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Andy Warhol, ?-1987

Ellen Willis

in No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays

This chapter presents an obituary of Andy Warhol, a leading figure in the visual art movement known as Pop Art, who was shot in 1968 by radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas. Warhol was arguably ... More

This chapter presents an obituary of Andy Warhol, a leading figure in the visual art movement known as Pop Art, who was shot in 1968 by radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas. Warhol was arguably more responsible than anyone else for obliterating the line between the avant-garde and mass art. As it happened, the shooting of Warhol had a political dimension, at least in Solanas’s mind. A couple of Warhol’s obituaries solemnly refer to Solanas as a member of a group called S.C.U.M., or Society for Cutting Up Men. Warhol, who once said “I like my paintings because anyone can do them,” died in 1987.Less

Mass Media Culture

Steve Redhead

in The Jean Baudrillard Reader

This chapter is an extract from Baudrillard’s The Consumer Society, with an editorial overview

Between Critical Displacements and Spiritual Affirmations

Alena Alexandrova (ed.)

in Breaking Resemblance: The Role of Religious Motifs in Contemporary Art

This chapter provides an overview of the transformation of the status of religious motifs in the visual art from Surrealism to the late 1990s. When detached from their initial contexts religious ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the transformation of the status of religious motifs in the visual art from Surrealism to the late 1990s. When detached from their initial contexts religious motifs cease to signify religious ideas or content, and acquire new meaning. The critical mode of reference to religion, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, articulates a self-reflexive moment that problematises the status of images and the mechanisms of their circulation and display. In the second half of the century, religious motifs embedded in artworks lost their more direct iconoclastic resonances, and were used increasingly as a critical tool directed towards the institution of art itself. An object as the ready-made situated between being an artwork and an object, brought to visibility the “religious” nature of the conditions of the display of art-objects. The medium of video enabled a re-mediation of older art – both film and culturally loaded iconic religious images. This aspect of the medium was by artists to invoke or create a quasi-mystical experience, or to re-frame existing images and film footage in order to make a critical comment on the tradition.Less

Afterlives

David Bordwell

in The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture

This chapter traces the heritage of the four critics across the years up to the 1980s. Ferguson, the earliest of the critics considered, was the last to be rediscovered, after celebrity criticism of ... More

This chapter traces the heritage of the four critics across the years up to the 1980s. Ferguson, the earliest of the critics considered, was the last to be rediscovered, after celebrity criticism of the Kael-Sarris variety took over film reviewing. Agee’s collection, AGEE ON FILM, was the first major collection of a critic’s writing and, because he won the Pulitzer prize posthumously for A DEATH IN THE FAMILY, the anthology garnered enormous praise. It led other critics to collect their reviews as well. Manny Farber created his own collection, strategically selecting items to create a certain persona for himself—one based on his more arcane 1960s writings for film and art journals. Parker Tyler wrote prolifically about non-Hollywood film (chiefly foreign cinema and avant-garde film) and returned only to Hollywood movies to point out that the sexual subtexts he had revealed had come to the surface, rather blatantly. The same period revealed a growing awareness that these critics had been pioneers in arts journalism, and that the new trends owed a great deal to them.Less

The Black Panther newspaper and revolutionary aesthetics

Colette Gaiter (ed.)

in Art, Global Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Colette Gaiter’s chapter looks at the work of the American artist Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther party, which at the time was subscribing to a political tendency known ... More

Colette Gaiter’s chapter looks at the work of the American artist Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther party, which at the time was subscribing to a political tendency known as ‘intercommunalism’. More expansive than other strands of leftist thought, intercommunalism sought to unite countries of the world in resistance to global capitalism and imperialism. A wave of ‘Black Maoism’ swept through black liberation movements at this time and came to visual life in Emory Douglas’s work on the Black Panther newspaper.Less

The Red Flag: The art and politics of West German Maoism

Lauren Graber and Daniel Spaulding (eds)

in Art, Global Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Lauren Graber and Daniel Spaulding’s joint contribution, ‘The Red Flag: the art and politics of West German Maoism’, maps artistic Maoism in West Germany from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, tying ... More

Lauren Graber and Daniel Spaulding’s joint contribution, ‘The Red Flag: the art and politics of West German Maoism’, maps artistic Maoism in West Germany from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, tying it to both the student movement and the extra-parliamentary opposition. Looking at a broad sample of artists, the authors demonstrate how the image of Mao and the politics for which it stood became contested terrain where the complex dialectic of Pop art and revolution was played out in perhaps its most spectacular form.Less

