Pop Art

The Pop Art movement used common everyday objects to portray elements of popular culture (the lampshade for a hat), primarily images in advertising and television. Pop Art made commentary on contemporary society and culture, particularly consumerism, by using popular images and icons and incorporating and re-defining them in the art world. Often subjects were derived from advertising and product packaging, celebrities, and comic strips. The images are presented with a combination of humor, criticism and irony. In doing this, the movement put art into terms of everyday, contemporary life. Pop artists also liked to satirize objects, sometimes enlarging those objects to gigantic proportions (note the lollie pop above). Food was a common theme (the ham on the table), but so were household objects such as chairs and toilets being made of squishy plastic instead of the materials you would normally expect. Richard Hamilton's famous work, "Just What Is It that Makes Today's Home so Different, so Appealing?" (above), is considered by many to be the first Pop piece.