Pop Art and Semiotics

Robert Rauschenberg Factum I & Factum II, 1957

Intro to Semiotics

Intro to Semiotics Basic Terms Sign - an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else Signifier - a sign’s perceptible or physical form Signified - the meaning, concept or idea expressed by a sign, distinct from its form

Intro to Semiotics Basic Terms Sign - an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else = Signifier - a sign’s perceptible or physical form + Signified - the meaning, concept or idea expressed by a sign, distinct from its form

Intro to Semiotics René Magritte says that ‘This is not a pipe,” Yes…it is an image of a pipe, but what else?

Intro to Semiotics Sign A sign is anything that makes meaning. It is made up of the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the material and the signified is the concept

Roland Barthes: Mythologies I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his soc-called oppressors. I am therefore again faced with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier, itself already formed with a previous system (a black soldier is giving the French salute); there is a signified (it is here a purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness); finally, there is a presence of the signified through the signifier. Barthes, “Myth Today,” Mythologies, 1957

Intro to Semiotics http://www.semiotic-analysis.com/case-studies/bt-classic-case-study-its-good-to-talk-an-oldie-but-a-goodie/

Richard Hamilton, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, 1956

Pop Art Pop Art was an art movement in the late 1950s and 1960s that reflected everyday life and common objects. Pop artists blurred the line between fine art and commercial art. Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964,  AWF

Pop Art Once you “got” Pop, you could never see a sign the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again. --Andy Warhol

“Pop Artists did images that anybody walking down the street could recognize in a split second…all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all.”—Gretchen Berg. Three Coke Bottles, 1962,  AWF

Line Color Shape Form Texture The Pop artists moved away from Abstract Expressionism, the dominant style of art in the 50s. The Abstract Expressionist evoked emotions, feelings and ideas through formal elements such as: Line Color Shape Form Texture Jackson Pollock, Number 4, 1950 Carnegie Museum of Art; Gift of Frank R. S. Kaplan/ARS

Pop Artists used common images from everyday culture as their sources including: Advertisements Consumer goods Celebrities Photographs Comic strips Roy Lichtenstein, Masterpiece, 1962

Pop Artists used bold, flat colors and hard edge compositions adopted from commercial designs like those found in: Billboards Murals Magazines Newspapers Campbell's Soup II, 1969,  AWF

Pop Artists reflected 60’s culture by using new materials in their artworks including: Acrylic Paints Plastics Photographs Fluorescent and Metallic colors Robert Rauschenberg, Retroactive II, 1963

Mass production Fabrication Photography Printing Serials As well as new technologies and methods: Mass production Fabrication Photography Printing Serials Claes Oldenburg, Floor Burger 1962,  Claes Oldenburg

Pop art was appealing to many viewers, while others felt it made fun of common people and their lives. It was hard for some people to understand why Pop Artists were painting cheap, everyday objects, when the function of art historically was to uphold and represent culture’s most valuable ideals. Listerine Bottle, 1963,  AWF

Photographic Silk-Screening Repetition Mass production Collaboration Andy Warhol was one of the most famous Pop Artists. Part of his artistic practice was using new technologies and new ways of making art including: Photographic Silk-Screening Repetition Mass production Collaboration Media events Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes installation,

Warhol appropriated (used without permission) images from magazines, newspapers, and press photos of the most popular people of his time ©2006 Life Inc. Silver Liz [Ferus Type], 1963,  AWF

Warhol used the repetition of media events to critique and reframe cultural ideas through his art Jackie paintings, 1964,  AWF

What makes one work of art better than another? Warhol took common everyday items and gave them importance as “art” He raised questions about the nature of art: Knives, 1981,  AWF Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964,  AWF What makes one work of art better than another?

Pop artists stretched the definitions of what art could be and how it can be made. photo by Hervé Gloaguen “The Pop idea, after all, was that anybody could do anything, so naturally we were all trying to do it all…” ---Andy Warhol

The art world today reflects many of the ideas, methods and materials initiated by the Pop Art movement. In Untitled, 1991, Barbara Kruger uses the iconography of the American flag and hard edge graphics to pose a series of provocative questions about American cultural values. Barbara Kruger, Untitled, 1991 Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery, NY In Rabbit, 1986, artist Jeff Koons cast a mass-produced inflatable Easter bunny in highly polished stainless steel. The sculpture became iconic of art in the 1980s. Jeff Koons, Rabbit, 1986,  Jeff Koons

