Pop art, based on slick, new commodities, the flashy graphics of advertising and the crassness of consumerism, was
considered shocking and controversial during its inception in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Now, Pop art is acknowledged
as one of the most significant art movements to have emerged since World War II.
Pop Impact! From Johns to Warhol looks at Pop imagery from different perspectives, encouraging visitors to examine the
movement's defining characteristics elements such as scale and seriality as well as such atypical Pop approaches as the
construction of a personal narrative and the innovative use of common materials.
Philip Morris Companies Inc., with Miller Brewing Company, is the sponsor of the national tour of Pop Art! From Johns
to Warhol and has provided additional support to the Milwaukee Art Museum for its presentation of the exhibition.
Pop art, which evolved out of a turbulent period when America witnessed dramatic political, economic and cultural changes,
represented both the new and shocking as well as a reference to past styles and approaches. Pop Impact! investigates
often-overlooked aspects of the movement by tracing its development from proto-Pop works by Jasper Johns and Robert
Rauschenberg to icons of Pop by James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol. It also incorporates work by artists such as Marisol
and George Segal.
As Pop art came into its full flower, scale became a defining element of many artists' work. For Rosenquist, an interest in
large-scale imagery emerged from his training as a billboard painter. The massive pat of butter slipping across a hot frying
pan in his U-Haul-It (1967) can be interpreted as a subversive exaltation of the common images associated with
consumerism. Oldenburg's colossal Ice Bag – Scale C (1971) carries issues of scale to absurd levels, bringing everyday
objects into the realm of venerated icons.
Comic strips, movies and the barrage of images across newspapers and television inspired many artists of this period to
adapt strategies of repetition and seriality. Wayne Thiebaud's Pie Counter (1963), suggests a society in which the
collective cultural appetite is continuously satisfied by a never-ending array of seductive products.
The brash, youthful beginnings of Pop art in the hands of such notable figures as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and
Claes Oldenberg have worn well over time; what was first incendiary has become iconic, but still remains every bit as fresh
and rewarding.
Organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, this exhibition inaugurates a dedicated program of touring exhibitions
of works from the Whitney's collection. Intended to reaffirm the museum's national reach by providing communities across
the country with a first-hand look at important works, Pop Impact! consists of more than 40 works. The Milwaukee Art
Museum will add 10 of its own works to the exhibition. The exhibition is co-curated by the Beth Venn, curator of the
Norton Family Collection and former curator of the Collection Touring Program at the Whitney, and Shamim M. Momin,
assistant curator and manager of Branch Programs.
IMAGE:
Claes Oldenberg,
Ice Bag Scale, 1971.
Mixed media.
Whitney Museum of American
Art.
© 2000 Claes Oldenburg.
www.oldenburgvanbruggen.org
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