History of Modern Art with Klaire
Explore Modern Art history including Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and other key Modernist art movements. Join artist and educator Klaire Lockheart as she examines famous artists and artwork through a 21st century intersectional feminist lens. Whether you’re an artist, student, or patron of the arts, you will hopefully learn something new about Modern Art.
Pop Art: Polkadots, Appropriation, and Kitsch
When Pop Art hit its peak in the 1960s, artists embraced polkadots, popular culture, and consumerism. If you’re curious about how soup cans and comics became fine art, join Klaire Lockheart as she shares the details of this Modernist art movement.
Artists and Artwork: Yayoi Kusama (Accumulation No. 1, Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show, Infinity Mirror Room [Phalli’s Field], All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins), Georgia O’Keeffe, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Andy Warhol (Campbell’s Soup Cans, Marilyn Diptych, Cow Wallpaper), Lynn Goldsmith, Claes Oldenburg and Patty Mucha (Soft Calendar for the Month of August), Coosje van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg (Spoonbridge and Cherry), and Roy Lichtenstein (Look Mickey, Drowning Girl)
Additional Topics: Appropriation, Intersectionality, Soft Sculpture, Jason Pargin (What the Hell Did I Just Read), Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg (“Avant-Garde and Kitsch”), Marilyn Monroe, Serigraphy, Comic Books, CMYK Printing, and Ben-Day Dots
Artists and Artwork: Yayoi Kusama (Accumulation No. 1, Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show, Infinity Mirror Room [Phalli’s Field], All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins), Georgia O’Keeffe, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Andy Warhol (Campbell’s Soup Cans, Marilyn Diptych, Cow Wallpaper), Lynn Goldsmith, Claes Oldenburg and Patty Mucha (Soft Calendar for the Month of August), Coosje van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg (Spoonbridge and Cherry), and Roy Lichtenstein (Look Mickey, Drowning Girl)
Additional Topics: Appropriation, Intersectionality, Soft Sculpture, Jason Pargin (What the Hell Did I Just Read), Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg (“Avant-Garde and Kitsch”), Marilyn Monroe, Serigraphy, Comic Books, CMYK Printing, and Ben-Day Dots
Transcript
Hello, my friends! You’re listening to the History of Modern Art with Klaire, an intersectional feminist examination of Modern Art, one art movement at a time. I’m your host Klaire Lockheart, and I’m so pleased that you could join me as I examine Pop Art. Whether you’re a student, artist, or a groovy patron of the arts, I hope you’ll find this episode informative.
[Music]
Despite the ubiquity of Pop Art, many contemporary viewers have a difficult time identifying or defining it. If you have a notion of what it is, but can’t quite articulate Pop Art, you are not alone. I have encountered many people who believe that Pop Art is a contemporary genre of art and it encompasses anything made with fluorescent colors, spray paint, or is fan art. I have also heard people define Pop Art as any art with bright colors that pop out at the viewer. However, like other Modern Art movements, Pop Art is tied to a specific time and place. Pop Art originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the mid-1950s and lasted through the 1960s. The name “Pop” comes from “popular culture,” and the artists involved in this movement were influenced by adversing and consumerism. They were inspired by banal objects and ephemeral experiences. Many of these artists also actively appropriated the imagery around them, and this emerges out of the culture appropriation committed by the Cubists and the readymades created by the Dadaists.
I want to illuminate that this art movement hit its peak during the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s-60s; however, the most prominent Pop Artists were white men because that is who had the most privilege, money, and power. This is why the most famous and expensive American artwork made during the Civil Rights era, unfortunately, ignores this important cultural shift in United States history. The traditional narrative of Modern Art as told by textbook authors, art institutions, and auction houses focuses almost exclusively on the artwork made by a small handful of cis-het white men, who lived in Paris or New York, often came from wealth, and had many connections to promote their work. Modernism was an art movement that declared itself to be universal and that everyone on the planet could understand it, but the truth is that a small homogenous group of people couldn’t possibly understand and represent everyone.
