Pop Art: A Critical History / Edition 1

by Steven Henry Madoff

Overview

Pop Art: A Critical History chronicles one of the most controversial art movements of the century. The anthology draws from a great range of sources, from the leading art magazines and art historical journals to newspapers and news magazines such as the New York Times, Life, and Newsweek. What emerges from this rich cross-section of critical and journalistic commentary is a fascinating view of the tumultuous rise of Pop art and its establishment as a major force in contemporary art. A broad selection of articles traces the emergence of the movement itself in England and America, as seen through the eyes of the working critics of the day. The focus then narrows to present in-depth writings on the four major Pop artists: Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol, along with an examination of many other artists involved in the movement. From reviews of the very first shows of many of these artists to interviews with them, to news stories about their collectors and their lifestyles, Pop Art: A Critical History represents the most complete and coherent record of Pop art yet published. The book concludes with an invaluable chronology of the major '60s exhibitions by Pop artists. Among the contributors are Lawrence Alloway, John Coplans, Donald Judd, Max Kozloff, Gerald Nordland, Peter Plagens, Barbara Rose, Robert Rosenblum, John Russell, Gene Swenson, and Sidney Tillim.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520212435
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/15/1997
Series:	Documents of Twentieth-Century Art
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	450
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.99(d)

About the Author

Steven Henry Madoff is a curator, poet, and widely published art critic, and Chair, MA Curatorial Practice at the School of Visual Arts.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations 
Acknowledgments 

INTRODUCTION
Steven Henry Madoff, Wham! Blam! How Pop Art Stormed the
High-Art Citadel and What the Critics Said

1 PRE-POP: AMERICAN PRECURSORS, ENGLISH CURRENTS
Frank O’Hara, from “Larry Rivers: ‘Why I Paint as I Do’” 
Alison and Peter Smithson, “But Today We Collect Ads” 
Richard Hamilton, “Letter to Peter and Alison Smithson” 
Lawrence Alloway, “The Arts and the Mass Media” 
Thomas B. Hess, “Mixed Mediums for a Soft Revolution” 
Robert Rosenblum, “Jasper Johns” 
Clement Greenberg, from “After Abstract Expressionism” 
Jasia Reichardt, “Pop Art and After” 
Alan R. Solomon, from “Robert Rauschenberg” 

2 THE PHENOMENON OF POP:
GENERAL ESSAYS AND LOCAL REVIEWS, 1962–1970
Sidney Tillim, from “Month in Review: New York Exhibitions” 
Max Kozloff, “‘Pop’ Culture, Metaphysical Disgust, and the New Vulgarians” 
Jules Langsner, from “Los Angeles Letter” 
G. R. Swenson, “The New American ‘Sign Painters’” 
Sidney Janis, “On the Theme of the Exhibition” 
Brian O’Doherty, “Art: Avant-Garde Revolt” 
John Coplans, “The New Painting of Common Objects” 
Gilbert Sorrentino, “Kitch into ‘Art’: The New Realism” 
Barbara Rose, “Dada, Then and Now” 
Peter Selz et al, “A Symposium on Pop Art” 
Barbara Rose, “Pop Art at the Guggenheim” 
Peter Selz, “The Flaccid Art” 
Ivan C. Karp, “Anti-Sensibility Painting” 
Alan R. Solomon, “The New Art” 
John Coplans, “Pop Art, USA” 
Thomas B. Hess, from “Pop and Public” 
G.R. Swenson, “What Is Pop Art? Part I” 
G.R. Swenson, from “What Is Pop Art? Part II” 
John Canaday, “Pop Art Sells On and On — Why?” 
Tullia Zevi, “The Biennale: How Evil is Pop Art?” 
Max Kozloff, “Dissimulated Pop” 
Unsigned, “Pop Art Exhibited, and It’s Crazy, Dad” 
Robert Rosenblum, “Pop Art and Non-Pop Art” 
Sidney Tillim, “Further Observations on the Pop Phenomenon” 
Bruce Glaser, “Oldenburg, Lichtenstein, Warhol: A Discussion” 
Peter Benchley, “Special Report: The Story of Pop,” 
John Adkins Richardson, “Dada, Camp, and the Mode Called Pop” 
Dana Adams Schmidt, “London Court Fines a Gallery for
‘Indecent’ Pop-Art Display” 
Peter Plagens, “Present-Day Styles and Ready-Made Criticism” 
Lawrence Alloway, “Popular Culture and Pop Art” 
John Russell, “Pop Reappraised” 
Harold Rosenberg, “The Art World: Marilyn Mondrian” 

