The World Goes POP

I love pop art – the bright colours and zany designs.  Any mention of pop art and I instantly think of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichstenstein.  Warhol’s designs such as the Campbells soup cans and the Marilyn Monroe diptych and Lichtenstein’s comic book paintings such as the Whaam! piece are easily recognisable and are what most people think of when pop art is mentioned.  These American artists were commenting on the influence of advertising on society through their work.  However, this Tate Modern exhibition, The World Goes Pop, brought together other works of art from around the world which could be defined as pop art too.

As I entered the exhibition, the pop art bright colours and large scale installations in different mediums were there, but as I moved through each room I realised that the art was more about political protest and mass demonstration in various parts of the world.  There were also a large number of pieces by women on the struggles of women.  I was not aware of any well-known female pop artists on the American art scene, but there seemed to works of art by women from other parts of the world.

In the first room there was a painting which took up a large proportion of the wall called Without Rebellion (1970) by the polish artist Zielinski (whom I’d never heard of).  A large white face with two Polish eagles in front of red suns in place of eyes.  Further down, a scarlet pillow representing a tongue sticks out across the floor and is pinned with a large metal spike.  This piece was a protest against censorship in the Poland.

A lot of these artists from around the world use their art to comment on the violence in the world such as the US involvement in The Vietnam War, nuclear bombs, the Cold War and contrast it with the Western countries focus on consumerism.  The Joan Rabascall piece, Atomic Kiss (1968) shows an iconic pair of red lips plastered over an image of an atomic explosion.  I thought this was a really striking image.

One installation which I thought really stood out not simply because of its colour was The Red Coat (1969) by the French artist Nicola L which is basically a red raincoat made of bright red vinyl for eleven people.  She initially created for an Isle of Wight Festival so that a group of people could enjoy the Festival and not become separated in the crowd.  It meant that the eleven people sharing a ‘collective skin’ had to behave as one.

This exhibition showed that there was more to the pop art scene than we usually have exposure to.  I think it’s great to be able to look at things from another angle and that’s what this exhibition really delivered.

Soraya x