https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj Critical and Cultural Theory en-us 2018-02-05 11:18:44 UTC 2024-07-02 07:07:15 UTC hello@padlet.com nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228050430 Throughout this essay, I will discuss and critique the circulation of culture within the Fine Arts and explain how this can lead to a works deaestheticisaition. This will be carried out through discussion around an artwork's mass production for the consumer, as opposed to production for aesthetic value and original purpose. I will use the artwork Gold Marylin Monroe (1962) by artist Andy Warhol as an example of the impact of commodification and consumerism on Fine Art. Warhol's artistic intentions will be examined and the artwork will be dissected and discussed regarding reasons for easy recognisability and circulation through culture. The Pop Art movement will be studied and its artists' mechanical means of reproduction and rendering will be explored with the purpose of demonstrating the intentions of mass production and circulation through popular culture. Brand equity; clothing; fashion and beauty; imagery; and packaging area are all areas of the consumer industry which Warhol's work has contributed to (Schroeder, 1997, p.476) and the selected artwork's popularity owed to its subject's beauty and, in turn, imagery will be deliberated.]]> 2018-02-05 11:23:38 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228050430 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228051485 2018-02-05 11:27:44 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228051485 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228051564 From the late 1920s to early 1930s, changes in Western capitalist societies that occurred as Marxist theories were developed by a group of German-American theories within The 'Frankfurt School'. Theoriest such as Max Horkeimer, T.W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse were some of the first to procure theories on the critical social theory of the importance of mass culture and communication in social reproduction and domination (Kellner, n.d.). Walter Benjamin's work was acknowledged and was later funded by the Frankfurt School.

Benjamin was born in Berlin in 1892 and was the first of three children, born to Jewish parents. His father was a 'Kaufmann' dealer who made considerable fortune trading antiques and art (Leslie, 2007, p.14). This introduced Benjamin to art and its aesthetic qualities and reproduction which he went on to write about in his later essays. Throughout World War II Benjamin had joined a Jewish refugee group and fled from Germany to France with the intentions of relocation to the USA. He eventually acquired entry to the USA and travelled through Spain where he ultimately committed suicide, in 1940, after learning that Spanish entry visas had been invalidated (meaning the tall refugees fleeing from France we're to be sent back to Nazi Germany).

Throughout his life, he made considerable contibutions to German philosophy and cultural cliques including aesthetic theories and Western Marxism, In his pondering essay, 'The Author as Producer' (1934), the theories prosed and alternative question (to that which Marxis criticism has traditionally addressed). Art, like any other form of production ,depends upon certain techniques of proaction - methods of painting, publishing, presentation and so on. These are all productive forces of art and they involve a set of social relations  between the artistic producer and the audience (Eagleton, 2002, p.57).