3 FOCUS: THE MAJOR ARTISTS
Roy Lichtenstein
Unsigned, “Everything Clear Now?” 
Donald Judd, “In the Galleries: Roy Lichtenstein” 
Robert Rosenblum, “Roy Lichtenstein and the Realist Revolt” 
Douglas McClellan, “Roy Lichtenstein, Ferus Gallery” 
Dorothy Seiberling, “Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?” 
John Ashbery, “Pop Artist Switches to Aggressive Neutral Banality” 
John Coplans, “Talking with Roy Lichtenstein” 
Albert Boime, “Roy Lichtenstein and the Comic Strip” 
Diane Waldman, “Roy Lichtenstein” 
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg, “Statement” 
Michael Fried, “New York Letter” 
Jill Johnston, “Off Off-Broadway; ‘Happenings’ at Ray Gun Mfg. Co.” 
Ellen H. Johnson, “The Living Object” 
Gerald Nordland, from “Marcel Duchamp and
Common Object Art” 
Donald Judd, “In the Galleries: Claes Oldenburg” 
Öyvind Fahlström, “Object-Making” 

Barbara Rose, “Claes Oldenburg’s Soft Machines” 
Richard Kostelanetz, from “Claes Oldenburg” 
James Rosenquist
Gene R. Swenson, “Reviews and Previews:
New Names This Month: James Rosenquist” 
Edward F. Fry, essay from exhibition catalogue, James Rosenquist 
William Wilson, “Los Angeles: James Rosenquist” 
Lucy R. Lippard, “James Rosenquist: Aspects of a Multiple Art” 
Doon Arbus, “The Man in the Paper Suit” 
Hilton Kramer, “A New Hangar for Rosenquist’s Jet-Pop ‘F-111’” 
Robert C. Scull, “Re the F-111: A Collector’s Notes” 
Sidney Tillim, “Rosenquist at the Met: Avant-Garde or Red Guard?” 
Lawrence Alloway, “Art” 
Andy Warhol
Henry T. Hopkins, “Andy Warhol, Ferus Gallery” 
Michael Fried, from “New York Letter” 
Donald Judd, “In the Galleries: Andy Warhol” 
Arthur Danto, “The Artworld” 
Unsigned, “Saint Andrew” 
Thomas B. Hess, “Reviews and Previews:
New Names this Month: Andy Warhol” 
Roger Vaughan, “Superpop or a Night at the Factory” 
David Antin, “Warhol: The Silver Tenement” 
William Wilson, “Prince of Boredom: The Repetitions and
Passivities of Andy Warhol” 
John Coplans, “Early Warhol: The Systematic Evolution
of the Impersonal Style” 

4 FROM CENTER TO PERIPHERY: OTHER FIGURES
Allan D’Arcangelo
Vivien Raynor, “In the Galleries: Allan D’Arcangelo” 
Nicolas Calas, “Highways & By-ways” 
Jim Dine
Alan R. Solomon, “Jim Dine and the Psychology of the New Art” 
Robert Pincus-Witten, “New York: Jim Dine” 
öyvind Fahlström
Torsten Ekbom, “Öyvind Fahlström: Models of Shattered Reality” 
Robert Indiana
G. R. Swenson, “The Horizons of Robert Indiana” 
Jan van der Marck, foreword from exhibition catalogue, Robert Indiana 
Mel Ramos
Jay Jacobs, “In the Galleries: Mel Ramos” 
Robin Skelton, “The Art of Mel Ramos” 
Edward Ruscha
Nancy Marmer, “Edward Ruscha, Ferus Gallery” 
John Coplans, “Concerning ‘Various Small Fires’:
Edward Ruscha Discusses His Perplexing Publications” 
George Segal
Allan Kaprow, “Segal’s Vital Mummies” 
John Perreault, “Plaster Caste” 
Peter Saul
Jack Kroll, “Reviews and Previews:
New Names this Month: Peter Saul” 
Ellen H. Johnson, essay from exhibition catalogue, Peter Saul 
Wayne Thiebaud
Thomas B. Hess, “Reviews and Previews:
New Names this Month: Wayne Thiebaud” 
Diane Waldman, “Thiebaud: Eros in Cafeteria” 
John Wesley
Donald Judd, “In the Galleries: John Wesley” 
Tom Wesselmann
Brian O’Doherty, “‘Pop’ Show by Tom Wesselmann Is Revisited” 
J. A. Abramson, “Tom Wesselmann and the Gates of Horn” 

