Pop to Popism

Overview

The most expansive exhibition of pop art Australia has ever seen, Pop to Popism is the latest offering in the Sydney International Art Series' wonderful lineup of shows. It's a true blockbuster exhibition. One of the largest shows ever staged by the Art Gallery of NSW, and requiring two years of planning, it takes up an entire floor.

Pop art tends to be quite polarising. Kicking off in the '60s, pop artists sought to make art inspired by popular culture and the exploding post-war consumerism of the time. Pop art borrowed slick media techniques to create bright, glamorous, often celebrity-obsessed works. However, not everyone agreed that galleries were appropriate places for Campbell's soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. It was an incredibly radical idea, bringing everyday objects and popular culture into the domain of high art, and pop art forever changed traditional conceptions of high and low culture. Love it or hate it, it was one of the defining art movements of last century.

Wayne Tunnicliffe, the exhibition's senior curator, has nabbed a bunch of superstar works for the show, many of which made their way down under accompanied by armed guards. Warhol's Marilyn is there in all her hypercolour glory, Lichtenstein's first ever cartoon work is on show behind glass, and Keith Haring's energetic figures are almost jumping off the walls.

Pop to Popism brings together over 200 works by more than 70 of the world’s greatest pop artists. Richard Prince, Robert Indiana, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Claes Oldenburg, David Hockney, Gilbert & George, Jeff Koons, James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg are all there, too. Everyone has come to the party.

The exhibition is curated from a decidedly Australian point of view and includes works by Peter Powditch, Martin Sharp, Brett Whiteley, Howard Arkley, Imants Tillers and Jenny Watson. It's the most in-depth exploration of the development and influence of Australian pop art ever staged. Pop to Popism does a wonderful job of placing Australian art in the context of what was an internationally significant art movement.

Previously left out of most scholarly investigations of the movement, the contribution female artists have made to the trajectory of pop art is put into focus. Several of Cindy Sherman's photographs are on show, along with works by Rosalyn Drexler, Marisol and Bridgid McLean. Perhaps one of the best works of the entire exhibition is Masterpieces (Warhol) by Maria Kozic, which depicts a shattered Campbell’s Soup can rendered in the style of Andy Warhol. Kozic was a member of the younger generation of pop artists working in the late '70s and '80s who reappropriated pop art's vocabulary to suit the ever-evolving consumer culture.

Pop to Popism is slick and glossy and a tremendous amount of fun. Just like pop art should be.

Image credit: Roy Lichtenstein, In the car 1963, oil and manga on canvas. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.