Andy Warhol and the Pop Aesthetic: Permanent Collection and Loans

Five early drawings and a classic screenprint of Mao Tse-tung by Andy Warhol anchor this exhibition of artists who were associated with the American pop art movement of the early 1960s. Drawn from the ASU Art Museum’s permanent collection with loans from private collections, the exhibition includes works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Tom Wesselman, Ed Ruscha, Robert Indiana and Roy Lichtenstein.

Pop art emerged as mass advertising and television became predominant forces in American life, accompanied by a heightened consumer culture. In 1962, Time reported that the average American was exposed to about 1,600 advertisements per day. Pop artists drew from new and pervasive sources of advertisements, billboards, comic books and mass produced items. Their hard-edged and brightly colored works represented a radical shift in American art from the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s who drew upon their own subconscious for their expressive abstract or figurative paintings. 

Pop art was largely concerned with the way the individual processed all of this information, its universality and its impact upon values. Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein pull the imagery and even the techniques at random, disassociating the image from its original meaning. Other artists, like James Rosenquist or Tom Wesselman, selected, juxtaposed or manipulated media images for more obvious social and political commentary.

Artists in the Exhibition

Artists represented in the exhibition include: Alfredo Manzo Cedeno, Roy DeForest, James Dine, Vernon Fisher, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Edward Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann and William Wiley.

Media Contact:
Jennifer Pringle
480-965-8795
jennifer.pringle@asu.edu