Pop Art: Now and Then at Wolverhampton Art Gallery
16 February – 9 August 2008
Work by artists associated with the Pop Art movement of the 1960s such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein will be displayed alongside contemporary art inspired by many of the same themes, styles or techniques.
History 2001 by Michael Craig-Martin
Works from the 1960s include Lichtenstein's 'Purist Painting with Bottles', said to be one of his own favourite works, and the imposing 'Tandoori Restaurant' by Patrick Caulfield, from Wolverhampton's own collection. Contemporary artists with work from the new millennium featured include Dexter Dalwood, Gavin Turk and Takashi Murakami.
Kitagawa-Kun by Takashi Murakami, 2002
Creating Elvis’s portrait, David Mach links with several key Pop Art ideas, depicting a character from popular culture and using of everyday manufactured objects in his art. The portrait, 'All the King's Men', is created from a collage of cheap, mass-produced postcards of the guards at Buckingham Palace, poking fun at their mindless reproduction with the cleverness of his visual satire.
Manga twist to Warhol
Japanese artist Takashi Murakami also references the original Pop Art of the 1960s in his work, engaging in popular culture of manga (comics) and animee (animation) and bringing a new twist to Warhol’s ways of working including a fascination with self-promotion and producing his work with many assistants in a 'factory'.
Purist Painting with Bottles
Head of Curatorial Services Marguerite Nugent said:
"Pop Art: Now and Then continues Wolverhampton's themed Pop exhibitions, and offers another fantastic chance to see great, high profile artists' work in the region. With the two major new spaces of the Gallery’s extension being devoted to Pop Art downstairs and mainly contemporary exhibitions upstairs, Pop Art: Now and Then shows that links can be drawn between the two.
The exhibition is complemented with lots of extra information, interactive computer stations relating to the art and even hands-on activities like dressing-up."
This is the third in a series of themed Pop Art exhibitions, displaying items from Wolverhampton’s collection alongside loans from other galleries. The Pop Art Gallery was part of a £6.7 million extension opening in March 2007, and this exhibition follows Pin-Up: Pop Art and Popular Culture and Pop Art and Politics in the 1960s.
