'Pop Art Myths' and the 'MYTHS & HEROES' Notion

 We are going to deal with the notion of Myths and Heroes related to the Pop Art movement that took place in the late 50'/early 60'. A myth is a popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution or ocurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal; while a hero is an historical or national character with political, social or cultural influence.

 

The Pop Art painting I have choose is entitled With love to Jean-Paul Belmondo and was made by Pauline Boty in 1962. In this Pop Art Portrait, we can see the succesful french actor Jean-Paul Belmondo painted in shades of grey, wearing sunglasses and a white stripped hat with a giant red flower on the top, and on top of it we can see five hearts (two green hearts and three red hearts). The whole is on an orange background with thin red stains at the bottom.

There are many ways in which this painting can be related to the notion of myths and heroes. The first one that came to my mind was Pauline Boty, the artist. 

                                     

Pauline Boty (1938-1966) was the only female artist in the British Pop Art movement. Through her artistic productions (which included paintings and collages) she claimed the assertion of female sexuality in a society she described as a "Man's world", and in which she felt trapped in as an artist woman. Her rebellious art, combined with her free-spirited lifestyle, has made Pauline Boty a herald of 1970's feminism, following the steps of an ideology that had already been previously settled by other artists such as writers Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf. 

We may consider her as a hero to some extent, since she took an active part in an artistic movement in which the main contributors were men (Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns…) and was not intimidated by that fact whatsoever. She also became a a myth because of her early death caused by a cancer during her pregnancy: Pauline refused to take any medication that might have harmed the foetus and therefore died soon after giving birth to her daughter. She was only 28 years old, and thus we might consider her artistic productions as unachieved. We will never know what she might have painted all along her life if she hasn't died, and that's what makes her a myth.    

We can also relate this painting to the notion by focusing on the character painted: Jean-Paul Belmondo, who is worldwide considered as a myth of cinema culture. Belmondo is a symbol of the Nouvelle Vague movement that took place in France in the 1960's. He built himself that reputation throughout the reiterated collaboration with the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard: he was the main character of many of his films. Breathless ("À Bout de Souffle") is the one that cemented his mondial reputation not only as a very talented actor, but also as a sex symbol.

Pop Art is essential to our modern mythology, and by that I do not mean to attribute to this movement artistic values that it clearly doesn't has. Manhood needed to go though Pop Art in order to rearrange its mindset and get a new perspective on art and the many forms it might take. Art is surrounding us at every single moment of our everyday life and that's what Pop Art tries to transmit to people. What Pop Artists seem to want to say is that, when you have a proper worldview of your background, you become able to turn anything into an artistic production. Still, when the relevance of an artistic movement leans on its ability to break up with classic art, artists don't need to be very talented. I do not consider Pop Artists particularly talented when it comes to artistic procedures, but still they all showed a  very specific ability to get a good perspective of the world and spread it through their artworks. Without Pop Art, we would probably not be able to thing of anything that doesn't respond to classic artistic criteria as "art". Pop Art has enlightened our culture, and hence yes, it is relevant to our modern mythology. 

Pop Art Myths

Collage Advertising Comics

This exposition opens with several Pop Art precursors' collages. This form of art illustrates Pop Art movement (although it had also been previously present on Cubism and Dadaism) since collage becomes a tool for artists to show the aim for their artistic productions to become symbolical and break up with traditional art forms. Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol's work are a good example of this tendency. British artists were important when introducing comics into the sphere of art, although American artists (such as Roy Lichtenstein  and Andy Warhol) were the ones who first turned comic strips into large format paintings.

 M-Maybe by Roy Lichtenstein, 1965, 152,4 cm x 152,4 cm, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany 

One Man Track Team, Eduardo Paolozzi,1953, collage, 10-3/4x 8-1/8 in. (27.3 x 20.8 cm). Tate Museum, London 



Emblems


By the mid-20th century, the development of consumer society triggered an important growth of the mass media, which started invading each one of the aspects of our daily life. The slogans, logos, etc were source of inspiration for Pop artists, who tried to acknowledge property of some of those symbols by turning them into art (for instance Jasper Johns, Peter Blake, Robert Indiana or Andy Warhol, to name a few).

Target with Four Faces, Jasper Johns, 1958, MoMa, New York

Epiphany, Richard Hamilton, 1964, Gagosian Gallery, New York 

Myths

Hollywood was going through its golden era and hence had become a star-making factory. The actors and actresses who succeeded in cinema became immediately symbols and myths with worldwide repercussion. Many Pop artists decided to focus some of their artworks in these popular figures. British Pop artists represented American Idols in their paintings but also added specific elements of their own popular culture (e.g. Blake's Beatles and Hamilton's Rolling Stones).

     Swingeing London 67, Richard Hamilton, 1969, MoMA, New York

With Love to Jean Paul Belmondo, Pauline Boty,1962, oil on canvas, 48 x 59 7/8 in. Collection of Nadia Fakhoury, Paris


Portraits

The development of Pop Art had a huge repercussion in the artistic genre of portraiture. Portraits went from being  merely an imitation to a genuine predecessor of reality. The traditional Pop artists didn't want to stick to realistic forms anymore; instead, they wanted to go further (which allowed them to open the door to postmodernism). Andy Warhol illustrates this idea, since in his portraits the model of the painting fades away to become a virtual image, and in the artworks he made after his attempted assassination, there is also a neat meditation on death. Allen Jones and David Hockney also worked on their own interpretation of the idea of what portraits should look like.

