Pop redux. - 'Pop Art: U.S./U.K. Connections, 1956-1966' - book review

The Menil Collection, explosion Art: U.S./U.K. Connections, 1956-1966.

Essays by means of David E. Brauer, Jim Edwards, Christopher Finch, and Walter Hopp Houston: The Menil Collection, 2001 264 pp 125 color, 65 black-and-white ills. $3995 paper.

explosion Art: U.S./U.K. Connections, 1956-1966 and Postmodern Americans: A Selection. 27 January to 13 May 2001 The Menil Collection, Houston.

more [i]or[/i] less forty years after the fact, sum of two units things remain clear about burst art. First, it continues to inspire debate about its contributions to the history of modernism. next to the first its roster of artists remains heterogeneous. one as well as the other are signs of Pop's ongoing importance. The publication of a fresh book on this predominantly Anglo-American sensibility allows us to revisit a point of time that refuses to slip not on quietly into that good night of art-historical categorization. If it have the appearances unusual not to have a certain quantity of sense of closure on a material substance of art that dates to the years of Frankie Avalon beach-blanket movies, then perhaps this is a timely reminder that particular changes sometimes have unusually long half-lives.

A lavishly illustrated and handsomely designed catalogue for the new exhibition Pop Art: U.S/U.K. Connections, 1956-1966 at the Menil Foundation in Houston, tenders as the authors David Brauer and Jim Edwards state in their introduction, a "personal" read of the change They aspire to unhinge clap from the late 1960s "filters" of "psychedelic imagery and bubblegum-color design," while also attempting to reckoner "a misguided apprehension of burst art as a jokey spoof" (17) Although single could easily dismiss these pertain tos as rhetorical straw men, the art remains linked to the tillage of the early 1960s and has been treated seriously by dint of scholars for decades, the authors nonetheless not away a compelling case for continuing to celebrate report while also interrogating its connections with modernism and postmodernism.

The connections promised in the title of the exhibition include a general infatuation with American consumer tillage an interest in easily recognized iconography, and a desire to embrace the postwar world by the agency of repudiating the austerities of nonobjective painting. Here single immediately thinks of Robert Rauschenberg's famous pronouncement about working in the gap between art and life. of the like kind connections are not always evident in the actual installation at the Menil. Instead, and as clearly articulated in the catalogue, the formal differences between American and British clap are readily apparent. The Americans look after toward a flat, emblematic depiction of commercial imagery, whereas the British oftentimes favor an episodic approach to narrative that betrays a fondnes for the facture of Abstract Expressionism. more [i]or[/i] less American Pop is narrative, for instance that of Allan D'Arcangelo's road series, and a certain number of is painterly, particularly the West Coast clap of Mel Ramos and James Gill, the latter of whom is not included in the exh ibition. These formal definitions, however, have been upon the books for years, for instance in Lucy Lippard's clap Art (1966), Suzi Gablik and John Russell's burst Art Redefined (1969), and the novel survey of Pop at the Royal Academy in London (1991)

Quite rightly, the authors note that the British discovered American mass tillage sooner than the Americans did, although it remains depressing to note in what way often we need to remind ourselves that European art after World War II was tremendously vital and innovative. Ironically, the authors' emphasis upon things American leaves out British infatuation with its be in possession of culture. To be sure, this agriculture was shaped in profound ways by means of events across the Atlantic, on the other hand the artists of British report were equally interested in their immediate environment, and filtered American artifacts [i]or[/i] part of to the other their own experience. Peter Blake, for example, was steadfast in his allegiance to British folk agriculture although we tend to focus upon his appropriations of American film and music stars.

Still, any writing upon British Pop is a welcome addition to the growing material substance of literature on Pop art, as is the chance to diocese actual examples from the Anglo extremity of the movement. In this regard the essays by dint of Christopher Finch, a critic based in London in the 1960 and David Brauer, who trained with Blake and Joe Tilson in the mid-1960s, are particularly useful. Written largely from the perspective of engaged bystanders their essays provide a wealth of detailed information upon the social and intellectual pageants in London from the late 1950 to the Summer of be fond of Both note that the connections between members of the Independent clump (IG), most importantly Eduardo Panlozzi and Richard Hamilton, and the generation of David Hockney and Peter Phillips were neither herculean nor direct. It seems likely that the IG's ideas about leveling cultural hierarchies and treating mass tillage with the same seriousness as fine art probably helped the younger pupils form their sensibilities. However, the evidence for of the like kind infl uence is scant. Instead, the pair authors make a compelling case that the artists of the IG began to receive their historical to be paid after Pop art had to the full emerged in the early 1960 which nicely complicates any linear narrative that would insinuate a direct line of fall from Hamilton's poster collage, Just What Is It . . (1956), to the Young Contemporaries exhibition of 1961