Online Study Guide

The Art World's Focus Shifts West :: Postwar Expressionism in Europe :: Modernist Formalism :: Alternatives to Modernist Formalism :: Art for the Public :: New Models for Architecture: Modernism to Postmodernism :: Postmodernism In Painting, Sculpture, And New Media :: Into The 21st Century

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ART FOR THE PUBLIC

The Development of Pop Art

Pop artists embraced representation and produced an art grounded in consumer culture, the mass media, and popular culture. Employing familiar imagery of the contemporary urban environment, Pop artists made art more accessible and understandable to the public.

British pop:

Richard Hamilton's small collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, which contains references to the mass media, advertising, and popular culture, reflects the values of modern consumer culture through figures and objects cut from glossy magazines.

34-27: RICHARD HAMILTON, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, 1956. Collage, 10 1/4" x 9 3/4". Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany.

American Pop Art and Consumer Culture

The Pop art movement that flourished in the United States through the 1960s drew its imagery from mass media, mass production, and advertising. Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg introduced elements from popular culture into their art.

Things seen but not looked at:

In Flag, Jasper Johns selected a common object that he painted in encaustic.

34-28: JASPER JOHNS, Flag, 1954-1955, dated on reverse 1954. Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, 3' 6 1/4" x 5' 5/8". Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Philip Johnson in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.). Copyright © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

"Combining" painting and sculpture:

In his combine Canyon, Robert Rauschenberg attached a stuffed bald eagle and pieces of printed paper and photographs to the canvas. Below the eagle a pillow dangles from a string attached to a wood stick.

34-29: ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, Canyon, 1959. Oil, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, cardboard box, printed paper, printed reproductions, photograph, wood, paint tube, and mirror on canvas, with oil on bald eagle, string, and pillow, 6' 9 3/4" x 5' 10" x 2'. Sonnabend Collection. Copyright © Untitled Press, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York.

A "comic" focus in art:

In Hopeless, Roy Lichtenstein excerpted an image from a comic book and reproduced it in monumental scale, retaining the comic strip's visual vocabulary and employing the printer's benday dot system to modulate colors.

34-30: ROY LICHTENSTEIN, Hopeless, 1963. Oil on canvas, 3' 8" x 3' 8". Kunstmuseum, Basel (permanent loan from the Ludwig Foundation Collection).

The art of commodities:

For Green Coca-Cola Bottles, Andy Warhol selected an icon of mass-produced, consumer culture and used a visual vocabulary and a printing technique that reinforced the image's connections to consumer culture. The repetition of the image of the Coke bottle reflects the omnipresence and dominance of the product in American society.

34-31: ANDY WARHOL, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962. Oil on canvas, 6' 10 1/2" x 4' 9". Collection of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art).

A mythical celebrity:

In Marilyn Diptych, Warhol reproduced a publicity photograph of a Hollywood celebrity in a way that emphasizes the commodity status of the subject.

34-32: ANDY WARHOL, Marilyn Diptych, 1962. Oil, acrylic, and silk-screen enamel on canvas. Tate Gallery, London.

Supersizing sculpture:

Claes Oldenburg made both plaster reliefs of food and clothing items and large-scale, stuffed sculptures of sewn vinyl or canvas that comment on American consumer culture. He also made huge outdoor sculptures of familiar, commonplace objects.

34-33: CLAES OLDENBURG, photo of one-person show at the Green Gallery, New York, 1962.

Superrealism

The Superrealists (or Photorealists) made images involving scrupulous photographic fidelity to optical fact.

Exploring "photo-vision":

In her still-life painting Marilyn (Vanitas), Audrey Flack explored the nature of photography and the extent to which photography constructs an understanding of reality. Flack duplicates the smooth gradations of tone and color found in photographs with careful attention to detail. She also alludes to traditional vanitas paintings.

34-34: AUDREY FLACK, Marilyn, 1977. Oil over acrylic on canvas, 8' x 8'. Collection of the University of Arizona Museum, Tucson (museum purchase with funds provided by the Edward J. Gallagher, Jr. Memorial Fund).

Large-scale portraits:

Chuck Close's large-scale Self-Portrait is based on a photograph.

34-35: CHUCK CLOSE, Big Self-Portrait, 1967-1968. Acrylic on canvas, 8' 11" x 6' 11" x 2". Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (Art Center Acquisition Fund, 1969).

Casts of stereotypical Americans:

Duane Hanson's Supermarket Shopper is a life-size figurative sculpture made of polyester resin cast from a plaster mold made from a live model. The sculpture is painted and decorated with a wig, clothes, and other accessories.

34-36: DUANE HANSON, Supermarket Shopper, 1970. Polyester resin and fiberglass polychromed in oil, with clothing, steel cart, and groceries, life-size. Nachfolgeinstitut, Neue Galerie, Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen.

Site-Specific Art and Environmental Art

Most Environmental art (also called Earth art or earthworks) is site specific and exists outdoors. Environmental artists used natural or organic materials, including the land itself, and used their art to call attention to the landscape.

The enduring power of nature:

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty is a huge spiral of black basalt, limestone rocks, and earth that extends out into Great Salt Lake in Utah.

34-37: ROBERT SMITHSON, Spiral Jetty, 1970. Black rock, salt crystals, earth, red water (algae) at Great Salt Lake, Utah. 1,500' x 15' x 3 1/2'. Estate of Robert Smithson; courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York; collection of DIA Center for the Arts, New York.

Captivating environmental interventions:

For Surrounded Islands, created in Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida, Christo and Jeanne-Claude surrounded 11 small, human-made islands in the bay with specially fabricated pink, polypropylene fabric. The piece survives only in photographs, films, and books documenting the project.

34-38: CHRISTO and JEANNE-CLAUDE, Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980-1983. Pink woven polypropylene fabric, 6 1/2 million sq. ft.

A massive wall of steel:

Richard Serra's site-specific sculpture Tilted Arc is an enormous 120-foot curved wall of Cor-Ten steel that bisected the large public plaza in front of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in lower Manhattan. The sculpture significantly altered the space and traffic flow across the square.

34-39: RICHARD SERRA, Tilted Arc, 1981. Cor-Ten steel, 12' x 120' x 2 1/2". Installed Federal Plaza, New York City by the General Services Adminis-tration, Washington D.C. Destroyed by the U.S. Government 1989.