Darcey Bussel, David Hockney, 1994, National Portrait Gallery, London

 One of the eight paintings of Mao Tse Tung made by Andy Warhol in 1972


Landscapes Interiors Still Lifes


The rise of consumer society drags along new symbols: everyday objects are seen as representative. This leads to a reinterpretation of traditional paintings (landscapes, interiors and still lifes) by Pop Artists. They adapt these classical forms of painting and make them fit in current society through, to give an example, turning still lifes into a public, commercial space in contrast with the privacy they used to represent before. Each one of the artists showed a different view on the subject, such as Lichtenstein and Ed Ruscha, which made very different versions of landscapes. Paul Caulfield and Valerio Adami focused on interiors while Sigmar Polke, Allen Jones and Claes Oldenburg among others focused on Pop Still Lifes.

Still Life With Palette, Roy Lichtenstein, 1972, Acquavella Galleries Art, New York

Hotel Chelsea Bathroom, Valerio Adami, 1968, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Belgium

Urban Eroticism 

The shift of social behavior that took place in the middle 1920' led to an until then unknown sexual freedom that was spread in every sphere of the society. As a result, erotic metaphors began to overwhelm mass media, displaying seductive women and attractive men. This carried weigh in Pop Art. Many Pop Artists started to represent voluptuous women in their artworks, such as Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Lindner and Allen Jones while others, like Tom Wesselmann through his odalisques, offer a personal interpretation of female nudes.

                                                   Cut-a-Way, Allen Jones, 1976

3 Girls, Sigmar Polke 

History Painting

Pop Art iconography was largely inspired by historical and contemporary events. This leans both on the traditional historical painting, as well as in the diffusion of images caused by the mass media, giving Pop Artists the opportunity to rethink and reinterpret history in new artistic media. Rauschenberg, Warhol, Rotella and Richter among some others focus some of their artwork in relevant historical figures such as John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his widow Jackie, Mao Zedong, Richard Nixon, etc…In Spain, meanwhile, Pop Artists (Equipo Realidad, Juan Genovés, Eduardo Arroyo to name a few) aims to make a political denounce of the historical amnesia that afflicted the country, through Pop Art.

Shining, Juan Genovés

Marylin, Mimmo Rotella, 1963

Art about Art

The use of images about images in Pop Art leads to a questioning of art's evolution since the Old Masters is called "Art about Art". Each artist deals with a different artistic movement: Hockney and Warhol deal with Renaissance Art in very different ways. Other artists use "Art about Art" with a political aim, sometimes also by means of irony, or to criticize the way society venerated some avant-garde artists, such as Duchamp (known worldwide due to his successful "Fountain"); it is the case of Equipo Crónica, Luis Gordillo and Eduardo Arroyo respectively.     

El Intruso (The Intruder), Equipo Crónica, 1969

MYTHS AND HEROES WORKSHEET

Here is the link to my Myths and Heroes worksheet

The idea of progress: Quantity vs. Quality

This post is meant to focus on the notion of de Idea of Progress. This notion is often associated with technological innovation which is meant to improve our living standards, but with this post I aim to show that progress not only can apply to technological devices but also to many aspects of our life without us being even aware of it; and also that progress isn't necessarily about improving our life. It might also have become an issue.
 Quality vs quantity has become nowadays quite of an open battle that concerns the whole society, since consummers are often forced to chose either the first or the second one. In order to illustrate the overwhelming contrast between these two terms and as a vegetarian concerned about this kind of issues I am, I decided to focus on the social stuggle of food. The following documents aims to debate about this. The first one is an extract of the article The easy way to lose weight... just go for quality not quantity written by a Daily Mail reporter and published in the Daily Mail in December 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2007041/Dieters-told-Quality-food-quantity-counts.html

The quality of the food you eat rather than how much you consume has the biggest impact on losing weight, a study has found.

Diet also has a greater impact than physical activity, watching TV or sleep duration.

But focusing on calories alone was not the best way to stay slim, according to the scientists. The secret was to focus on the quality of foods, especially carbohydrates

Weight-watchers were advised to cut out sweetened drinks, potatoes and refined grain foods such as white bread, white rice and low-fibre breakfast cereals.

At the same time they were urged to eat more ‘natural’ foods, such as fruit and vegetables, whole grains, nuts and yoghurt, while avoiding anything processed.

Professor Frank Hu, a nutrition expert at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, U.S., said: ‘These findings underscore the importance of making wise food choices in preventing weight gain and obesity.

‘The idea that there are no “good” or “bad” foods is a myth that needs to be debunked.’

The second document I choose is a McDonalds advertisement created by the advertising agency DDB in April 2013.

I picked these two documents because they both illustrate the idea of progress concerning food, each one from a different perspective. For the first one, food progress consists not only in how many calories contains what you eat but in the quality of the food itself, in how it affects your body and how healthy it might be considered. It goes against the idea that every "light" or "diet" product is good for you and will help you fight your personal battle against overweight. The second one, as an advertisement, aims to transmit a message to a wider range of people. This is a typical advertisement that can be found in the subway and among any magazine's pages. This kind of advertisement wants people to feel related to it, that is why it's oversimplified: it's easier to understand, therefore the message is easier to transmit. And also it sticks a bit more to nowadays reality: people do not care anymore about enjoying what's healthy and good for them. They eat healthy as if they were somehow forced to do it. Quantity has become more important and representative in their lives than quality. They'd rather chose quantity over quality.

To put it in a nutshell, the contrast between these two documents is representative on how quality over quantity has become an overwhelming paradox in our nowadays society: although people might be aware of how damaging choosing "quantity" is for them, they still do it everyday;  and when they don't it's for a cause (such as losing weight, following my example). We don't enjoy quality anymore.