Pop Art

Andy Warhol pioneered the Pop art movement and coined the iconic phrase ‘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.’ Pop art – a movement that emerged in the 1950s and proliferated in the 1960s across the United Kingdom and United States – marked a radical shift in modern art, challenging traditional distinctions in high and low culture. For Warhol, signifiers of consumer culture spanned from Campbell’s soup cans to frigid dollar signs and the American ringed candies, Life Savers. Warhol then adopted these symbols into his visual lexicon, with his works toying the line between advertisement and artwork. Though visually similar, Pop art instead yielded these themes and iconographies to tease out a shared lived experience that crosses generations and class divisions. Not concerned with romanticism, Pop art instead relies on tenets like repetition to visually blur the distinction between commodity and artwork, with originality and reproduction at the centre of the discussion. By appropriating images from popular culture, Warhol and his contemporaries shifted the focus in art from the existential angst and emotive force of Abstract Expressionism that came before it.

Pop art also heavily alludes to celebrity culture. To Warhol this meant icons, allegories and even vestiges of the everyday – elevated to ‘celebrity’ status via his appropriation of traditional portrait modes. The Myths portfolio (1981) is a great example of this. This series consists of ten works that seeks to preserve the defining images of a generation, by selecting, appropriating, reproducing and repeating images intended to withstand the test of time. These works were originally staged via polaroids – individuals came and dressed in costumes to skirt around potential copyright restrictions – and were then transposed into their screenprint version of themselves: commercialised and flattened to produce the iconic images we know now.

Instantly recognisable within this portfolio is Mickey – Walt Disney’s beloved mouse. Mickey joins Warhol’s ranks as one of his celebrity protagonists, emblematised in black and white and elevated via the side profile headshot that Warhol grants him. Mickey Mouse is a universal image, recognisable to kids and adults alike. This iconography is twofold – Warhol is also referencing Roy Lichtenstein’s 1961 painting Look Mickey that features Mickey and Donald Duck fishing off a pier. This work takes on the appearance of a comic book strip – another prong central to a Pop art aesthetic, while including the bold primary colours redolent in Warhol’s works too. In referencing another titan of the Pop art movement, Warhol’s work becomes referential not only to the movement’s aim – as an artwork intent on demystifying the commodification of art – but also to another important aesthetic of the Pop art genre.  

Pop art may have its early roots in Britain and America, but its themes and influence make it a truly international art movement. This is no surprise, given artists’ use of motifs from mass media and consumer culture, including brands, public figures and themes that are relevant around the world.

Colombian artist Santiago Montoya takes Warhol’s statement, ‘I like money on the wall’, quite literally. Using ready-made currency as his medium, Montoya deploys universally recognisable slogans to create works which can be read as wry contemporary capitalist banners. The undulating surfaces of his rolled and folded banknotes mimic a flag waving in the wind.

In The Other Side, 2023, Montoya has emblazoned his work with the words ‘GREEN GRASS.’ Most notably, this play on words references the common phrase, ‘the grass is greener on the other side’; an expression that implies perceived jealousy and our sense that others always have something better. His glib slogans can conjure up an era of 1970s Wall Street excess, which ultimately culminated in the global recession of 1982 and the ‘Black Monday’ stock market crash in 1987. Montoya’s reference to the colour green in this work is highly significant. As a slang term, money is often referred to as ‘green’, but the origins of this term date back to the 1860s when ‘Greenbacks’ were issued during the American Civil War as an emergency currency. U.S. dollars have continued to be printed largely in green due to the difficulty in counterfeiting the ink, and they have been a key currency used in many of Montoya’s works. Through his use of typography and money – a highly charged medium – Montoya directly addresses economic issues that are not unique to any one nation.

Montoya’s thought-provoking work can also be read as a comment on current global environmental issues. The words ‘GREEN GRASS’ are also made up of images of foliage and can be interpreted as a comment on the recent prevalence of ‘greenwashing’, the notion of organisations around the world manipulating their public image to appear more concerned with environmental issues. Montoya’s work is truly international in the way that it weaves themes such as hope and opportunity, but also greed and overconsumption.