Reproducibility, propaganda and the Chinese origins of neoliberal aesthetics

Victoria H. F. Scott (ed.)

in Art, Global Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Postmodernism is usually framed as a Western movement, with theoretical and philosophical roots in Europe. Victoria H. F. Scott’s chapter links artistic postmodernism to the influence of Maoism in ... More

Postmodernism is usually framed as a Western movement, with theoretical and philosophical roots in Europe. Victoria H. F. Scott’s chapter links artistic postmodernism to the influence of Maoism in the West, specifically through the dissemination and absorption of the content and form of Maoist propaganda. Taking into consideration the broad significance of Mao for art and culture in the West in the second half of the twentieth century, the chapter comes to terms with the material effects of a global propaganda movement which, combined with the remains of a personality cult, currently transcends the traditional political categories of the Left and the Right.Less

‘Out of time’: the World Cup and 1960s’ culture

John Hughson

in England and the 1966 World Cup: A Cultural History

This chapter examines the occurrence of the1966 World Cup in England against the cultural mood, or perceptions of the cultural mood, of the mid-1960s. This involves consideration of the stereotype of ... More

This chapter examines the occurrence of the1966 World Cup in England against the cultural mood, or perceptions of the cultural mood, of the mid-1960s. This involves consideration of the stereotype of the ‘swinging ‘60s’ and ‘swinging’ London. While these stereotypes are challenged the period was undeniably one of cultural change and England, certainly London, was regarded as a desirable international destination. The World Cup is examined within the popular culture context of this period and the non-football creativity, directly sponsored by the World Cup as a cultural and commercial occasion, is addressed. In this regard, items including posters, stamps, and the tournament’s mascot, World Cup Willie, are discussed. So too is the official film of the World Cup, Goal! In differing ways each these items offered something distinct, leaving a unique cultural legacy from the 1966 World Cup.Less

A Further Brush with Fame in 1965

Patrick Frank

in Painting in a State of Exception: New Figuration in Argentina, 1960-1965

In chapter 5, Frank traces the spread of Nueva Figuración’s international renown, discussing the artists’ growing number of group shows and related reviews in U.S. and European magazines. Comparing ... More

In chapter 5, Frank traces the spread of Nueva Figuración’s international renown, discussing the artists’ growing number of group shows and related reviews in U.S. and European magazines. Comparing it to the postmodern treatise The Anti-Aesthetic by Hal Foster, Frank examines Noé’s Antiestética, a theoretical text in which he extolled chaos as a value in art and announces his views on other dominant movements of the day such as Pop Art. Frank closes on the dissolution of Nueva Figuración: with the art scene in Argentina trending toward Pop and related styles and with Marta Minujín staging “Happenings” and proclaiming that painting was dead, the New Figurationists had one final group show in Buenos Aires and then went their separate ways.Less

Loft Life, Speaking Out, and European Vistas

Cathy Curtis

in A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning

During the 1960s, Elaine lived in a succession of New York lofts, where she painted, wrote, and entertained large groups of friends—including artists, writers, and athletes. She became caught up in ... More

During the 1960s, Elaine lived in a succession of New York lofts, where she painted, wrote, and entertained large groups of friends—including artists, writers, and athletes. She became caught up in the Death Row case of Caryl Chessman, one of several causes she vigorously pursued. Feminism was not among them. She was equally hostile to Pop Art, scorning it as simply “a way of making money.” The mid-sixties were a troubled time for Elaine: her mother died; Bill tried to divorce her. Her drinking escalated, leading to several car accidents and embarrassing scenes. (She stopped drinking in the mid-seventies.) Elaine spent summers in Paris as a teacher at the New York Studio School, bringing a family member or student along for city excursions. A Jules Dalou sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg prompted her Bacchus painting series, which captured the play of dappled light and foliage on the bronze figures.Less

Introduction

in Art and Pluralism: Lawrence Alloway's Cultural Criticism

Lawrence Alloway (1926–1990) can be considered one of the founders of contemporary cultural ideals. One of the most esteemed art critics of the post-war years, Alloway was significantly involved with ... More

