From the lonely boy in pittsburgh, the steel city of the United States, to the art star who lingers in New York's Vanity Fair, Andy Warhol's name is accompanied by "Pop Art", so is the Pop Art style of the last century stuck in the past becoming a chapter in art history, or is it still influential in the present? If we asked for its answer with a contemporary question, would it respond effectively?
Combined with "Becoming Andy Warhol" exhibited in Shanghai, the UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Shanghai recently joined hands with the School of Philosophy of Fudan University and the Triptych Middle School to launch a series of dialogues on the relationship between art and life and thought around the theme of "Big Pop: The Cross-Country of Life and Thought".
"Becoming Andy Warhol", Myth Series, exhibition scene, picture courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
By doing only theoretical exploration without an understanding of life, theory becomes hollow and outdated. The conceptual trend of the development of contemporary art also needs more research based on human reason. Based on these two dimensions, this is the question that the art institutions as practitioners and the Academy as an annotator want to explore in the context of this exhibition "Becoming Andy Warhol". He also believes that Pop should not only be a result, but should pay more attention to the process in it.
"Big Pop: Off-Road of Life and Thought" dialogue scene
China Pop & Pop China
About the history of Pop and the beginnings of China, the writer Chen Guanzhong gave a concise and concise account in the opening lecture of the forum, "China Pop and Pop China". Chen Guanzhong believes that if we simply think of Pop as an art genre, we actually ignore its deep pop culture background. As in the 1990s, a publication called "China Pop", it was more of a popular culture in the city, and it had nothing to do with art, let alone the future chinese political pop. Pop art's popular culture origins, at first, were not mainstream aesthetics in the United States, but existed as a style despised by elite culture, as a negative teaching material for abstract expressionism that was popular at that time. This made Pop a tool to subvert the aesthetics of the elite and began to spread in the non-mainstream art world: Pop was derived from popular culture, but it was not popular at the time. It is precisely because of this subversiveness against mainstream aesthetics that Pop Art is classified as "Neo-Dadaism". When we delve into the process of pop art, we may have another understanding of the birth of "political pop": consistent with the prevalence of Western consumerist mass culture, in the former Soviet Union and China in the 90s, political images were not also part of mass life?
Artist Wang Guangyi, as a party, may have the most say in "China's political pop". His narrative, however, reveals a very important phenomenon in art history. "When an artist works, he doesn't even know what it means to do it." In fact, the name "Chinese Political Pop" came from the art critic Li Xianting. Wang Guangyi believes that only when an artist has no position, can his work have room for interpretation. "If I have a position, then what I do is suspicious; if I have no position, then you can understand it differently." This freedom allows Pope to still have room for imagination in the present.
Yuan Xin, a professor at Fudan University's School of Philosophy, mentioned an era-reversal mistake that Pop needs to avoid. Popular culture is a medium for artists to understand and express this society. We may now think that consumerism is negative and needs to be criticized, but in that era, the prosperity of consumption under large-scale industrial production was precisely what was advanced in that era, not something backward. It "represents the direction of the development of that era, and even the beautiful world in the hearts of people in the future society." In this sense, Pop Art echoes the development of an industrial consumer society. It tries to express such an era in an artistic way. ”
Yuan Xin believes that the most revolutionary thing about pop art is that it returns to the dimension of the masses. It broke the elitist and detached from the masses of the people since the Enlightenment, and brought back to the masses art as a skill, as a daily life. At the same time, it comes from the artist's reflection on the status quo and the deep-level sorting out of the logic of modern society, so as to reconstruct the main body of art, accept the public as a participant, and enter the creation of works of art. "Pop reflected on the traditional system, some of the conventions, and then on this basis, really established our judgment and view of the world."
Andy Warhol designed the Bonvert department store perfume window display
Dialectical Pop
The second dialogue began with a speech by Andy Warhol translator Kou Huaiyu on Pop's "democratic nature", continuing the discussion of Pop's "popularity". Kou Huaiyu believes that Warhol's childhood family situation and physical condition made him feel out of place with the people around him, but he was not far from the material and cultural life of the American public. They can eat the same chocolate and listen to the same story. Here, Warhol found his own place, and at the same time it was the world of other Americans. This is perhaps one of the reasons Warhol used mass-produced goods and pop culture icons for his artistic creations.
From this perspective, it is not difficult to understand the meaning of democracy or equality in Pop, which makes people accustomed to the image of goods in life that they take for granted and turned a blind eye, and since then they have established a different appreciation vision. At the same time, Pop lowered the elite culture in the temple of art to the extent that the old woman could understand, and brought the right to appreciate art to the general public. Kou Huaiyu believes that Pop brought about ideological emancipation, it encouraged people to try to do everything without having to stay in one field, which is why Warhol set foot in the music circle, photography, film writing, running magazines, television production and many other fields, and made achievements.
Zhang Xianmin, a professor in the Literature Department of the Beijing Film Academy, explained from the perspective of the video exhibition. The images in the exhibition, such as the screening in the "Become Andy Warhol" exhibition hall, are more "pop" than the screening in the theater, which has a kind of compulsion, and the audience needs to watch the whole process to get a complete experience. In the exhibition hall, the audience can arbitrarily decide the length of time to watch. In terms of curating, the exhibition hall transposes the linear arrangement of time and the order of play in the theater into a spatial arrangement, so that those who watch two minutes can achieve equal effects with those who watch two hours. Thus, in the propagation environment, pop images form a concept of temporal equality.
