A is for Andy, B is for Bull

I don't know why but people often associate Pop art with the brightly coloured artworks of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Say "Pop Art" and the first few images people come up with will be the portraits by Andy Warhol, Campbell soup cans, blown up panels of comic strips in pixels with thought and speech ballons and weirdly placed everyday objects. Some might even think about the sofa shaped like a pair of lips but that's really Surrealism. Some might even mistake Escher's art for Pop Art but that's really Op Art. Some people will think Plop Art is a misspelling of Pop Art but....anyway....

I remember writing a holiday assignment on "Pop music is a form of art. Discuss." in the first year of junior college. So I was comparing Spice Girls, Take That with people like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. And went further to compare Futurism (in particular Fernand Leger), with the whole Kraftwerk discography, Abstract Expressionism (Jackson Pollock) with Brian Eno and also why music and art will continue to go hand in hand as long as human culture evolves. Roland Thia, my GP tutor had to give me an A for that assignment. He didn't know enough about it to give me anything less.

It was from the research for the assignment that I learn about how Pop Art was a response to the high-browness of Abstract Expressionism. Unlike Dadaism which was an anti-art movement although that in itself is a paradox. Well......

Was at the A is for Andy "exhibition" at 72-13. Cannonball Art Fund brought it here mainly to sell the prints so it's a collection of the more prominent pieces. A number of the pieces have been sold actually. Bodes well, I suppose.

I don't quite agree with Andy Warhol on many grounds. First he says:

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Andy Warhol

Disagree. Making money is not always art. Working can sometimes be art. Good business is art but don't think it may be the best. Ok, I am taking his quote out of context.

He also said:

An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.
Andy Warhol

Ok, completely disagree.

He also famously said:

In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
Andy Warhol

It could well become true yeah? With bloggers being famous, Youtube and MySpace propelling being to local stardom.