Pop Art in Consumer Culture: Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein’s images may be some of the most recognized apart from Andy Warhol’s in the pop art movement. In 1961 Lichtenstein began his first Pop paintings using cartoon images and techniques derived from the appearance of commercial printing. This phase would continue to 1965 and included the use of advertising imagery suggesting consumerism and homemaking. Rather than attempt to reproduce his subjects, his work tackled the way mass media portrays them. Lichtenstein would never take himself too seriously however: "I think my work is different from comic strips- but I wouldn't call it transformation; I don't think that whatever is meant by it is important to art". (From Wikipedia)

Kiehl’s

I was in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago and I noticed this window display (and took a picture with my handy iphone) at the Kiehl’s store and thought, Lichtenstein (like Warhol) might actually not mind this. I saw that the same display at the store in Georgetown, so it is clearly a campaign they are doing. This prompted me to check out their website where they have set up the entire Lichtenstein branding experience, complete with an interactive comic strip that you can create!

The Sneaker

The Nike Vandal: Lichtenstein edition. The Vandal is part of a Pop Art Pack made by Nike. They feature benday dots and comic-like “Pop Art” illustrations on the back panel that are used throughout the work of legendary pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. Even the famous shoe brand has gotten in on the action, which seems one of the more unlikely pairings, but actually works out very nicely.

School Supplies?

The Homey Lichtenstein pen commemorates an American icon, Homer Simpson, in the Ben-Day dot style of Pop Art icon, Roy Lichtenstein. The Simpsons as cartoon characters themselves have such a huge stamp on American pop culture that this partnership is almost seamless. Also, if any of you remember Saved by the Bell, Screech and many of the other kids carried around folders with many of Lichtenstein’s famous images, most notably the “girl with hair ribbon”.

Postmodern Art's Appeal

I thought that one of the most interesting things noted by Donald Kuspit was that postmodern art had the advantage in that it was more accessible or more appealing somehow, and that the modern avant-garde art that had preceded it had a limited appeal. In wanting to understand what Kuspit had framed a little more thoroughly, I found a chart by Ihab Hassan, a writer, that helped to explain the essential split.

This is one way to visualize all that postmodernism rejects about modernism:

Bart Simpson's cameo in a reproduction of an iconic Nirvana album cover can definitely be seen as postmodern. Does this have a certain appeal that modern art lacks as Kuspit theorized?

Although he acknowledges that postmodern art is clever for 'juggling' different subtexts, he still feels it lacks any innovation.

Kuspit says that "pop art doesn't require depth interpretation to grasp, but rather sociological understanding and behaviorism". This is true, because one would have to have an understanding of both the television show The Simpsons and the grunge band Nirvana for it to make any sense.

And another album cover art example (just by chance)

This is of course Kanye West's Graduation Album with the cover art done by Murakami

The above installation by Jeff Koons shows that although his work is considered to fit into the postmodern category, he still draws from the modern era, especially in the areas of surrealism, minimalism, and Duchamp's Dada works (which Hassan considered to be sort of the gap or line in between modern and postmodern).