1950's - 1960's

Consumer Cultures and Pop Art.



"pop culture and lifestyle became closely intertwined in the sixties... The subject matter, forms and media of Pop art reveal the essential characteristics of a cultural atmosphere and way of life we associate with the sixties."

"Sometimes i think that extreme beauty must be absolutely humourless. But then i think of Marylin Monroe and she had the best fun lines." - Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol 
The Twenty-Five Marilyns, 1962

"Andy warhol's series of Marilyns, produced in 1962 after her death, reveal the inauthenticity of her image by repeating her face - or her lips - in rows."

POP ART, Tilamn Osterwold, page 12

This is my own photograph of  Andy Warhol's,  Ten Lizes, 1963. I took this image during my visit to Paris in 2012 while in the pompidou centre. A piece which was created by Andy Warhol in the same way in which he created his Marilyn Monroe piece. 



Consumer Culture, Pop art. 

Pop Art, Tilamn Osterwold, page 29

Andy Warhol Close Cover before Striking (Pepsi Cola)1962

Pop Art, Tilamn Osterwold, page 31

Andy Warhol Green Cola Bottles, 1962

Using Art to place an emphasis on the consumer culture. During these times there was an obsession with money. 

"Artists soon turned their attention to looking behind the facade of this much hyped symbol of the times, and exposed it as inflationary and average."

Pop Art, Tilamn Osterwold, page 34

Pop Art in Britain

"British Pop Art arose out of a new understanding of contemporary life. It was intellectual, interdisciplinary and programmatic in character. Detailed study shows that its emergence as an artistic phenomenon was gradual, developing cut of the wider cultural context in Britain at the time."

Again much like discovered through the research into more American based pop art it appears that in britain too, pop art came as a result of social  and cultural change and development in the country. 

Richard Hamilton

Just what is it that makes todays homes so different, soappealing? 1956

Pop Art Tilman Osterword, page 64

Although its claimed that Americanism was influencing Europe at this time i think it is interesting to look at the vast differenced between American and British Pop Art.