Pop Art

For American artists, in the words of Marco Livingstone, curator of the exhibition along with Norman Rosenthal, "pop is a manifestation almost entirely limited to its own culture" which is symptomatic of a radical return to representation after the experience of Abstract Art; the exhibition highlights the parts that are shared by pop artists on all levels: the use of collage, montage, screen printing and a great concern for the object of daily life, as well as the use of an iconography coming from the world of popular culture: movies, news, advertising and comic books, among others. According to art critic Sarat Maharaj, "pop art surges from the myths and representations of consumerism and then goes on to challenge them" (Robert Rauschenberg’s debris collages or accumulations by Arman)

The heterogeneity inherent to Pop Art is also proved by how the political and social peculiarities of each country determine or condition, formally and conceptually, the work of these artists. The political dimension is evident in artists from the group of nouveaux réalistes (New Realists), namely Rottella, Hains and Jacques de la Villeglé with their affichiste (poster) creations, based on the use of posters pulled down from streets, similar to the German Wolf Vostell’s décollage. Spanish pop art is also case specific, where Eduardo Arroyo and Equipo Crónica develop a particular iconography and themes with notable political references to the suppression of freedom and Spanish cultural life. In this exhibition Fluxus also illustrates the plurality of expressions derived from pop culture, his critical load is directed largely against the idea of art and introduces the practice of “happening” as an artistic event.