Pop-art and Andy Warhol as artist
Name
Course
Title
Date
Introduction
The 1960s and 70s era was marked by tremendous social, political and artistic activities both in England and United States. A number of artistic impulses started gaining momentum in the middle of 1960s. Chappell and Rotilie 2010 comment that this era was marked by explosion of consumerism reverberated in Andy Warhol’s and other artists’ art works including drawings, paintings, photographs, prints, and sculpture. A particular example is given by Oldenburg Claes’s and Segal George’s sculptures. These works embraced elements of populars. Pop Art was the visual art movement which was portrayed by a sense of optimism during this era. The Art movements come in line with globalization personified by some other artists. The movement entailed various painting styles as well as sculptures from different regions and countries. This essay explores the importance of Pop Art during the 1960s and 70s, with specific emphasize on Andy Warhol’s sculptures produced during this period. This essay further explains the importance of Andy Warhol’s sculptures and their contributions to the history of arts.
Art is not something new that started recently. Art work has been in existence for a very long time and there are various artists who have brought an influence in this field. When looking at art in the 1960s we can see that there are various art movements as well as cultural histories which are associated with this period.
Andy Warhol was a very influential pop artist in the 1960s.he took product logos and their labels from a commercial context and displayed them as a form of art. He also went ahead to make sculptures that were identical to Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans. Through his work we can see that pop art posed as a challenge to traditional art through equating imagery that was mass produced in advertising with existing fine arts. This was attracted by graphical directness of advertising and consumer packing which was simple. Andy Warhol is a very important figure when it comes to pop Art in America .this is because he is widely known for his work which is cool, detached and borrows images from advertising, television as well as other mass media in many occasions he sourced his material from commercial goods packaging. With the boxes sculptures that he made he took consumer items that were popular and brought it up to a high art level through the production of large scale versions of originals.
Another influential artist in the 1960s was George Segal. He is widely known for the sculptures he produced of people who were placed in different scenes. He referred to these types of works as situational sculptures .when making these figures he would wrap bandages which were soaked in plaster around his friend’s or models bodies. After the bandages dried up and were hard he cut them off carefully and went ahead to reassemble the body that had been cast. He then combined all these figures with objects that he found so as to create a scene. His work was influential since he took his subjects from daily lives, places the figures in a common setting and involved them in normal activities (Chappell, 2006).
Emergence of British and America Pop Arts
Historically, as agued by Osterwold 2003, Pop Art can be said to emerge from contemporary culture where reality was subordinated to the art’s interest. According to the author, Osterwold 2003, the subsequent de-individualization of art, its mechanical, anonymous quality, stood at the end of a long process of art development. He further states that Pop Art holds a mirror to industrial, mass community with its technological progress, its expansion of mechanically reproducible media and its commercialization of popular culture.
According to Paolozzi 2005’s book title, ‘I was a Rich Man’s Plaything’, the author cites the word “POP” to have started in 1954 by Alloway Lawrence, an artist’s origin Britain. The word was used to illustrate the by then emerging art type that was motivated by popular culture imagery. Lawrence together with other artists was among the founders of Independent Group which comprised of various artists, architects and writers who explored radical approaches to contemporary visual cultures. Another author Hamilton also notes that some artists from Britain in 1950s viewed the seductive American popular culture’s image with impractical sense of mockery and a little bit jealousy. The artists saw America as a land of freedom from meetings that could kill the culture of freedom that they envied. This led to the emergence of youthful culture that encompassed mass production of various art works. Pop Art became most artists’ communication mode in expressing their desire to have a change in the British community. The artists and the youths thus made various images that provoked reactions in Britain.
On the contrary, according to John 1980’s publication, ‘White Flag’, American Pop Art changed in a different way compared to British Pop Art. According to John, Pop Art in America was both for development purposes and reactions to expressionists painting. Expressionisms was among the initial American Art to gain dominance and attain global recognition but the American citizens felt that it had become elitist and introspective and s the need for its change. The emergence of Pop Culture was in attempt to correct the trend through the introduction of image as a device in painting, and it was also aimed at pulling back art from obscurity to the actual world.
Another artist in the 1960s was William Pachner who was the major force behind the development of the art scene in Tampa Bay region in the beginning of 1960s he was among the few existing abstract painters who was championed by the entire art community in Florida. He fully embraced abstraction which was are relatively new form of art in the 1960s.for this reason he is termed as influential since he pushed many people towards exploring the genre of abstraction.
The 1960s saw a social revolution that was filled with a lot of historical movements, technological advancements and the emergence of popular culture. This was referred to as the psychedelic era which brought a lot of changes in the society in terms of lifestyle this era did not just emerge out of nowhere .the most influential popular culture that led to the emergence of psychedelics was music. This was through artists like Bob Dylan a songwriter and poet. He actively protested and was trying to express himself regarding the Vietnam War as well as the American society. He offered a new way of writing and protesting through music. He can be regarded as the first sparkle of pop music what led to the development of psycadellic movement. There was also the rise of the music group Beatles .this started simply as a music group but grew into something bigger .they started a new subculture as well as a lifestyle. This Beatle mania culture became very effective when it came to fanaticism as well as the emergence of the pop culture. Therefore we can clearly see that music was the major factor which led to the emergence of the psychedelic movements. All other things like dressing, books, artwork, films and so on came after that.
Andy Warhol’s art Work and its significant contribution to the history of art
Among the greatest contributions, it can be argued that Andy Warhol’s artistic works embodied Pop Art in the era between 1960 and 1970. The artist, Andy, initially worked as commercial artist and his theme was obtained from mass-culture imagery including comics, advertisements, newspapers, movies and Television.
