Andy Warhol helped turned the art world upside down with his consumerist pop art of the 1950s and ’60s. His ingenious use of making consumer products art forced the public to think about what art really was, and made fun of our consumer society. Boxes of Brillo pads became something to put in a museum. The mass produced soup cans of Campbell’s became mass produced examples of masterpiece pop art. What was going on in the art world?
Pop art got its origins from the Dada movement of the early 20th century. Dada and its anti-art messages led to a new movement of non-elitist culture centered on giving an alternative to upper crust avant garde styles. Pop art essentially is art from popular culture. It can be Lichetenstein’s comic book paintings, or the American flag of Jasper Johns, or mimicking the advertisements the world was seeing with increased intensity and frequency.
Warhol’s Factory in Manhattan, besides being a hot spot for socialite jet-sets, was first and foremost his studio. There he recruited many assistants to help churn out consumer art which was meant to be produced in high volumes the same way everyday products were. It was there he also made his movies with their purposeful low-budget indie poppish qualities. He also accomplish his silkscreen portraits there, which demanded quite a high price tag from celebrities who weren’t anybody unless they had a Warhol portrait.
Who would have thought a can of pepper pot soup would be art? Why not?
