Resurrection of pop art and the mass media

The history of pop art emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the 1960s in the United States. Now in the 21st century, pop art has regained popularity.

pop-art-featurePop art is all about techniques of commercial art which imitates the techniques of commercial art (like for example soup cans of Andy Warhol) and the styles of popular culture and the mass media.

The Mass media includes paintings, sculptures and graphics that use the imagery of popular or mass culture such as newspapers, comics, advertising or consumer goods to create amusing piece of art.

Pop art represents everything that high-art is not, it is mass-produced, expendable, low-cost, glamorous, entertaining and encourages big spending, bright lights and A list celebrities. Some critics like Harold Rosenberg described Pop art as being “like a joke without humor, told over and over again until it begins to sound like a threat…Advertising art which advertises itself as art that hates advertising.”

Although Andy Warhol was not the first artist to mine advertising for art, he remains the best known for this particular style in America.

In Europe, one of the distinguished artists was David Hockney, who was student of Royal College of Art in London.

Always absorbed in his work, David drew, painted and etched for long hours each day, had many exhibitions and won scholarships – one of which led him to the USA. Since then, the most prestigious galleries across the world have devoted countless shows to him, and today you can find David Hockney at Saatchi, and enjoy his extraordinary work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.