I think the language of pop
has stayed with us. It seems to have another zeitgeist moment, there’s pop
material turning up all over the place.”
So while the soup cans and
comic books may be what get people into the gallery this summer, there’s
another narrative to explore – one that’s more gritty, unexpected, and closer
to home.
Pop to Popism at the Art
Gallery of New South Wales is part of Destination NSW’s Sydney International
Art Series.
Art for the Pop of It: The pop artist whose transgressions went too far –...
Art for the Pop of It: The pop artist whose transgressions went too far –...: His works provoked riots in the 1970s. Now Allen Jones is back at the Royal Academy after 35 years in the wilderness Allen Jo...
Art for the Pop of It: Sigmar Polke, the radical subject of a new Tate Mo...
Art for the Pop of It: Sigmar Polke, the radical subject of a new Tate Mo...: By Alastair Sooke "Witty. Sexy. Gimmicky. Glamorous. Big business.” That is how the British artist Richard Hamilton defined Pop...
Most people
“Most people are afraid to trust their
imaginations and the artist is not.” Sherwood Anderson
Avigdor Arikha The Red Umbrella
Dixon, Maynard (1875-1946) - 1945 Peace of October
%2B-%2B1945%2BPeace%2Bof%2BOctober.jpg)
Maynard Dixon (January 24, 1875
– November 11, 1946) was a 20th-century American artist whose body of work
focused on the American West. He was married for a time to American
photographer Dorothea Lange.
Dixon was born in Fresno,
California, into a family of aristocratic Virginia Confederates who had found a
new home there after the American Civil War. His mother, a well-educated
daughter of a Navy officer from San Francisco, shared her love of classic
literature with the young boy and encouraged him in his writing and drawing.
Dixon later studied briefly with the tonalist painter Arthur Mathews at the
California School of Design where he became close friends with Xavier Martinez
and others of the Bohemian Club. To support himself he accepted numerous
illustration jobs. Great illustrators were plentiful around the turn of the
century, yet Dixon obtained work from the Overland Monthly and several San
Francisco newspapers.
In California, he illustrated
books and magazines with Western themes. Some of his most memorable work from
these early years appeared in Clarence Mulford’s books about Hopalong Cassidy.
For a time he lived in New York with his young wife and baby daughter
Constance, but soon returned to the western United States where he said he
could create “honest art of the west” instead of the romanticized versions he
was being paid to create. Shortly after he began a new life in San Francisco,
his first marriage ended. Dixon developed his style during this early period,
and Western themes became a trademark for him.
Influenced in part by the Panama Pacific
International Exposition of 1915, Dixon began to search for a new expression,
moving away from impressionism and into a simpler, more modern style. Meeting
and marrying Dorothea Lange, a portrait photographer from the East, had a great
influence on his art.
By 1925 Maynard’s style had changed dramatically to
even more powerful compositions, with the emphasis on design, color, and
self-expression. A true modernist emerged. The power of low horizons and
marching cloud formations, simplified and distilled, became his own brand and
at once were both bold and mysterious.
During the Great Depression,
Dixon painted a series of social realism canvases depicting the prevailing
politics of maritime strikes, displaced workers, and those affected by the
depression.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)