Détournement and Culture Jamming

A détournement ([French for "rerouting", "hijacking") is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International,[1] and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),[2][3] that was defined in the SI's inaugural 1958 journal as "[t]he integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of those means. In a more elementary sense, détournement within the old cultural spheres is a method of propaganda, a method which reveals the wearing out and loss of importance of those spheres."[3][4] It has been defined elsewhere as "turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself"[5]—as when slogans and logos are turned against their advertisers or the political status quo.[6] Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was reprised by the punk movement in the late 1970s[7] and inspired the culture jamming movement in the late 1980s.[5] Its opposite is recuperation, in which radical ideas are twisted, commodified, and absorbed in a more socially acceptable context

Marcel Duchamp Bicycle Wheel 1913 wheel on painted stool 51 x 25 x 16 1/2"

Marcel Duchamp Fountain 1917 Urinal dimensions familiar

Marcel Duchamp In Advance of the Broken Arm 1915 (original) Snow Shovel dimensions familiar

Marcel Duchamp L.H.O.O.Q. 1919 pencil, readymade 19.7 x 12.4 cm

Enrique Chagoya Crossing I 1994 Acrylic and oil on paper 48" x 72"

Enrique Chagoya Return to Goya's Caprichos 1999 Etching, aquatint, drypoint 14 1/2" x 11"

Francisco José de Goya El Sueño de la Razón Produce Monstruos 1799 Etching on paper 21.5cm x 15cm

Enrique Chagoya Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals 2003 woodcut and 13 color lithograph dimensions variable

Enrique Chagoya Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals, detail 2003 woodcut and 13 color lithograph dimensions variable"

Enrique Chagoya Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals, partially destroyed 2010

Carlos Latuff From The Coca Cola Series 2003 Digital Image

Carlos Latuff From The Coca Cola Series 2003 Digital Image

Carlos Latuff From The Coca Cola Series 2003 Digital Image

Elizabeth Wong Détourned 7/11 Sign 2011 Digital Image

Elizabeth Wong Détourned Cadbury Wrapper 2011 Digital Image

Eyesaw Unhealthy Balance 2011 Bus stop advertisement Dimensions Variable

Eyesaw Burger King 2011 Bus stop advertisement Dimensions Variable

Eyesaw Statement on the Work "Both pieces question and explore our unhealthy relationship with junk food. Logos and brand identity have been cut from the original bus shelter advertising posters and juxtaposed with Eyesaw"s silhouette figures to produce images of ironic truth. "Burger king" suggests that from childhood we are bribed by greedy corporations in an attempt to gain life long customer loyalty ignoring the facts that this type of food is detrimental to our health and leads to conditions such as obesity. "Unhealthy balance" asks the viewer to weigh up their options when thinking about dining out in the city, it also suggests that we find comfort in junk food."

2hora Beauty not the Beast Series 2009 London Tube advertisement Dimensions Variable

2hora Beauty not the Beast Series 2009 London Tube advertisement Dimensions Variable

2hora Beauty not the Beast Series 2009 London Tube advertisement Dimensions Variable

Ron English, SWOON, Jet Set Graffiti, Banksy Santa's Ghetto Exhibition, Bethlehem 2007 Wheat pasted prints, spray paint Dimensions Variable

Ron English From Santa's Ghetto Exhibition, Bethlehem 2007 Wheat pasted prints Dimensions Variable

Ron English Grade School Guernica 2006 Giclee Print 27' x 12'

Ron English Killfrogs Sugar Smack 2010 Digital Image Dimensions Variable

Ron English Killfrogs Sugar Smack 2010 Print on Cereal Box Dimensions Variable

Ron English Camel Junior, NYC 1991 Wheat pasted billboard Dimensions Variable

Ron English Forever Kool, Jersey City 1995 Wheat pasted billboard Dimensions Variable

Billboard Liberation Front Drink Yourself Blind 2005 Wheat pasted billboard Dimensions Variable

Billboard Liberation Front Money to Burn 2008 Wheat pasted billboard Dimensions Variable

Banksy Napalm 2004 Screenprint Dimensions Variable

Banksy FTD 2006 Screenprint Dimensions Variable

Original FTD Logo

Banksy Haring Dog, London 2010 Wheat paste, spray paint Dimensions Variable

Keith Haring Dog 1986 Plywood, silkscreen 49 1/2" x 37 3/4" x 11 1/2"

Banksy Paris 2006 modified CD Dimensions Variable

Banksy Paris 2006 modified CD Dimensions Variable

Banksy Paris 2006 modified CD Dimensions Variable

RTMark Barbie Liberation Organization 1993 modified Barbie and GI Joe Dimensions Variable

The Yes Men Détourned New York Times 2008 newspaper Dimensions Variable