POP ART AWARD

International Contemporary Art exhibition

 

Why did I stop painting? I've never stopped.

I paint my nails and eyes every day

 

(A.Warhol)

 

Pop art is so called because it derives from the English term "popular art". For "popular", in this precise context, it is not intended “for the public”, but reference is made to the object that is mass-produced, linked to the mass and not to the single individual. The artists are inspired by objects of everyday reality, belonging to the world of commerce, such as a refrigerator, a poster, a washing machine, a car, cans or magazines: things that do not have a real face, but the at the same time they are known by the whole consumer society, thanks to the constant and pressing advertising that makes them well-printed images within the common minds. Television, cinema, advertising, any aspect of modern reality characterized by the mass media became art. The emperors and saints to be venerated who once inspired us, give way to actors, comics and supermarket products: the sacred has changed its face, has transcended from religion to consumption. The world in black and white is opposed to the garish, colorful and excessive one, of well-being, that seems to be within the reach of all. Values change, the world view changes, society changes. The body becomes an icon: the images of the stars are selected, retouched and end up on the covers of magazines, available to the artists, who use them altering, multiplying and pasting them on abstract backgrounds, with unreal colors. The food itself gets an aesthetic value, because it must become attractive, like the myths of the cinema: it must have bright colors, captivating packages. The Pop Art artists express themselves in a strong way and do it directly, using everything that passes through their hands. And daring: Pop is in fact also excess, transgression, unruliness. The art made of anything and everything.

 

And you? What ART(POP)IST are you?