The artist personified American popular culture spirit and made its imagery prominent to museum art status. Andy Warhol made use of second-hand images of popular products in America and popular musicians which be believed contained fundamental ordinariness that made them more appealing. According to Andy, the ordinary images had been deprived off their emotional and meanings through their mass-exposure. Classically undermining the cost of establishing an art, Andy was enthralled by the ordinariness that he celebrated in various subjects ranging from most common musicians to soup cans. In most popular paintings by Andy Warhol, he tried to portray a similar image. Examples are paintings of ‘Car Crash’, ‘Campbell’s Chicken Noodle’, portrait of ‘Electric Chair’, and ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ where same approach was detached. According to the artist, Andy, all paintings were to have similar size and similar color to make them all interchangeable and so no one can image or categorize them as better or worse paintings. In Pop Art history, this mass-production autistic was a contemporary reflection of the American culture.
In contribution to the history of art Andy’s paintings portrayed the America’s tradition as Andy used the ordinary images. One of the greatest messages of Andy is unity and commonness. Andy tried by painting images of similar size and same color to show that American ought o have a community whereby both the poor and the rich use similar properties. This showed the attempt to create or bridge the gap between the poor and the rich in America. One can been listening and seeing Coca Cola advert in TV and then being sure that both the poor and the rich use the same product, and also thinking that she or he can drink it the same way. The other fact is that Coca Cola provided similar quantity costs the same, be it the president or the poor and no greater amount of money can guarantee a better Coca Cola. All brands and products and portrayed by Andy should be the same, the President and lowest in the society should then have similar chances and consume same brand quality. The irony of Andy’s claim and arguments is that the prices of all products shoot as soon as they hit given premises and restaurants and so the deviations in prices.
Andy’s art work depends on Duchamp’s readymade. Andy’s works portray his Dadaism in his spirit. The artist’s various whimsical proclamations concerning American art were intentionally enigmatic and contrary and he never clarified rather forced his audience to find out the interpretations. The artist rather preferred remaining mystery. Andy never gave or revealed his background when he did so; he made it up every time he was asked. His evasiveness attitude was intentional as he tried to hide his publicity. The artist cultivated his identity similar to business model which formed part and parcel of his art. The artists once said, “I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.”
The artist in expressing his personality did not show his skills and craftsmanship. He said; “The reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do.
If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” The quotes from Andy show that his arts were produced from mechanical processes or produced in a factory or by a group of people. The artist’s use of paradoxical statements for instance, “I am a deeply superficial person” or “art should be meaningful in the most shallow way” all shows the importance of art.
As aesthetic value
After consideration of how and why a work of art has received its distinctive forms, the question of its importance arises. In this context, the word important could have two meanings. One meaning is that it may imply that a work is historically significant, in that it illuminates the development of a given theme, assist to in explaining the formation of given stylistic characters. The other importance is that it helps in operation of given formative influence on style. Such estimates of art’s significance, the art historian is continually called upon to make. Luckily, for the artists, the test to be applied are commonly objective.
The other significance of Andy’s work comes from its aesthetic importance. Andy entered the realm of the art critic, sharing the basic weaknesses of missing any standards of judgment except his own findings as to what is good and bad.
The role of the art in history is critical. It is the artists like Andy who had set the foundation, into which the information collected by individuals of a pointing-technique is organized, for final interpretation. In the study of important of art work and their contributions to art history, two factors are critical one being connoisseurship and another archival research.
Connoisseurship. Beyond establishment of individual and historical chronologies, connoisseurship itself- the expert knowledge of style and technique that the art historian develops through the course of the career- is of immerse help in research of artist’s techniques. This keen sense of discrimination can be used to identify idiosyncrasies particular to a given artist’s work. When draw from works of undisputed provenance, the art historian can use the idiosyncrasies to establish a signature of style, materials and techniques for any given artists. This so called signature is important for researchers in all the related disciplines and art work even currently. The signature style for a given artists establishes the standard of measure against which all data can be judged.
Archival research. The study of primary documents for example municipal, guild r financial records and chronicles in which artist’s names can be directly located provides crucial information about artist’s lives, training, professional and social standing. When the paintings and other art works are available, the study of these materials often provides significant information leading to knowledge and understanding of the artist’s intent, as well as the rationale behind the use of a given material and painting technique.
Contribution of Andy’s work on history of arts
A painting composes of elements that can be separated for study. As there are schools of artistic thought, there are schools of painting technique. Each painting school has distinct painting construction. Although there are various elements common in many art works, there are specific elements that feature is specific arts. Isolation of specific art work is possible. It is possible to isolate and define these unique qualities for each technical approach and to establish markers for a detailed study.
An initial, standardized visual examination of painting by an artist specializing in painting technique can aid in any art historical or subsequent scientific investigation, not only helping to orient the researcher but also assisting in the interpretation of the results.
References
Chappell M., and Rotilie S., 2010. Art in the 1960s. Retrieved from http://www.artsconnected.org/collection/118487/art-in-the-1960s?print=true#%281%29 on 14th, Martch, 2-14.
George, W., 1938. Art History and Connoisseurship: Their Scope and Method. Publisher CUP Archive.
Wallert A., and Peek M., 1995. Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice. Getty Trust Publications Getty Conservation Institute Series.
Osterwold T., 2003. Pop Art. Publisher Taschen.
psychedelicadventures.com. (2010).The Psychedelic [in] Society:A Brief Cultural History of Tripping. Retrieved July 4, 2013 from http://www.psychedelicadventures.com/BriefHistory.htm
Chappell, M. (2006). Art in the 1960s. Retrieved July 4, 2013 from http://artsconnected.org/collection/118487/art-in-the-1960s?print=true#%281%29
Sarasota Visual Art. (2012). William Pachner: Works from the 1960s. Retrieved July 4, 2013 from http://sarasotavisualart.com/2012/02/william-pachner-works-from-the-1960s/
