I came across this article in The Independent earlier this week …http://bit.ly/12lIaT….i absolutely love it! It’s one of the best summaries i’ve ever seen about the history and significance of pop art. It was written to coincide with a new exhibition at the Tate Modern in London – Pop Life: Art in a Material World. Like most of the important pop art exhibitions today, this show features the “fathers” of the pop art movement….Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein…and the next generation of pop art legends such as Damien Hurst and Jeff Koons.
My art and that of several of my contemporaries, is often classified as pop art. I refer to myself as a three-dimensional pop artist. I have watched the careers and reputations of the likes of Hirst, Koons, and Takashi Murakami grow and blossom…museum-quality artists all. The best of the breed. I am hoping to follow in their footsteps and the next time someone goes through the ABC’s of pop art…i can only hope that “F” will stand for FAZZINO! 🙂
However, i think that the definition of pop art has changed somewhat. Like everything else, it has morphed and evolved. Andy Warhol DID say “Good business is the best art.” American pop art was born of the intention of artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein to exploit what was popular in their day…to imortalize everyday elements and turn them into icons….and they did. Today, however, pop art is more than that…it’s become a way for artists to, quite literally, celebrate everything about popular culture…to tell the story of how people live…what they do…how they spend their time….what their world looks and feels and sounds like. That’s what MY pop art is….when looked at in it’s entirety someday, i hope that people will be able to see that i am, in a sense, a historian…capturing current events, both newsworthy and otherwise, for eternity. My art tells the story….I thank everyone who stops to read it!
–Charles
