"Pop Art myths" review

The art exhibition "Pop Art myths" took place at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museun (http://www.museothyssen.org) located in the Paseo del Prado, in the city of Madrid, between June 10 and September 14, 2014.

It Showed works by more than 20 renowned pop artists essentially from the United-States, featuring the legends of Pop that are Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. But it also has a big selection of European Pop artists, notably British artist Richard Hamilton, Mimmo Rotella from Italy, Alain Jacquet from France, Wolf Vostell from Germany and two Spanish Pop groups: Equipo realidad and Equipo crónica. The show is unfortunately over now and is not going to travel to other cities.

Roy Lichtenstein Look Mickey, 1961 National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

                                                                                                                                                                                        

From the entrance Hall of the exhibition a bright yellow curved wall that welcomes the viewer already gives the general feeling of the show. It is a vibrant colourful compilation of collages, posters, huge comic book style paintings and strange readymades that awaken curiosity and sometimes even laughter. The title is not betrayed, founding myths of Pop Art were found on the walls of the Thyssen Museum. The exhibition was a great chance to see the 1961 Look Mickey painting by Roy Lichtenstein in real life, Some of Warhol's works on Marilyn Monroe or his Campbell's Soup paintings, and even one of Hamilton's "slip it to me" pins, for the viewers who didn't know them yet. But to anyone willing to look a bit further what was really worth seeing is the extension of Pop art outside the US and the way European artists brought Pop to their own culture, which could be seen for example through the living room by Equipo crónica, a tribute to Velazquez. The exhibition’s rooms were classified by themes like “interiors and still lifes”, “portraits” or “urban eroticism”, an organisation that gave logical order to the crowd of artists showed, but that was sometimes difficult to follow as so many Art works could not fit into one category. A very interesting room to look at was “history painting”, with works about Cold War and dictatorships that showed the connection of Pop artists with their time beyond consumer society, a political view that is too often forgotten along with the dialogue of these artists with the work of great masters, also showed in the "Art about Art" room.  The exhibition lacked however consistency on the side of photography limited to the bits of photos that could be found in collages. That flaw could be balanced by  taking a look at another museum in Madrid, the Reina Sofia (on a Sunday to get the tickets for free) were, simultaneously, a monographic exhibition on Richard Hamilton was showing, with a room full of his artist friends' polaroids.  Just as any other Pop Art show, "Myths of Pop Art" had a very strong capitalist society atmosphere, with numerous representations of mass consumerism goods like coke, Brillo soap pads and Hollywood film posters.

Andy Warhol
Heinz ketchup box and billo soap pads box, 1964
Mugrabi Collection

As a grade 12 High school student in Art and literature and I think I tend to feel very close to the youthful aesthetic of the comic book style paintings and the references to cinematographic art. Because I am so young but yet very interested in art I would consider myself an only mildly experienced viewer, nothing close to an expert. So when it comes to preferences I mainly play by ear. Being Spanish, it was to me a very nice surprise to find at the show national artists whose existence I knew of but that I had never thought of as Pop artists, so I payed special attention to them. My sensitivity is also on the side of the historical works shown, which refer to a past pretty close to our time that I did however not live myself, and that thus awaken some kind of fascination. It was one of the inexplicable yet fascinating works found in the history art room that particularly caught my attention:

Öyvind Fahlström
Red Seesaw,1964
IVAM, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

 Fahlström's Red seesaw is a piece of Pop Art in every way.  It could be, I think, a great example to illustrate a definition of this movement. First of all the technique is original and innovative, because it's a mix of many disciplines: a montage with painted wood for the seesaw and painted paper mache for the frogs, collage and painting  on cardboard and steel wire to make some things pop out. Also the colours are bright and it very much represents American society in the 1960s. What strikes first is the compilation of humorous images of popular American culture like president Richard Nixon dancing with his vice president Spiro Agnew, dressed as a girl, a policeman with a huge hand, or the statue of liberty with a baseball bat (Fahlström lived in NY at that time), and absurd objects like what seems to be the pope, the flag saying "suck cats", the flying cat, the guinea pig and the pig's head. What lays behind however is much less humorous, as it is a clear metaphor of the fragile political balance in the US at the time of the 1968 elections and the Cold War. The image of the balanced seesaw shows an unstable situation and most importantly a tie between two rivals, the communist red frog on the left and the capitalist blue frog on the right. As it mainly shows the American political crisis, there are no communist images and most of the little cardboard images are on the blue frog's side. Nixon's dance with Agnew is probably a teasing critic to his electoral choices, and the policeman could represent the repression of anti Vietnam war protests on the streets. To continue around the Vietnam war, the baseball bat in the hand of the statue of liberty, looking towards the left red side certainly symbolizes the US's violence in that war. The cat flying on a bottle could be a funny way to talk about the space race, and would explain the "suck cats" flag on the red side. The symbols and jokes in that seesaw are so many and can be divided into so many layers that every little cardboard image could be analysed like this. That is why the more I look at that seesaw the more I laugh, and the more I understand the sharp political criticism it holds. To the hilarious irony that makes it in my opinion incredibly clever and meaningful (which originally is, I think, the purpose of Pop Art), there is a part of mystery added. Some images like the choice of the frog for the two sides of the cold war, the pope or the monkey remain inexplicable to me, maybe because I don't have the cultural tools to understand them, maybe because Fahlström wanted to remain partially cryptic. In any case it is also that part of misery that makes it so attractive to me. it feels in some way like an enigma. That touch of enigma added to the incredibly attractive Pop aesthetics, the dynamic format, the satire, and the apparently absurd jokes makes Fahlström's seesaw a fascinating piece of art that is strangely enough very little known. 

Sadly, as I said, the show is over and is not going to travel anywhere else. However, many of the Art works shown at the exhibition can now be found at the IVAM (Institut Valencià d'Art Modern), in the city of Valencia, Spain, where they belong. Some of them are the Red seesaw, a couple of Equipo crónica's paintings and a "slip it to me" pin between other Hamilton pieces.