Tim Burton

Tim Burton

Biography

My Art exhibition review

Pop Art Myths

My art exhibition review...

Exhibition Title : Pop Art Myths
Venue Name : The Thyssen Museum
Website :  Thyssen Museum website
Venue Address : Paseo del Prado, 8, 28014 Madrid

Exhibition Dates : June 10 to September 14, 2014 but it still exists on line as an Interactive magazine and a virtual visit.


    Three years ago, the spanish Thyssen Museum has organized a show by exhibiting a very important number of painting (104) that we could have visited during four months. This art show was structured in various themes - like Painting History, Emblems or Urban Erotism - all in relation with the global theme of "Pop Art Myths".

Andy Warhol

 Brillo Soap Pads, 1964

    Of course, all the artists chosen for this exhibition belong to that movement ( Roy Lichtenstein, Wolf Vostell or Tom Wesselmann) but the one who is really honoured is unquestionably Andy Warhol.
The emergence of Pop Art dates back the late 1950s and early 1960s and it was one of the most liberating moments in the art history, turning every common object into a possible work of art and bringing an end to the division between "high" and "low" culture. Indeed, thanks to Andy Warhol work, people could see how a soup can or a soap pad box might be art.
Thus, this exhibition helps us to understand how these paintings were a true and deep shock for the 1950s's public.
 

Andy Warhol

BigTorn Campbell's Soup Can 

(Black Bean), 1962

If the Pop Art artistic movement was a proposal for a kind of "new world", in which there were any social limits, it was also a turning point on the representation of a lot of things, and, more particularly, women's representation.

Wolf Vostell

Marilyn Idol (detail), 1962

Indeed, Pop Art's artists didn't hesitate to show women as sensual and attractive creatures ( like Roy Lichtenstein with his Woman in Bath (1963) ) or turning some of them into real mythological beings, and it's the case for Marilyn Monroe who was immortalised by many artists as the perfect woman symbol.
The Thyssen Museum's exhibition shows us how Pop artists transform some American actresses or Idols from their popular culture into real divine or mythological figures and how they combine old paintings with modern elements from their period : thus creating their own myths.

More than that, the transformation of social attitudes and norms brought with it a new sexual freedom, that some artists decided to take advantage from, in order to invent their own style.

 Tom Wesselmann  

This is precisely the case for Slim Stealingworth, better known as Tom Wesselmann, a great American painter, sculptor and commercial designer. During the early 1960s, he created a family of a 100 paintings named "Great American Nude" in which he depicts the American society well-being and turns his work into an allegory of woman as sexual symbol and myth.
Before I begin my personal analysis, let me introduce a short definition of a myth : it's a popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal.
As an L student of the Lycée Français de Madrid and a fervent feminist, I'm going to present you the Great American Nude #52, 1963 of Tom Wesselmann
Fisrt of all, the painting composition is very original from a classic point of view because it combines various types of elements ( there are painted objects and others which are just pasted as per the "décollage" technique) while they perfectly fit in the Pop Art movement.
Strangely, the "pop artsit" designation always rankled Wesselmann, indeed he didn't like to see his art associated to the Pop artists group, even if his work is considered as emblematic and litteraly foundress of the movement !
On the left side of the backdrop, the viewer can see two young women seating on a sofa directly from a Matisse's painting, while, on the other side, we discern a little part of a sunny park hidden by a red curtain.
At the center of the painting, there is a very well dressed couple who is standing up, holding alcohol glasses; he is behind a black naked woman layed on a white blanket. This body without any distinctive facial features is the real important piece of this painting and the one which is the most showcased by striking colour contrasts ( black/white ).

Great American Nude #52, 1963

Acrylic, fabric and printed paper collage on panel;

1,52.3 x 121.9 x 4cm 

 

Furthermore
, Tom Wesselmann used bright and agressive colours in order to create a warm and erotic atmosphere and he limited his palette to the patriotic colours of the American flag (red, white and blue)
The artist also decided not to draw the naked woman face, so that the viewer should only admire the woman body beauty : only the body really matters.
However, the historical painting context enables us to ask ourselves about the real signification of the painting composition. Indeed, in 1963, racism was still rooted in the American society ( it's only in 1964, with the Civils Rights Act signed by Lyndon Johnson, that all forms of racial segregation was forbidden in public places ) and the woman place was not a really betterment. Here, the painting could very well be a kind of racism criticism, considering that the black woman looks like she was a decorative art object observed by the rich couple.
Moreover, we must not forget that this kind of painting was very shocking and that the initial reaction to the Great American Nude was confusion mixed with disgust and considered radical because the insertion of a flagrantly nude woman (who wasn't a goddess) into a painting was highly provocative.
At this point, we definitely can say that Pop Art helped the women cause showing them as a mythical and symbolic emblem of sensuality.
I personally liked this painting particularly because of his wild and fawn colours who are an eye-catcher and cause a very mysterious feeling of power and energy.

 

Besides, if you live in Madrid, you also can have a look to the new temporary exhibition of the Thyssen Museum, named "Picasso/Lautrec".  

 

Post 3 : The idea of progress

The Idea of Progress

As we have seen above, the idea of "progresss" can be distinguished by two sub-notions - quality and quantity - which are not necessarily related.

