Art History: Pop Art

 How many of you have seen or heard an advertisement today? 

What symbols did you see? 

Are these advertisements art? 

This was the question pop artists of the 1950’s-1960’s sought to answer!  

Pop artists used images from popular culture in their art to blur the line between art in a museum and the images we see all around us.  To show this blurred line between art and products, I introduced students to the world premiere of Miss Jenn’s Pop Art Museum!  So hold on to your hats folks and prepare to be blown away! Since the students are art history masters now, they were my art critics to let me know if these were works of art or not.  

Miss Jenn’s Art Exhibit number one:

The kids thought this one was absolutely the best, they are so funny.  Well, Andy Warhol created many similar works of art based on the boxes of product packaging, the most famous of these being Brillo Pad boxes. Warhol really wanted us to consider the idea that the products around us are art, while critics thought why would someone by these works of art when you could just get them from the store? Warhol went on to create his famous Campbell’s soup cans with this reasoning as well.

                             

Ms. Jenn’s Art Exhibit #2:

Awe cute, right.  But is it art? Claes Oldenburg went right past the packaging and created giant food as art! He played with scale and proportion to create easily recognizable foods and objects.  He thought it was ironic that the food he created would be all around museum goers, but they wouldn’t be able to eat them.  If you’ve ever been to Minneapolis, Minnesota, he designed the iconic “Spoon and Cherry” statue there in 1988.

Miss Jenn’s art exhibit #3:

                              

Who doesn’t recognize this minion? They are all over popular culture!  But is copying someone else’s artwork, artwork? This is the question that Roy Lichtenstein asks. He created paintings from comic books, almost copying them identically, making a few small changes.  He thought he could take the popular images from comic books and make them worthy of a museum with a few small changes.

The final (it’s ok to be sad) artwork in Ms.Jenn’s pop art exhibit: 

Do you recognize those lego figures? Andy Warhol loved to create works of art with famous people in them, and used a method called screen printing to make multiple copies of each. He wanted his work to replicate the feeling (annoying maybe?) of seeing famous people and advertisements everywhere.  His screen prints of Marilyn Monroe have become iconic in the art world.

We then used this work of art by Warhol to create our own Warhol inspired prints.  I chose print making because it is easily to replicate an image over and over again, just like Warhol did in his work.  In class we focused on the marker prints, but you can also use paint or printing ink with the styrofoam as well!

A lot of students had never made prints before, and this was an exciting way to introduce them to print making! First, they chose an image from popular culture to create their pop inspired art.  Then, they drew it onto their styrofoam pieces, tracing twice with pen.  They colored with washable markers, made the printing paper damp with a baby wipe, and pulled the print!  

To replicate the feel of Warhol’s work, students made 4 prints in a variety of colors, they turned out great!