Pop art has never been one to shy away from tackling the dark sides of society and consumer culture. Often this is depicted through imagery and iconography, such as in Warhol’s Skull Set, and Pop artists have frequently used their work to reflect the world and the issues around them, occasionally resorting to sinister undertones.

James McQueen’s artwork takes a wonderfully humorous approach to Pop art.  His bold use of colour and iconic Penguin Classics book covers borrow much from the ideas behind Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), but the inclusion of irony in the form of language casts McQueen as altogether more satirical and cynical. His technique involves building up thick layers of coloured paint, before sanding them back to reveal the ‘aged’ colours beneath. This method of manufacturing authenticity is integral to creating artworks which embody all the charms that come with their age; scarred, dog-eared and patinated, but well-loved, nevertheless.

McQueen’s acerbic and acutely witty titles, however, disclose a wholly more critical outlook. His 2024 work, My Name is Not Alice and We Are Not In Fucking Wonderland, is a sharp commentary on modern society and contemporary social issues, painted on the dark blue bands which traditionally denoted Penguin biographies, suggesting that this work should be read as deeply personal.

This work primarily carries a reference to Lewis Carroll’s 1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a whimsical and surreal children’s story full of nonsensical moments, and ultimately it is an allegory of the inevitable loss of childhood innocence. Coincidentally, McQueen’s typography in this painting incites one of the stanzas in Allen Ginsberg’s seminal poem Howl, which begins, ‘Be careful, you are not in Wonderland’. Published in 1956, Howl was Ginsberg’s way of celebrating the marginalised in society, while simultaneously holding a mirror up to what he believed were the most damaging traits in human nature – materiality, conformity and mechanisation – all of which were key themes that fascinated Pop artists during the 1950s and 60s.

McQueen’s abrasive message is also open-ended and can be taken as criticism, whether that is political, social, economic, national or global. It is up to the viewer to decide what ‘Wonderland’, means to them. McQueen’s work is intended to poke fun and provoke audience reaction; his personal insignia, featuring a monkey wearing a top hat, which he has recast from Banksy, summarises this well: ‘I wanted a character that I could identify with, something mischievous with a sense of humour that can push boundaries.’

The iconography and ethos of Pop art – entrenched in visual familiarity: colourful, accessible and comprehensive, has since been adopted to shed light on an array of contemporary issues. Dominic Harris, for example, adopts a Pop art ethos in his digital work to engage wider audiences in an environmental discussion.

Harris’ Endurance sits alongside works by Warhol, though takes on an entirely new look and medium. Harris is a digital artist known for employing innovative technology that first sees him sketching on a tablet, and then layering his imagery over and over to create an entirely digital realm. With code and sensors, Harris’ works demand human interaction, whether by sound, touch, or motion, and this brings the works to life. This direct contact with artworks physically engages audiences in the conversation.

Endurance (2022)was inspired by the 1914 Antarctic adventures of Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton. The work’s title shares its name with one of the two ships deployed on the mission to cross the Antarctic continent. Endurance left South Georgia, aiming for Vahsel Bay via the Weddel Sea, but the mission went awry due to poor conditions. The ship became frozen in an ice floe and upon its release the following Spring as the ice melted, its helm was put under too much pressure and cracked. This ultimately let the water in and ended the mission. Harris read from the crew’s journals, acknowledging the vulnerability felt by these people when battling against the sheer force of nature. Amidst telling descriptions of awe-inspiring landscapes, the panic felt by these explorers was also felt as they battled the polar elements. Harris’ Endurance therefore plays on these themes, blurring the perils of nature with its intoxicating beauty. The vantage point of the viewer given by Harris shifts between a utopian aerial view, and one below the ice shelf. Ever the optimist, Harris’ work highlights the crew’s triumphant effort, while presenting humanity’s flailing in the face of Mother Nature. The work emphasises the cyclical nature of regeneration in its phases of representation and seeks to highlight the potential perils of human imposition.

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