Saatchi Gallery - Post Pop: East Meets West

The 'Post Pop: East Meets West' exhibition brings together 250 works celebrating Pop Art's legacy. Post Pop: East Meets West examines why of all the twentieth century's art movements, Pop Art has had such a powerful influence over artists from world regions that have had very different and sometimes opposing ideologies. The exhibition celebrates the art being produced in these four distinct regions since the heyday of Pop, and presents them in relation to each other through the framework of six themes: Habitat; Advertising and Consumerism; Celebrity and Mass Media; Art History; Religion and Ideology; Sex and the Body. Pop Art exploited identifiable imagery from mass media and everyday life to reflect on the nature of the world we live in. This exhibition examines the relationship between western Pop Art and its lesser-known eastern counterparts including "Sots Art" in the Soviet Union and "Political-Pop" or "Cynical Realism" which has flourished in Greater China since the turn of the twenty-first century. 

Using humour and borrowing freely from popular culture, Pop Art gave subsequent generations of artists the licence to exploit popular visual imagery and to connect with the public through the familiarity of the images being referenced. In the Former Soviet Union the abundance of imagery comparable to mass produced commodities and advertising in the West was propaganda images and text, and in Greater China visual iconography of Socialist Realism. 

The artists in this exhibition play with imagery from commercial advertising, propaganda posters, pictures of the famous as well as monetary and patriotic motifs in wry and provocative works that unmistakably reference the Pop Art movement which emerged in America and Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. In the Soviet Union region these works draw attention to state control, conformity, ceremony, pomp and the façade of unanimity amongst the people; in America and the UK they serve as the cult of celebrity and our mass-produced, status-driven man-made world. Given the global energy being enjoyed by contemporary art, this exhibition aims to make audiences more aware of Pop Art as a major influence on current art practice. 

Advertising & Consumerism

Advertising is a form of marketing communication used to persuade an audience to take or continue some action, usually with respect to a commercial offering, or political or ideological support.

Consumerism as a social and economic order and ideology encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-greater amounts.

I think this work really acknowledges the idea of advertising and consumerism working together with a set ideology to take advertising to an extreme level which will help gain large amounts of money. This Pop Art work has been taken from currently advertising and pictures of famous people and has been expanded on an extreme scale to show to what extent advertisement and consumerism could reach. in the exhibition every individual piece had a large space so that you could view each work individually as well as a collective group, this shows how each Pop Artist has taken this idea or theme to create a work of art.

Ideology & Religion

Ideology, in the Althusserian sense, is "the imaginary relation to the real conditions of existence."

A religion is an organised collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence

With this section within the exhibition the artist show  the ideologies of what we believe some religions or religious icons to look like for example, they have small motors that moved and was covered to look like a group of veiled women praying. Again at looking at the 3 grouped icons Lenin, Mickey Mouse and Jesus who are seen as icons amongst many Russians as well as other religious and non religious people. Each one of these icons have created money and power which is the ideology of real existence. I found this work really interesting as it is exactly what i imagine a lot of religions and ideologies to be like. The artists have made art works out of almost anything from small motors to even sculptures to deliver such a strong message about the eastern and western cultural development of Pop Art in the 21st century. 

This large art work is made of felts and cotton and it shows what is currently happening around the world, anything from terrorism, war and even the government. The images do not depict reality and do come across slightly humorous but show how the world continues in our imagination. 

I really liked this art work even though I didn't understand what it was about but I liked the fact the audience could interact with the piece putting their head inside a cows bottom. For my final piece for the degree show I am looking at creating away for my audience to have to interact with something in order to view my photographs rather than it being just standard pictures in frames hung on a white wall, instead i want to create something I haven't seen before.