Pop Art

Historical Context — 1950s

  • Increased consumerism → more people buying stuff

  • Reconstruction in Germany due to the effects of WWII

  • More interconnected world that is getting more globalized and allat

    • International commerce and treaties

    • IMF

  • Cold War — Korean war around this time

  • Decolonization processes

  • More globalized economy stimulates further trade

  • Advanced technology and increased communication

  • Lots of destruction due to WWII, but the USA got off scot-free and had virtually any destruction (other than Hawaii)

    • Their infrastructure was perfectly fine

    • Unscathed

    • Their economy could hum along just wonderfully

Western Europe

  • Marshall Plan → millions of dollars flooding into Europe to help them reconstruct, which stimulates their economies

  • Countries are going to expand their militarization due to the Cold War → more soldiers, bombs, etc.

What won the war?

  • Freedom, democracy, free markets

  • American the country won, but the way the USA and the rest of the world saw it is that their values won the war

    • So the way they do things must be the way to go about doing things

    • Fascism, command economy, etc. lost

  • The victory is embraced as a validation of the countries that won the war

  • WE SAVED THE WORLD and we feel really good about ourselves and the rest of the world was kind of backing us on that

People Come Home

  • Soldiers come home and make tons of baby → baby boom

  • They get paid hella with their hourly wage jobs and stuff

  • Lots of great paying jobs

Consumerism & Pop Art

  • Consumerism is a representation of who we are: “The things I buy represent who I am as a person”

    • Stanley cups, Subaru

  • Pop artists hold up a mirror to this and they make art of this consumerist ideology

  • Andy Warhol

    • He didnt make pop art HE WAS POP ART

    • He was super cool and famous and he was like all up in there and he was a famous celebrity and stuff

    • Playing with gender concepts

    • Taking the everyday life of Americans and saying “If this is what you devote your life to, then this must be art!”

      • Millions of dollars must be spent designing this label for a can so it must be art

  • Roy Lichtenstein

    • Made lots of comic art

  • Robert Rauschenberg

  • Wayne Thiebaud

  • David Hockney

  • neo pop artists - pop artists that are alive and working today

  • Takashi Murakami

    • KANYE WEST BEAR