Here is an extra Journal on Pop art to show I have thought about what I’ve seen and read. I will attempt to answer some of the questions raised in the slideshow.
I for one do not think of art as a pyramid with say Banksy at the top and Drake at the bottom. Nor do I see it as a continuum with artists going in and out of style. I like to think of it a being like an Eco system. Like a coral reef. Many things living in harmony and co-operating to make one beautiful world.
High-art, “Low art”, and everything in between all influence and build on each other. Even the finest artists need to be entertained and to relax with a fun movie or silly video game. And even if all you do is make Sonic the Hedgehog fan art you are being influenced by centuries of fine art. Pop culture acts as a gate way for people to access and better understand fine painting and literature. And most of the people who make violent video games and write erotica will have their favourite classical composers and poets. Even if they’re shy about talking about them.
I pop art did mean to challenge that binary idea of high and low art I can respect that. But you can’t just try to tear something down for the sake of tearing it down. You work will be ugly and hollow. It’s why The Last Jedi is such a terrible film. At the bare minimum you need to have an idea of what you want to put in the place of the old stuff. The Futurists had an idea of what they wanted the art world to look like, even if they failed.
But what you really need is something to say in your own right. Breaking the taboos is not the end in itself but a necessary step in marking your masterwork.
Alfred Hitchcock did not plan to reinvent Cinema when he made Psycho. He wanted to make a film that would make audiences scream in terror. In pursuit of that goal he made a film that challenged the nuclear family idea. talked about issues of childhood trauma, guilt, control, sanity and identity, sexuality, and self destructive behaviour. And to do this the film had to be more violent and sexual that any Hollywood film before it. In doing so it changed what could be shown in films forever.
Psycho is shlock horror film who’s most famous scene is of a naked woman being stabbed to death. Psycho is a beautifully shot, acted, and scored film in a tradition of tragic fiction that is as old as western society.
It embodies the reef-like Eco-system I was talking about. It takes the best of both ends of of artistic spectrum and makes something that can be enjoyed by connoisseurs and casual film-goers alike
That, to me, is the real Pop Art.
John's Learning Journal 