Lawrence Alloway (1926–1990) can be considered one of the founders of contemporary cultural ideals. One of the most esteemed art critics of the post-war years, Alloway was significantly involved with both the Independent Group and the Place and Situation painters in London during the 1950s. At the beginning of the 1960s, he moved to New York, where he became a leading interpreter of Pop art, ‘systemic’ abstraction, and the realist revival as well as women's art. He wrote more than 800 texts ranging from books to reviews and catalogues essays and displayed wholehearted commitment to pluralism and diversity in both art and society. In post-war London, Alloway witnessed an art scene that was impoverished but received a boost from the newly elected Socialist government's emphasis on culture. Art News and Review, a magazine launched by Richard Gainsborough in 1949, proved invaluable to Alloway as an aspiring art critic in the post-war years in London.Less

Continuum 1952–1961

in Art and Pluralism: Lawrence Alloway's Cultural Criticism

Lawrence Alloway's scope as an art critic became international in 1950, but his criticism only changed significantly the following year after a review of a Roberto Matta exhibition at the Institute ... More

Lawrence Alloway's scope as an art critic became international in 1950, but his criticism only changed significantly the following year after a review of a Roberto Matta exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). This review marked Alloway's transition from connoisseurship and simple evaluation to a far more dense and demanding art criticism. This section focuses on Alloway's life as an art critic in the period 1952–1961. It provides an overview of ICA in the early 1950s and its Independent Group, Alloway's attitudes toward abstraction and figurative art, his cultural continuum model, his views on graphics and advertising, art autre, Alloway's first trip to the United States, and the emergence of Pop art.Less

Abundance 1961–1971

in Art and Pluralism: Lawrence Alloway's Cultural Criticism

This section focuses on Lawrence Alloway's life as an art critic in the period 1961–1971, beginning with his travel to the United States in 1961 and his dispute with Clement Greenberg with regards to ... More

This section focuses on Lawrence Alloway's life as an art critic in the period 1961–1971, beginning with his travel to the United States in 1961 and his dispute with Clement Greenberg with regards to art criticism, particularly of junk art. It also considers Alloway's writings on American Pop art, the mounting of the exhibition Six Painters and the Object and Six More in 1963, Alloway's relationship with Alexander Liberman and Paul Feeley, his views on abstraction and iconography as well as newness and avant-garde art, his reviews of a number of films and his pluralism.Less

No Football Fans, Just Football Intellectuals

Jesse Berrett

in Pigskin Nation: How the NFL Remade American Politics

This chapter explores how official National Football League publications encouraged and attempted to manage a range of interpretations of professional football. These books set out a playing field ... More

This chapter explores how official National Football League publications encouraged and attempted to manage a range of interpretations of professional football. These books set out a playing field and opened it for discussion. Even as liberal social observers worried about pro football’s rising appeal, conservatives celebrated its meritocratic traditionalism, radicals found it terrifying, and journalists increasingly made fun of its pretentions to gravitas, David Boss’s books conveyed the broad notion that football mattered in the broader culture and was worthy of serious intellectual consideration. Without centering on a particular meaning, they emphasized the idea that football mattered in the wider culture.Less

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Edward P. Comentale

in Sweet Air: Modernism, Regionalism, and American Popular Song

This chapter concerns the formal silence that pervades pop music in the late modern era, which both allows for greater experimentation in music and preserves, in the face of complete commercial ... More

This chapter concerns the formal silence that pervades pop music in the late modern era, which both allows for greater experimentation in music and preserves, in the face of complete commercial appropriation, the utopian possibility of some more subtle form of engagement with modernity. It argues that Buddy Holly's music represents the moment when popular music became “pop music,” and moreover that both John Cage and Holly pursued silence to the point of freeing song (and specifically lyrical song) from the expressive demands of identity and tradition. The chapter then draws from Jacques Derrida's Speech and Phenomena to show that Holly's vocals work via a process of “indication” rather than “expression” and thus point toward the very world that they fail to name or include. Finally, this chapter links Holly's music—and pop music in general—to the Pop Art movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s.Less

The Screen Scene: Andy Warhol, the Factory and Home Movies

Stephen Monteiro

in Screen Presence: Cinema Culture and the Art of Warhol, Rauschenberg, Hatoum and Gordon

In his prodigious output of hundreds of films throughout the 1960s, Pop artist Andy Warhol cultivated an approach to making and viewing movies that borrowed heavily on the conventions of family ... More

