Pop, Goes Tate Modern

"Six years ago, Tate Modern staged a major exhibition exploring the legacy of Pop Art. Called Pop Life: Art in a Material World, it took as its mantra Andy Warhol’s notorious pronouncement that “Good business is the best art”, and argued that the soul of the Sixties movement was, in essence, a cold, hard dollar sign. Many of the featured artists working in Pop’s shadow – Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami – were shown to be interrogating moneymaking and capitalism, producing glossy art, precision-engineered for our era of high finance. " LINK

Burutapen's insight: 

 Admittedly, and from the point of view of aesthetics, Pop is not my favourite art movement. I do however think that it captured a very important moment in history and was one of the pivotal movements that shaped what was to become of art. It gave us a license to think very differently and maybe this is why I found the latest exhibition at the Tate disappointing. 

 Tate Modern has curated a selection of works from lesser known artists, in order to explore the movement beyond the commercial line that made it famous... or so it is been said. I, however, have been left feeling that, at this exhibition, the language is, in fact, circumstantial and often unclear rather than the thread. 

 The works, many by female artists, have two main topics emerging: war and sex. Typical of the period, these topics have been present, if not as explicitly, in the pop art we are used to see; but here they are the thread and for most of this exhibition you cannot escape them. 

 Some of the works are deeply moving and unsettling : El Castigo, a sculpture showing a policeman beating up someone on the floor was observed by a fixated toddler as I worked in the room and, probably reminded by my own childhood in the Basque Country and the images that never leave me, I found myself stepping in to block the view. Others you pass without blinking. 

 Timely as it could have been with the 100 years since the suffragette movement, it is not an exhibition about women artists or a political one. It falls between pop, feminism and political art without fully investing itself in any one of those topics. Will I remember it in a few years time? Probably not. 

 Admittedly, and from the point of view of aesthetics, Pop is not my favourite art movement. I do however think that it had a very important moment in history and was one of the pivotal movements that shaped what was to become of art. It gave us a license to think very differently and maybe this is why I found the latest exhibition at the Tate disappointing . 

 Tate Modern has curated a selection of works from lesser known artists, in order to explore the movement beyond the commercial line that made it famous... or so its been said. I, however, have been left feeling that, at this exhibition, the language is in fact circumstantial and often unclear rather than the thread.