Local Art Seen: Pop Evolution Exhibit at the Tweed Is Worth Writing Home About

"Turning a Blind Eye" by Jerry Ott

"I am a deeply superficial person." --Andy Warhol

Sixties Pop had come of age when I was becoming an art student at Ohio University and, to be honest, I didn't like it. At the time I was immersed in the painterliness of the abstract expressionists and modern impressionists. Dada and surrealism captured my imagination, and Warhol's screen printed gaudiness did not. And I especially hated Lichtenstein's blown-up cartoon panels.

Despite my own feelings about the movement, which originated in New York with the likes of Andy Warhol (who I did feel was doing interesting things) and Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist, the movement was highly influential, opening up new terrain for young artists and altering the landscape significantly by once again forcing the question, "What is art?"

All this to say that there is an exciting new exhibit in the Special Exhibitions Gallery at the Tweed Museum of Art through the end of March. The show is titled Pop Evolution, with works curated from the Tweed's permanent collection.

"Truck" by Warhol

What's impressive about the Tweed show is that it shows how widespread the Pop Art influence became. The superstars of this movement may have been the ones with top billing in New York, but the streaming colorwheel of their influence flowed everywhere. The ubiquitous Andy Warhol may have been the ringleader, but he hardly acted alone. Artists like Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg and Larry Rivers may have helped pave the way by knocking down some of the fences, but art wanted to be free... free from constraints, and to a large extent free from the galleries. (Warhol's art today is hardly free, though. Van Gogh, Picasso and Warhol works are among the most expensive a billionaire collector can own.)

When one reads about Pop Art today, the art history books make reference to the subject matter being one of its hallmarks. That is, instead of being about important subjects, the lens of the artists' eye was focused on the mundane, the ordinary, and in the case of soup cans or Brillo boxes, commodities. This later led eventually to installation-type shows that the general public would have yet greater difficulty appreciating or understanding. At least Warhol's Marilyn was interesting, even if gaudy. But what does one make of a dozen railroad ties lying in the middle of a gallery space?

"Love Cross" by Robert Indiana

Two pieces by Mildred Howard on collaged found papers.

"Sitting Bull" by S. Patricia McMahon

The dada movement that preceded Pop was anti-art and anti-capitalist. Andy Warhol emerged from an ad agency background that had Capitalism written all over it. In some ways Madison Avenue and Warhol's Factory were two peas in a pod.

Pop Art was in many respects a mirror of what was happening in the broader culture as values of all kinds were being brought into question. Here are some links about Pop Art that you may find informative:
What Is Pop Art?
Pop Art -- The Art of Popular Culture
The Emergence and Evolution of the Pop Art Movement

Pop Evolution is just one reason to get up to the Tweed. There's plenty more to see in the museum's various galleries. If you have not been there in a while (on the UMD campus) then you owe it to yourself to find a way.

EdNote: Bill Shipley, who spent most of his career in the Big Apple art scene, will be giving a gallery talk about this exhibition on March 11, from 2-3 p.m.

Jerry Ott, "Turning a Blind Eye"

Art is exciting, and there's a lot of it happening here in the Twin Ports. This Thursday will be the closing reception to the Duluth Art Institute Member Show and opening for Carla Hamilton's Gezielt (Targeted) and Elizabeth Kuth's "Rooted Expression." Also on display will be the Emerging Photographers exhibit in the corridor gallery.

And this coming Saturday the DAI Art Film Series begins, eight art films with discussions afterwards. The first film is "Frida" with UMD's Jamie Ratliff leading the post-show discussion. The films begin at 10:00 a.m. at the Zinema. (Admission is $5)

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.

Warhol and Lichtenstein

I picked up some Warhol books from the library yesterday. Andy Warhol, A Retrospective is an overview of his art and influences. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) is a potpourri of insights and observations on everything, from the Warhol perspective. When I was looking at it last night it reminded me of Jack Handy, a weird wrinkled way of looking at the world. I noticed also, based on a photo in The Life & Death of Andy Warhol, that he died at age 58, the age I will be in a few weeks.

What led me to pick up the Warhol books was an article on Roy Lichtenstein that I had seen recently. Lichtenstein was a pop artist who produced large reproductions of comic book panels or paintings in that comic book style. Both he and Warhol, with those soup cans, had emerged big time on the New York art scene in the 60's. As an early 70's art student I was put off by both. I took my inspiration from painters, from Picasso and Matisse to Dali and Magritte. Even Duchamp, who abandoned painting altogether, was at least philosophically stimulating. The pop art movement didn't get me, or rather, I didn't get it.

A half century later I believe I was half right. Even though Lichtenstein continues to be praised, I just don't get into his work. He coined a style and I think the style silly. I would love to discover that in some private part of his life he was actually painting landscapes or tigers and that these comic book blow ups were just what he did for a living because a few rich people were willing to pay him a small fortune to do it.

Lichtenstein is referenced in the book 501 Great Artists, "a comprehensive guide to "the giants of the art world." And this Urban Monarch page called him one of five artists you should know about. But why? Who decided this stuff was great art?

Warhol, on the other hand, might be one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century. Can most people even name an artist from that period? Paula Rego? Giovanni Anselmo? Donald Judd? Claes Oldenburg? O.K., most people have probably seen an Oldenburg sculpture, but probably don't know his name. I liked David Hockney's paintings, and Rauschenburg's innovations, but these talented guys have never transcended the art scene have they?

Warhol's work, on the other hand, bled across all barriers so that his most basic observation about fifteen minutes of fame is as well known as a line from Shakespeare. Warhol himself was a work of art, his persona crafted. "Oh, that's interesting." But his process of mass reproduction (via screen printing) enabled collectors all over the world to have a piece of his action.

Whether you like the man himself, or his values, his genius for self-promotion and his understanding of the culture are both undisputed. Hence his cult status in many circles. Was his art really a joke? I don't think so, even if much of what he said comes across that way.