In his prodigious output of hundreds of films throughout the 1960s, Pop artist Andy Warhol cultivated an approach to making and viewing movies that borrowed heavily on the conventions of family home-movie culture. Warhol’s Factory studio in New York and his entourage of so-called “Superstars” functioned much like a family of misfits. This chapter explores film’s role in this context, analysing how Warhol combined improvised scenarios with personality differences to forge or reinforce intimate relations through filmmaking. It argues that his tendency to screen these films in the Factory—often before the people who appear on screen—functioned as a means of identifying, describing, and securing a nucleus of close social relations. Through comparison with the rhetoric of home-movie advertising and guidebooks, it teases out ways Warhol’s films paradoxically became avant-garde distortions of home-movie practices through strict adherence to suggestions and tips given to home-movie practitioners.Less

The Pop Effect

Michael Kelly

in A Hunger for Aesthetics: Enacting the Demands of Art

This chapter examines the nascent collaboration between aesthetics and contemporary art by focusing on the critical reception of the emergence of American Pop art in the early 1960s by four ... More

This chapter examines the nascent collaboration between aesthetics and contemporary art by focusing on the critical reception of the emergence of American Pop art in the early 1960s by four philosophers: Susan Sontag, Stanley Cavell, Arthur C. Danto, and Umberto Eco. In particular, it considers the influence of these philosophers on aesthetics—what it calls the Pop Effect. Sontag, Cavell, Danto, and Eco all realized that Pop was a development within art that aesthetic theory at the time could not understand or explain because most aestheticians had not yet fully appreciated the philosophical significance of the history of modernism and were thus ill-prepared to comprehend 1960s art. To analyze the collaboration between aesthetics and contemporary art in the 1960s, the chapter looks at Thomas Crow's book The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent. It also discusses the ethics and politics of Pop in relation to its aesthetics.Less

Growing Up with Astro Boy and Mazinger Z: Industrialization, “High-Tech World,” and Japanese Animation in the Art and Culture of South Korea

Dong-Yeon Koh

in Japanese Animation: East Asian Perspectives

This chapter examines the historical context in which Japanese animation was imported into Korea during the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on Astro Boy (2009), the Hollywood remake of Tezuka Osamu’s ... More

This chapter examines the historical context in which Japanese animation was imported into Korea during the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on Astro Boy (2009), the Hollywood remake of Tezuka Osamu’s classic Mighty Atom (Tetsuwan Atomu), and Mazinger Z. It looks at the popularity of Mighty Atom in postwar Japan and Korea, and how it symbolized an optimistic vision of science and technology. The chapter considers the proliferation of toys and merchandise based on the Astro Boy character, and the role played by Japanese animation in Korean society, particularly during the period of Korea’s intensive industrialization and modernization. Furthermore, it analyzes the cultural and historic significance of the iconic images of Japanese animation among the generation of artists who were brought up with postwar Japanese popular culture. Finally, the chapter discusses how images of Astro Boy and Mazinger Z were appropriated by contemporary Korean artists, giving rise to the so-called Korean pop art.Less

Why I Am Not a Painter: Visual Art, Semiotic Exchange, Collaboration

in Hyperscapes in the Poetry of Frank O'Hara: Difference, Homosexuality, Topography

This chapter argues that in Frank O'Hara's hyperscapes, text and image, poetry and painting, and representation and abstraction do not simply coexist but also cross over or ‘cross-dress’, and applies ... More

This chapter argues that in Frank O'Hara's hyperscapes, text and image, poetry and painting, and representation and abstraction do not simply coexist but also cross over or ‘cross-dress’, and applies the idea of semiotic exchange (whereby text becomes image, image, text) to O'Hara's poetry and collaborations. It contextualises this analysis by demonstrating how O'Hara's poetry uniquely interfaces with the semiotic, semantic, and ideological elements of two highly contrasting contemporaneous art movements: Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.Less

Prophets of Postmodern Provocation

Raymond A. Patton

in Punk Crisis: The Global Punk Rock Revolution

This chapter situates the rise of punk in the avant-garde artistic networks that spanned the First, Second, and Third Worlds of the Cold War era. It examines the roles of UK punk impresario Malcolm ... More

This chapter situates the rise of punk in the avant-garde artistic networks that spanned the First, Second, and Third Worlds of the Cold War era. It examines the roles of UK punk impresario Malcolm McLaren, who launched the Sex Pistols, and Polish punk impresario Henryk Gajewski, and the mutual interest between burgeoning punks and international art circles involved in avant-garde art movements such as Pop Art and Fluxus. It shows how punk evolved in dialogue with the wider phenomenon of postmodernism, challenging conventional metanarratives structuring the social order, blurring genres, and striking down the boundaries between art and everyday life.Less