Artists from across the globe, from a variety of backgrounds, made art, but most of them were ignored by the Keepers of Modern Art. Yayoi Kusama is an artist who played an important role in the development of Pop Art in New York, but she was not included in the art history courses I took as an undergrad, and she wasn’t on my radar when I was in graduate school either. I first learned about her through friends, who inspired me watch to watch the 2018 documentary Kusama: Infinity, which I highly recommend. Yayoi Kusama was born into a rich family in Japan, but I want to highlight the importance of grasping intersectionality. People can experience privilege and disadvantage simultaneously. Kusama’s family was wealthy, which was a common attribute of many successful Modernists; however, she grew up in an abusive household. She also experienced discrimination due to her gender, and she experienced racism when she moved to the United States. She also grappled with mental illness.
Kusama was expected to grow up to become a traditional, submissive, wife, but she had bigger plans for herself. With encouragement from Georgia O’Keeffe, Kusama left Japan and moved to New York in 1958, which was barely a decade after the United States government forcibly imprisoned Japanese Americans in internment camps. The art world in mid-century New York regularly excluded women too, especially during the prominence of Abstract Expressionism. Regardless of these challenges, Kusama set to work in New York. She spent years sewing little organic doodads out of canvas, painting them, and creating sculptures and installations with the 3D forms. Sculpture is typically made of stone or metal, but the Dadaists, such as Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, selected everyday objects, doused them with their artistic intent, and brought them into the galleries. The Surrealists continued this tradition, and they made sculptures with alternative materials. This helped pave the way for Kusama to create her soft sculptures. In 1962, Kusama completed her 3D work titled Accumulation No. 1. This transformed chair is at the Museum of Modern Art, and it is completely covered with an infestation of white, soft, languid, hand-sewn, organic, canvas protrusions. If you view this piece and think that it looks like it came from What the Hell Did I Just Read by Jason Pargin, you wouldn’t be alone. Kusama said these scores of tubular shapes are phalluses, and so I think this fluffy armchair, complete with white fringe running along the bottom, does look like it belongs in the John and Dave series of surreal sci-fi comedy novels.
When Kusama debuted her phallic-covered furniture, some critics were horrified and shocked that a woman transformed domestic objects into art with masculine shapes. However, there were a handful of her peers who took notice of her work and drew inspiration from her art. Kusama states that many of these men saw her work, took her ideas, and this helped launch their careers. She was extremely upset to see these men gain fame and success for utilizing her innovations, while she did not receive the same amount of attention or financial gains. I’ll elaborate on these stories later, but I want to continue to focus on her work.
In 1964, Yayoi Kusama debuted Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show at the Gertrude Stein Gallery. This was an installation where she displayed a rowboat that was teeming with the phallic soft sculptures. Kusama made scores of the stuffed canvas lumps, which she attached to the outside of the boat, filled the inside with, and adhered to the oars. Additionally, she photographed the boat and covered the walls in the boat wallpaper. The next year, in 1965, she exhibited Infinity Mirror Room (Phalli’s Field). This installation was innovative because she created an immersive environment. The mirrors generated multiple reflections of the viewer, who became part of the artwork. Kusama made scores of soft thingamabobs to cover the floor. These phallic soft sculptures were white with red polkadots. Polkadots are a running theme in her work, and Kusama once said, “Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment. I become part of the eternal, and we obliterate ourselves in Love.”
Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to sell her Infinity Mirror Room, and she didn’t receive the attention she thought she deserved. Furthermore, another artist saw her room and created his own version, which made Kusama depressed. She noticed an upsetting pattern. She would create a work of art, but then a second artist would make something heavily inspired by Kusama’s idea. The second artist would then receive admiration and financial success while Kusama struggled. She said that after someone copied her mirror room, she experienced such severe depression that she tried to kill herself by jumping from a window. Fortunately, she landed on a bicycle and her suicide attempt was unsuccessful. Kusama later moved to Japan and decided to voluntarily live in a mental hospital, where she still lives now. While it is sad that she had to face so many obstacles, I am glad that she was able to prioritize her health and seek out the help she needed. If you are struggling with mental health, I hope that you can get the assistance you need too. The world is a better place because you’re here, and I want you to be healthy.
