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Indepth Arts News:
"Pop Impact - From Johns to Warhol"
2001-04-29 until 2001-07-01
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Indianapolis, IN,
USA
Pop Impact! From Johns to Warhol features Pop Art and Proto-Pop works by Johns,
Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Rauschenburg, Rosenquist, Warhol and other giants of the
contemporary American art scene. All of the works are drawn from the collection of New
York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.
Considered controversial when it first emerged in the 1950s and 60s, Pop Art broke the
rules by shunning abstraction in general and returning to recognizable subject matter, yet the
subjects Pop artists chose—Coke bottles, billboard beauties and fast food—were outlandishly
commonplace. Leaders of the movement recognized that consumerism was becoming
America’s way of life, thanks to mass production. Many Pop artists turned to the techniques
of advertising to represent this highly standardized way of life, often eliminating evidence of
handmade quality from their artworks.
In addition, the scale of Pop Art was ironic. As subject matter became more trivial, artworks
became increasingly monumental. Writers used analogies like mattress-sized Popsicles or
hamburgers the size of Volkswagens to help readers understand the paradoxical new works.
Highlights of Pop Impact! include Oldenburg’s SUV-sized sculpture Ice Bag-Scale C.,
Segal’s sculpture Walk, Don’t Run and Rosenquist’s U-Haul-It.
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