Regarding Warhol's images, Zhang Xianmin also mentioned a very interesting explanation: in the era of classical art, all we left behind was the object of the artist, the result of creation, but Andy Warhol presented the author's perspective. Through the long and aimless shooting of the subject, he pioneered the shadowing of the results of the creation, and presented the creative process in its entirety, which is the meaning of the "Audition" series and other images.
Does Bopp's influence so positive mean that the Chinese art world should fully accept it? Zhu Qingsheng, a professor in the History Department of Peking University, expressed a different view, answering why Boyce was chosen at that time from the perspective of teaching the history of Chinese contemporary art, instead of Warhol, as a benchmark and transcendence for teaching.
Zhu Qingsheng believes that Warhol is ostensibly doing pop culture, but he uses popular culture to reach beyond it. Warhol used consumerism to negate and deconstruct consumerism itself, using popular culture and the materialization and loss of people in it, and using self-manifestation and self-denial to complete the transcendence of its own spirit. This is also the huge difference between pop art and pop culture. But for Chinese contemporary art at that time, it was not mainly reflective on capitalist society, and China did not have a developed capital environment at that time, which was completely different from today's situation. Zhu Qingsheng pointed out that the main problem in the Chinese art world at that time was not imitation and learning, but to surpass Andy Warhol and Boyce. "The main task of China's reform and opening up is to make the Chinese no longer a imitator of the West in spirit, but a pioneer of the whole world."
Boyce, The Grease Chair
In addition to this pioneering spirit that surged in the art world at that time, Zhu Qingsheng also mentioned another equally important "rebellion" spirit. "Rebellion" is fundamentally about breaking idols. Zhu Qingsheng believes that Chinese art will remain in a second-rate position if it does not break the icons of contemporary art built in the West by people like Boyce and Andy Warhol in the 1970s and 1980s, as a local culture. Therefore, in the 1980s in China, when treating Boyce and Andy Warhol, they did not call them idols, but regarded the elimination of idols and their manufacturing methods as an important exploration of Chinese contemporary art, and regarded such an idea as the highest pursuit of human freedom and equality. "Only in this case will there be no great distinction between the artist and the audience, and there will be no forerunners and teachers over the ordinary people." Zhu Qingsheng believes that what is more fundamental is that "when a unique existence is built, the possibility of human freedom and the infinity of choice will return to man himself." ”
Tomorrow Pop
After the first two dialogues, it seems that we can perceive that in Pop Research, a social, popular trend of thought is revealed, which requires us to take our eyes off the artist, pay attention to the audience, and restore to society itself. "Andy Warhol is not the kind of artist who inspires you from a technical point of view." Architectural writer Don Keyan opens the conversation. He thinks the exhibition may be completed in two minutes, but it may take a lot of time to understand Andy Warhol through it, that is, the direction of the exhibition content is outside the exhibition itself. In an era when art is undergoing a "social shift", starting from the interventional nature of Pop Art, we may be able to better understand how its future will develop.
UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, "Becoming Andy Warhol" exhibition site, UCCA Edge, 2021. Image courtesy of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Interventional art does not mean that there is a linear purpose that requires the transmission of some kind of knowledge, it may be more about evoking a perception. The harvest it brings to people is more from the inside out of the revelation, from the subject itself to find the answer to the question. Musician Zhang Shouwang starts from his own observation experience, with the extensive application of minimalist music in contemporary times, telling the phenomenon of Pop and even other avant-garde cultures penetrating into all aspects of life, including design, music, and video. You Yang, deputy director of UCCA, believes that this point understands an important law in history, and the so-called avant-garde art forms of each period will be precipitated into general image forms after the changes of the times. At this time, Poprun is silent, it will continue to exist tomorrow, and it is precipitated in our daily lives and in the corners of various cultural scenes.
Yu Yang cites the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci's argument that the key to the avant-garde consciousness of creators lies in the possibility of the work to stimulate public participation in the creation of mass culture and show their potential. This avant-garde consciousness we may find a glimpse in one of Pop's contemporary forms. Internet opinion leader Da Ruirui believes that this form is the trend art that is on the cusp of today. Compared with niche culture and elite culture, Da Rui Rui feels that the trend art represents more of a circle culture, which is characterized by an independent social circle. In the era of circle culture, the discourse power of culture is decentralized to the public, although the elite cultural influence from top to bottom may exist forever, but in the context of pop culture influence, any culture may become the mainstream of society and become a force affecting society.
Of course, trend art still needs to go through a stage of reflection before it becomes history. The first two dialogues repeatedly emphasized how Pop Art reflected its zeitgeist. In the art of trends, the guests observed the epitome of the narcissistic culture that prevails at the moment, including the ability to quickly copy. Trend art often contains an anthropomorphic image of a child or doll type, making it easier for its owner to project its self-image. In terms of publicity, it markets to consumers through a pattern that captures attention quickly and is simple and replicable. These phenomena reflect some of the characteristics of the current era of mass media. Whether it will become the "pop" of tomorrow, or the aftermath of the "pop" for a short time, when the tide of the times advances, we will get the answer.