Pop Art and Semiotics

Robert RauschenbergFactum 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

SignA 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

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, 1950Carnegie Museum of Art; Gift of Frank R. S. Kaplan/ARS

Pop Artists used common images from everyday culture as their sources including:

Roy Lichtenstein, Masterpiece, 1962

• Advertisements

• Consumer goods

• Celebrities

• Photographs

• Comic strips

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

As well as new technologies and methods:

• Mass production

• Fabrication

• Photography

• Printing

• SerialsClaes 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

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

Silver Liz [Ferus Type], 1963, AWF

©2006 Life Inc.

Warhol used the repetition of media events to critique and reframe cultural ideas through his art

Jackie paintings, 1964, AWF

Warhol took common everyday items and gave them importance as “art” He raised questions about the nature of art:

Knives, 1981, AWF

What makes one work of art better than another?

Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964, AWF

Pop artists stretched the definitions of what art could be and how it can be made.

“The Pop idea, after all, was that anybody could do anything, so naturally we were all trying to do it all…” ---Andy Warhol

photo by Hervé Gloaguen

The art world today reflects many of the ideas, methods and materials initiated by the Pop Art movement.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled, 1991Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery, NY

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.

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 DuchampBicycle Wheel

1913wheel on painted stool

51 x 25 x 16 1/2"

Marcel DuchampFountain

1917Urinal

dimensions familiar

Marcel DuchampIn Advance of the

Broken Arm

1915 (original)Snow Shovel

dimensions familiar

Marcel DuchampL.H.O.O.Q.

1919pencil, readymade

19.7 x 12.4 cm

Enrique ChagoyaCrossing I

1994Acrylic and oil on paper

48" x 72"

Enrique Chagoya

Return to Goya's Caprichos

1999Etching, aquatint,

drypoint14 1/2" x 11"

Francisco José de Goya

El Sueño de la Razón Produce Monstruos

1799Etching on paper

21.5cm x 15cm

Enrique Chagoya

Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals

2003woodcut and 13 color

lithographdimensions variable

Enrique Chagoya

Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals,

detail

2003woodcut and 13 color

lithographdimensions variable"

Enrique Chagoya

Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals, partially destroyed

2010

Carlos LatuffFrom The Coca Cola

Series

2003Digital Image

Carlos LatuffFrom The Coca Cola

Series

2003Digital Image

Carlos LatuffFrom The Coca Cola

Series

2003Digital Image

Elizabeth WongDétourned 7/11 Sign

2011Digital Image

Elizabeth WongDétourned Cadbury

Wrapper

2011Digital Image

EyesawUnhealthy Balance

2011Bus stop advertisement

Dimensions Variable

EyesawBurger King

2011Bus 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."

2horaBeauty not the Beast Series

2009London Tube advertisementDimensions

Variable

2horaBeauty not the Beast Series

2009London Tube advertisementDimensions

Variable

2horaBeauty not the Beast

Series

2009London Tube advertisement

Dimensions Variable

Ron English, SWOON, Jet Set Graffiti, Banksy

Santa's Ghetto Exhibition, Bethlehem

2007Wheat pasted prints,

spray paintDimensions Variable

Ron EnglishFrom Santa's Ghetto

Exhibition, Bethlehem

2007Wheat pasted printsDimensions Variable

Ron English Grade School Guernica2006

Giclee Print27' x 12'

Ron EnglishKillfrogs Sugar Smack

2010Digital Image

Dimensions Variable

Ron EnglishKillfrogs Sugar Smack

2010Print on Cereal BoxDimensions Variable

Ron EnglishCamel Junior, NYC

1991Wheat pasted billboard

Dimensions Variable

Ron EnglishForever Kool, Jersey

City

1995Wheat pasted billboard

Dimensions Variable

Billboard Liberation FrontDrink Yourself Blind

2005Wheat pasted billboard

Dimensions Variable

Billboard Liberation Front

Money to Burn

2008Wheat pasted billboard

Dimensions Variable

BanksyNapalm

2004Screenprint

Dimensions Variable

BanksyFTD

2006Screenprint

Dimensions Variable

Original FTD Logo

BanksyHaring Dog, London

2010Wheat paste, spray paint

Dimensions Variable

Keith HaringDog

1986Plywood, silkscreen49 1/2" x 37 3/4" x 11

1/2"

BanksyParis

2006modified CD

Dimensions Variable

BanksyParis

2006modified CD

Dimensions Variable

BanksyParis

2006modified CD

Dimensions Variable

RTMarkBarbie Liberation

Organization

1993modified Barbie and GI

JoeDimensions Variable

The Yes MenDétourned New York

Times

2008newspaper

Dimensions Variable