POP ART: UK vs. USA

Pop culture relies on youth. In the mid 1950’s when the movement emerged in the UK, the “baby boomers” were growing up- children born after the war, becoming teenagers and, for the first time for people of their age, gaining independence. Teenagers had jobs which meant they had money to spend on art, music and fashion that was aimed at people their age. It was the first time a market had opened specifically for teens.
Arguably, the initial benchmark for pop art was set by Eduardo Paolozzi with his 1947 piece “I was a rich mans play thing”.

At the first Independent Group meeting (a group of young artists, writers and critics who challenged prevailing modernist approach to culture) he presented the piece, claiming it to be made from “found objects” during his time with the army in Paris. The “found objects” included advertising, comic book characters, mass produced media graphics and comic book covers- all of which were aimed at the younger generation.
Although the image appears to be quite fun and simple, analysis of the piece may beg to differ. Because the piece seems rather light-hearted and accessible, it doesn’t really encourage further investigation. However when you look at the images individually alongside the composition, they begin to tell a rather different story.
The main focus of the image is quite clearly a sexual icon- the classic 50’s pin up girl. She is not only surrounded by mainstream, manufactured goods labels- suggesting that she too is “for sale”, but also images that seem to glorify war- the fighter plane and the gun. It is no accident that the gun is positioned to be shooting towards her head. The text in the piece at first seems to have no purpose other than filling space, to add more colours, but when you actually take the time to read the text, which appears to be about prostitution, it changes the entire mood of the piece. Now the image seems not fun, but rather seedy and sordid, something you shouldn’t be looking at.
To me, this is very credible and important pop art. The younger generation were finally given freedom, yet they were having sex and mainstream brands forced upon them.
I feel this important message was lost when pop art moved to America. Perhaps the more credible of American pop art were in the earlier stages- when it was truer to the form of original British pop art. For example, Richard Hamilton’s “what is it about today’s homes that makes them so different, so appealing”-1956.

Even so, I feel this piece is lacking a lot of moral fibre that earlier British Pop art seemed to thrive from. No bold statement is made in this piece- there is no war imagery, no politics. Instead, Hamilton has focussed on sex, and the “ideals” of American life in the 1950’s which almost seem too easy to make a joke out of, a characterture. It seems that the issues addressed aren’t even being portrayed in a negative light, but rather being casually mocked.
One of the most prominent artists in the American pop art movement and arguably one of the best known and accessible pop artists in the world is Andy Warhol. Warhol originally embarked on a career in graphic design, and this is often quite apparent in his work. His most famous pieces feature either American “Icons” such as Marilyn Monroe, or world encompassing brands such as coca cola, screen printed 4 or more times in the same set.

The idea isn’t a hard one to grasp: the idea that when something is reproduced so many times, it becomes meaningless. Depending on what is being depicted, I feel Warhol’s message can differ between pieces. For example, with the Marilyn images, it seems that the reproduction of her face makes her no more important than any other brand logo: taking away from the fact that she is in fact a person. This seems to me, all too similar to the prints that repeat an image of a coca cola bottle: the entire point being that a single brand is becoming an empire and taking over the world. In comparison, I think it is sad that a woman, an actual person, is considered of the same importance as a brand.
Warhol follows the repetition theme throughout most of his work, sometimes with interesting results. His “Death and Destruction” series took images of horrific and fatal stories in the news and, using the same print screening method, printed them out many times on a single canvas. The effect was that of “anaesthesia” – the more times we are exposed to these kinds of horrors, the less impact they have on us. We see horrific things every day, yet they do not leave the kind of impact on us that they should.
An American artist of the pop art movement who I feel is significantly less relevant than Warhol is Roy Lichtenstein. His work lies mainly in parody: that is, based mainly on old fashioned comic strips, Lichtenstein recreates the images and thus invests in the idea of mass reproduction.

However, I feel this method is significantly less important than others in pop art: the message is blank. Yes, it makes a point about mass reproduction, but it is unclear where Lichtenstein stands on this point, as his paintings don’t necessarily portray it in a bad light. Therefore I feel the message is bland and irrelevant.
Pop art definitely made its home in America, but there is no doubt it was born in the UK. I wanted to find another important British pop artist who had a profound influence on our culture, and it didn’t take long for me to come to the conclusion that the best example of influential British pop art probably came from Peter Blake. Perhaps the most recognisable piece of pop art in this country was created at the hands of Blake: the album cover for the Beatles’ album, “Sgt Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band”.

The image includes an impressive repertoire of icons-and indeed “villains” of the time, including (once again) Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx and Oscar Wilde. I love it when two important culture references come together and for me, art and music are probably the two most important. The Beatles changed British music, and in doing so, culture for the better in the 60’s, again a part of the “baby boom” revolution, but this time the revolution was in that they themselves were young, and with the freedom of youth, doing what they loved. I think, where American pop art seems to mainly focus on the idea of “mass production”, British pop art seems to focus on the idea of a particular icon- whether it be branding or celebrity, and the effect it has on culture. I feel this is very well represented on the Sgt Peppers album cover- the sheer AMOUNT of people involved (even though all of them were cardboard cut-outs except for the band themselves) makes them, as a whole, quite irrelevant, “a face in a crowd” concept. It’s only when you start looking at the individual figures do you realised who they are, and all of them have some sort of cultural reference in one way or another, whether it is bad or good. I myself didn’t even notice some of the icons featured until I started really researching and looking at the piece. All of the figures are lost in the mass of crowd and colour, and it becomes quite hard to differentiate who is a real person and who is a cardboard cut-out. The message seems to be one that is rather down to earth: that although these icons may have been put on a pedestal, each and every one of them is an individual person. It is not an unknown fact that the Beatles came from very modest backgrounds in Liverpool so it seems to make it all the more relevant to them. No matter who they are surrounded by, what they are dressed in, what colours surround them, or where they go, they are always the same people. It is an interesting concept.
Overall I feel that all movements in pop art were important, however I can’t help but feel that pop art in the UK was slightly more relevant. It seems to stick more to the point, without getting sidetracked and overwhelmed with the concept of mass production. It seems almost ironic that in a movement which was taking a stand against mass production, artists such as Roy Lichtenstein got lost and created work which to me is rather meaningless. The core of pop art will always be in the UK, where the idea was born and took very strong roots.