5 REVISING POP: LATER CRITICAL REFLECTIONS
Max Kozloff, “American Painting during the Cold War” 
Roland Barthes, “That Old Thing, Art . . .” 
Robert Hughes, “The Rise of Andy Warhol” 
Lynne Cooke, from “The Independent Group:
British and American Pop Art, a ‘Palimpcestuous’ Legacy” 
Bruce Altshuler, from “Pop Triumphant: A New Realism” 

CHRONOLOGY
An Exhibitions Chronicle: 1958–1970,
Steven Henry Madoff and Alexandra Muse 

INDEX
 

Editorial Reviews

"To understand where we are in American art, we need Pop Art: A Critical History to remind us of where we were. Thorough and as lively as the era it documents, Steven Henry Madoff's indispensable compendium neatly recaptures a moment that irrevocably altered American culture."

New York Times

This not-to-be-missed anthology collects stimulating articles, interviews, and other texts defining "the phenomenon of Pop." Art critic Madoff contributes a fine introductory overview and then presents 94 critical articles, negative and positive, on this brash, vulgar, successful style. Most are culled from contemporary American art magazines and newspapers during the Pop era of the 1960s. Students and specialists alike will find overlooked or forgotten material here and will especially note that many early discussions still ring true today. The book's five sections are precursors, reviews dating from 1962 to 1970, major artists (Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Rosenquist, and Warhol), 11 artists on the periphery, and a few articles from the 1970s to the 1990s. Discussions of single artists are most interesting, with the one on Warhol a standout. There is heavy reading but also journalistic stylings that will appeal to anyone interested in American culture of the Sixties. Highly recommended.Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State Univ., Md.

Library Journal

A useful if dense compilation of texts illuminating Pop Art's historical origins, inception, rise to success, and legacy.

Among the materials Madoff, former executive editor of ARTnews, has gathered is a terse, fascinating letter by the British artist Richard Hamilton concerning the 1957 "This Is Tomorrow" exhibition, regarded as the first Pop Art show. A 1958 article by Lawrence Alloway, who coined the term "Pop," defiantly announces the vitality and importance of the mass arts, as opposed to the old elitist fine arts. Madoff next samples the critics' response to America's outbreak of Pop (which was initially referred to as Neo- Dada), including pieces on the "four-headed goliath" of the movement, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, and Oldenburg. The book's final section offers a handful of essays (by, among others, Roland Barthes and Robert Hughes) written up to 30 years after Pop's emergence. What comes through within this simple yet generous framework is a good measure of skepticism and fear about Pop's importance, mixed with some serious attempts to locate the meaning of art that mimicked our fascination with the representational image, an art nurtured by, in the words of Henry Geldzahler, the "popular press, . . . the movie closeup, black and white, technicolor and wide screen, the billboard extravaganzas, and finally . . . television." There is clarity in Hamilton's analysis (Pop Art is, he writes, "popular . . . transient . . . expendable"), as well as in the later essays, where distance aids the effort to define goals, impact, and meaning. But the bulk of the material has to be waded through, congested as it is with the struggle to process the onslaught of new media assailing the public.

Readers will have to distill their own meaning and context for Pop Art from this anthology. It is not a cozy read, but a necessary compendium to slip on and off of the shelf.

Kirkus Reviews