Introduction

Andy Warhol

"When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museum's" in the words of Andy Warhol (Scherman, 70). It is impossible to imagine art in the 1960's post war era, without the formation of an explosive new form of art, Pop Art. The question still necessitates for debates on whether or not Pop Art is a form of high art or commercialism. Did these artists create this art for self-gratification and social statements or did commercialism and the media create them for the artists. There are opposing views all over this controversy, but there can be found a common ground.
What exactly is Pop Art? This is a question without an easy answer. Pop art was seen as the art that represented the everyday and the mass-produced society that emerged after World War II. Lichtenstein commented, "I don't know- the use of commercial art as subject matter, I suppose." (Kastner, 1). If Lichtenstein had a hard time responding to the question of what exactly Pop Art stood for, then as a society we really need to question it in order to understand the artists intentions. The subjects of Pop Art often celebrated the relationships between society and an obsession with consumerism. Pop Art began to tear down barriers that were held as regarding pieces as either 'high' art or 'low' art by using ordinary subject matter. It reacted to the occurrence of the depersonalization in society because items were just being produced. These artists viewed their art as anti-art, at least in comparison to other artist's before and after them.

Exhibit Reviews

Issues

"It was hard to get a painting that was despicable enough so that no one would hang it. The one thing everyone hated was commercial art..." Roy Lichtenstein (Kastner, 1).

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