Document 1:   Quality 

Notion : Women condition and women's place in society 

My first document is an article from the british newspaper The Guardian speaking of a "new" french law about the global theme of prostitution.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/06/france-passes-law-illegal-to-pay-for-sex-criminalise-customers




It's a very good example of the qualitative side of progress because it shows us how the woman condition is evolving in our occidental societies.
Indeed, the french members of Parliament have made illegal the fact to pay for sex and also decided that sex workers would hencefoth be considered as a victim and not as a criminal. At first, feminist organizations didn't think it could work but a year later, the numbers proved its success : 804 arrested persons in only one year !




Document 2:  Quantity

Notion : Chlidren's rights and women condition 

The second document is a clip video produced by UNICEF in collaboration whith electronic artist RL Grime and realised in 2015. It is about "child brides".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk-n7qOgaL8&feature=youtu.be

"A girl in Chad is more likely to die in childbirth than attend secondary school"; starting with this terrible and frightening sentence; this video shows the viewer a little bit of a young girl's lifetime. 

At the beginning, she just dies giving life to her baby surrounded by her familiy, then, her life is rewound up to the moment she leaves her parent's house in order to be married.
Finally, the door re-opens and the viewer attends to what her life could have been without her marriage and if she could have went to school with her friends. More symbolically, the door represents a new dawn and the modern music contrasts with this practice which seems to be outdated for european people like us.
UNICEF highlights the fact that, of course, a lot of progress have been made to fight this injustice but there is still so much to be done ! Indeed, each year, 15 million girls are married before the age of 18, that is 28 girls every minute.

As a conclusion, we can definitively say that women condition is in continual growth - even if we still have big progress to do all around the world - thanks to many actors ( governments, charities, NGO, organizations..). Here, the two sub-notions of progress are very well illustrated : on the one hand, living condition of sex workers are improving while, on the other hand, the nuber of child brides reduce.

The idea of Progress

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kJfxRpUZZAnaAPlbed7n0kORJp11LlBP2bB2K4ZbEAw/edit?usp=sharing

POST 1: A Cartoon by Patrick Chappatte, The International Herald Tribune - 5/16/2008

Post 1.

- The creator...

Born in Karachi (Pakistan) in 1967, to a Lebanese mother and a Swiss father, Patrick Chappatte was raised in Singapore and Geneva, and lived in New York and Los Angeles. 

He is now based in Geneva with his wife and their three sons. Mr. Chapatte is an editorial cartoonist who draws for Le Temps, the International New York Times...

He is also a pioneer of graphic journalism, or comics journalism, and has developed collaborative projects promoting cartooning as a tool of dialogue all over the world.

- A fanatic geek at the Cannes film Festival...

• This cartoon comes from The International Herald Tribune, (presently better known as The New York Times International Edition) and was published on May 16th 2008. It illustrates ironically the famous Fernch film Festival held each year in Cannes and was, of course, made by Patrick Chappatte.

• Chappatte's drawing is composed of 3 "main characters": - A very well dressed blond woman who just seems to be waiting for her partner or posing for the photographers. - A man, propably an actor or a film director signing an autograph for a boy. He looks serious and professional while the boy is very excited at meeting him. Both, the blond                                                                                                                   - A boy who wears a tee-shirt with an "@" which may symbolise the internet world. Indeed, there is a balloon where the sentence "I love your movies , I've pirated them all !" is writed in                                                                                                                                       Moreover, we know that the scene takes place in Cannes (because...it's written on the wall at the top on the left of the drawing and thanks to the red carpet)  and that it's the film Festival because of the crowd situated at the back of the picture. 

• First, Chapatte, by drawing this cartoon, surely wante...d to criticize the spread of movie piracy. He used humor and ironical way to make the world realise that it could be a problem (that already existe) if all people pirate movies, music or...all multimedia in general without paying any money. Indeed, if everybody decided to steal all he wanted to watch, listen or read without thinking about artists and creators, the latters would not have anything to earn money !

• In my opinion, the way Chapatte transmit his message is efficient because the cartoon's tone doesn't sound accusatory or vindictive. He just emphasises an illegal thing that is starting to normalize...while it shouldn't happen. 

• Of course, we can relate this way of conveying a message to the notion "forms and places of power". Chappatte just denounces a danger using humor and power of medias (as he publishes his cartoons in The International Herald Tribune) and it works well.

Of course we can ask ourselves about this drawing's goal, his structure or even his composition...but it raises some more specific and abstract questions : Could the Internet world be a threat to artistic creation or, conversely, foster his spread ? Is the young generation really aware of consequences of illegal practises (when it comes to culture) on Internet ? Does the Internet world epitomize the idea of progress or can we argue that it also shows its limits ? 

Chappates uses the humoristic, satirical and ironical way to denounce movie piracy. But, we all know that the Internet world is a real and considerable progress in our lifes : we can access culture, information, political news...all we want or need with a few mouse clicks !
It becomes a reflex, a habit and...a true necessity for a lot of us. 
Moreover, this cartoon is very clever using this huge and so famous global cultural event : the film Festival of Cannes. Indeed, it's a very symbolic place and event for all film culture so that it's a bit shocking and inappropriate to admit without any worry that you've pirated all movies of an actor/film director.