In Paris during the 1930s, Benjamin's writing recognised progressive aspects in new technologies of cultural production such as photography, film and radio (Kellner, n.d.). In 1936, in 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', Benjamin writes, on the reproduction of an artwork, that"even the most perfect reproduction... is lacking in one element: its present in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be". In saying this, Benjamin is also referencing the devaluing of an artwork as an original product through reproduction. The reproduction can try, but will never be, a 'copy', but rather an imitation. Te original exists in a time and space and is relevant to red artistic producer and the audience through methods of artistic communication and presentation. Take a copy of imitation of an artwork, and the intentions of the artist are lost; the imitation is not related to the artist and audience in time and space.]]> 2018-02-05 11:28:01 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228051564 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228055173 Pop Art "...is an American phenomenon that departs from cliche of big, bold, raw America that became current with Abstract Expressionism" (Lippard, 1970, p.9). Born twice, Pop developed first in England and then again, independently, in New York. The era of Pop Art emanated with distinct fusions of Pop culture (Lichtenstein's comic strips) and modern materials (Warhol's silk screens) which evolved into the punk-graffiti postmodern art forms of the 1970s. Post World War II, Abstract Expressionism remained outstandingly important and into the 1960s, Dada simultaneously returned full force. Pop art employed elements of mass culture; advertising; comic books and mundane cultural objects. Similarly to Dadaism, it applied foud objects and images (Piper, 1994, p.486-487) and not only related to, but also appealed to societies through popular culture. In her book about Pop Art, Lippart admits to only five hard-core Pop artists in New York (Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist, and Claes Oldenburg) with a few more on the West Coast and in England.]]> 2018-02-05 11:41:04 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228055173 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228056355 "They all employ more or less hard-edge, commercial techniques and colours to convey their unmistakably popular, representational images, but what they do stylistically with these characteristics is not necessarily similar" (1970, p.69).]]> 2018-02-05 11:45:20 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228056355 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228056615 The subject of Pop art is the everyday icon or item. The audience was wide, its subject directly relative to the mainstream culture industry. Circulation and distribution was extensive and the artworks were recognised fro their subject matter, bn old striking colours and refreshing style. Man might make an occasional appearance in Pop canvases but only as a robot remotely controlled by the Consumers' Index, or as a sentimentalised parody of the ideal (Lippard, 1970, p.9). Famous and popular faces that society followed and worshiped were present in the works of Pop artists however were not presented int eh same was as a traditionally figurative piece. The figure was repeated and manipulated so many times that it became a logo, an image. "...Pop is a hybrid, the product of two abstraction-dominated decades, and, as such, is the heir to an abstract rather than figurative tradition" (Lippard, 1970, p.9). Oldenburg, among other Pop artists, turned to the street and subsequently to the world of mass production and consumption (Rorminer, 2001, p.31). Artworks were not only reproduced as the original but were changed and morphed into other products. The images of artworks were printed on objects and the artworks were eternalized.]]> 2018-02-05 11:46:33 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228056615 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228057797 "Not all artists... would be proud to see their work reproduced on mugs and slippers, but this is basically how they achieved immorality. Mass society has adopted these masterpieces and transformed them into advertising campaigns and merchandise. This is howhtey have become familiar, a public and everyday legacy" (Bonazzoli et al, 2014).]]> 2018-02-05 11:51:56 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228057797 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228058226 Merging mass production of the subject and mass production of the artwork, Pop Art's popularity soared and the audience morphed into a consumer market. Pop focused not eh obsessions of the consumer audience and with the new technologies of the time, reproduction and circulation was paramount. Some of the most well known works of Pop art are Campbell's Soup (1962) and Gold Marylin Monroe (1962) by Andy Warhol.]]> 2018-02-05 11:53:30 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228058226 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228058996 2018-02-05 11:56:18 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228058996 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228060666 Andrew Warhol, widely known as Andy Warhol, (1928-1987) was born in Pittsburgh, USA and was the fourth child of a working class family. His parents immigrated to the USA from Slovakia. His father worked in a coal mine and spent his life savings on Warhol's education at Carnegie Institute of Technology. Warhol attended the Institute in 1945 where he studied commercial art and majored in painting and drawing. Most of the courses he took prepared him for a career in commercial art, rater than fine art (Bourdin, 1991, p.21). Warhol befriended Phillip Pearlstein (another Pittsburgh artist) who had already had his work published in Life magazine.

By the time he had graduated Carnegie Institute of Technology, Warhol has his own renowned style of work. He was clearly influenced by Ben Shahn, a widely renowned artists of politico-social themes throughout the 1940s and 1950s, whose work was noted for its jumpy, energetic quality (Bourdin, 1991, p.24). As a regular churchgoer, Warhol was gunned down in 1968 by a Valerie Solanas, a radical feminist writer. After five days in hospital after the attempted assassination, the experience made him ever more religious. His metamorphasis into a Pop Artist was calculated and deliberate; everything in his life was carried out in order to stand out, right down to the wigs which he chose to wear on his head.

He practiced his theories of commercialisation on close friends and families and always made sure that nobody had ever used the same artists methods within commercialisation before him (Bourdin, 1991, p.21). He called his studio space The Factory perhaps referencing the automotive and machinelike quality of work. Typical of Pop Artists, his work was bold, colourful, different, controversial and above all, extremely popular.

The techniques he used were new and emerging. He "...began to use commercial silk-screen techniques of reproducing photographs on canvas" (Lippard, 1970, p.24) and "he made a career out of appropriating famous images and products in order to promote his own reputation" (Bourdon, 1991, p9). Warhol commodified his work to gain popularity and wealth. Aesthetics were not as important to Warhol as commodification and the use of culture industry for self promotion.]]> 2018-02-05 12:03:19 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228060666 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228063075 2018-02-05 12:13:17 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228063075 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228066823 2018-02-05 12:26:05 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228066823 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228067664 Warhol, a devout Christian who attended New York's Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer every Sunday, inherited his faith from his mother. His mother was a follower of the Uniate church, which is closer to Greek Orthodoxy than Roman Catholicism "in its veneration of icons and emphasis on a solemn ritualism that has been remained unchanged over centuries" (Bonazzoli et al, 2004, p.135). Warhol's friend Daniela Morera (date unknown) cited by Bonazzoli et al. (2014) wrote,]]> 2018-02-05 12:28:38 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228067664 nhmitchell91 https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228068375 "In some ways Warhol's Pop icons (Marilyn Monroe series in particular) are actually post-Byzantine icons, which they recall in the dimensions, their use of yellow and gold and the way the central image is made to stand out by the uniformity of the backdrop colour. The icons of Russo-Byzantine tradition are standardised to. They are hypnotic forms, beads of devotional rosary, in which each image allures to the others in a continuous production line of meaning. The flat surface of the icon is the threshold of passage from the visible to the invisible, from the plane of human reality to a more transcendent one."]]> 2018-02-05 12:30:44 UTC https://padlet.com/nhmitchell91/gu9ld83cpjdj/wish/228068375