Pop Art: An Introduction

1962 is the year in which Andy Warhol would show the world the famous diptych of Marilyn Monroe, consecrating it as an artistic and cultural icon, being referenced throughout history in all kinds of media.

“Marilyn”, 1962, Andy Warhol

Ten years before this kind of iconography was not what an ordinary person imagined when thinking of art. Repeated designs, advertising and comics were part of people’s daily lives, and the artistic space was reserved for people with high social status.

By 1951 the paintings admired by the academy were far away from Marilyn Monroe, Abstract Expressionism appeared in all the museums and was praised in the academy for being complex and refined art.

“Red Sunday Morning”, 1955, Michael Goldberg: the painting recalls a breakfast he shared with fellow artist Joan Mitchell

Criticism of Abstract Expressionism are not few by the artists who are going to consecrate the Pop movement, among them, it is called boring, lacking in narrative, empty and elitist.

Pop artists returned to the origins of art, painting what was part of their environment. In the 60s that meant capturing a society that was going through great changes and then giving rise to popular mass culture.

Richard Hamilton defines Pop Art as “Popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and big business.”

The purchasing power of the population increased, vehicles and food were mass-produced and the first means of communication were born, radio, cinema and entertainment began to be part of the life of working families. However, the same thing did not happen with art.

Pop art is inspired by the new daily life of families immersed in a consumer culture, by advertising graphic design, magazines and comics and takes as its main figure the elements that people can find in their own homes, like a bottle of Coca-Cola, a can of Campbell’s soup or a rockstar.

Warhol takes inspiration from religious works when he conceives the Marilyn works and speaks of the glorification of celebrities to the level of the divine on our society.

An art “ready to sell” that reflected the reality of that time, striking and controversial at first sight, but with a very complex narrative behind it, that talks about consumer culture and its superficiality from the perspective of artists who are also immersed and take part of it.

An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he — for some reason — thinks it would be a good idea to give them.
Andy Warhol

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