Despite the challenges Yayoi Kusama faced, she was finally able to receive the recognition she worked so hard to achieve. During the 21st century, her popularity has risen. Even though she had to struggle when she was younger, it’s nice to know that her artwork and dedication are finally paying off. There are many people who are willing to stand in line for over an hour just to experience one of her mirror rooms for only one minute. In 2016, she created All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins, which is a mirror room filled with glowing pumpkins covered in her trademark black polkadots. She had created many installations, paintings, and sculptures, which are displayed worldwide.
Stay tuned after the break, to learn about a few more popular Pop Artists - same Klaire-time, same Klaire-channel!
[Break]
The legend of Modern Art history promotes the narrative that all artists throughout time were striving to create the best, most innovative, truthful, transcendental art on the planet. The Keepers of Modernism will proclaim that a small, exclusive group of Abstract Expressionists in 1950s New York were geniuses, and their Action and Color Field Paintings were the pinnacle of human achievement! I’m not sure if my sarcasm is obvious enough, but I disagree with this narrative because the premise that Modernism included everyone and was self-evident is false. If these paintings were universal as the artists, art critics, and collectors claimed, then there would be no reason to take classes, attend lectures, or read books about Modern Art history. Furthermore, it would have been completely unnecessary for the United States government to pump millions of dollars through the Congress for Cultural Freedom in order to promote Abstract Expressionism during the Cold War.
I bring up Abstract Expressionism because Pop Art was a rebellion against it. Each generation of Modernists felt compelled to redefine art, rebel against the establishments, and try something new. The Abstract Expressionists and their cheerleaders were quite successful at convincing many people that their art was the best ever, to the point that I have seen people select small sections of loose brushstrokes in paintings by Rembrandt as evidence that even artists from the past were striving to develop complete abstraction. When Pop Art emerged, some of the heralds of Abstract Expressionism didn’t want to lose their power of authority. Critic Clement Greenberg wasn’t a fan of Pop Art and he didn’t think that it was new or innovative. Over a decade before Pop Art developed, Greenberg wrote “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” in order to praise abstraction and Picasso, and to demean anyone who made or liked representational art. I believe his point was that new art is vital because it can challenge audiences and develop culture, but the tone he took in this text is insulting to anyone who doesn’t agree with him or didn’t have the resources he had available. I also believe that not all artwork can be categorized as avant-garde or kitsch, and I find that dichotomy limiting.
Kitsch, at its core, isn’t bad. Kitsch is typically something that is easy to reproduce, cheap, and doesn’t require a lot of thought to enjoy. Tchotchkes, vapid prints, and unoriginal craft project are considered kitsch. Sometimes it’s fun to revel in all that is cheesy and tacky. Kitsch is kind of like junk food: it’s okay to indulge every now and then for fun, but it shouldn’t be the only thing we consume. There’s nothing wrong with buying a black velvet painting of a sad clown at a garage sale because it reminds you of an inside joke you have with your best friend, but that image isn’t going to challenge you or make you consider a new perspective. Art, as opposed to kitsch, isn’t simply decoration. Art, with a capital “A,” conveys a message, and often artists will strive to communicate with their viewers in order build empathy, make connections, or challenge society.
Some Pop Artists embraced kitsch, and they created art that addressed mass reproductions and consumer culture. Andy Warhol was an artist who began his career in design, but then transitioned into the art world. In 1962, he created 32 paintings of Campbell’s Soup Cans. Each 20x16 inch canvas depicts a different flavor of soup. The artist claimed that he chose to paint soup because he ate it for lunch every day, but many people saw his work as an extension of Dada because he brought a common image into the sanctity of the gallery space. When Warhol debuted these paintings, he only sold one. The gallery owner thought that the paintings would be better as a set, and he refunded the buyer’s money and cancelled all the pending sales so he could purchase the work for his own collection. He paid Warhol $1,000 for all the paintings, which is just a little under $9,000 when adjusted for inflation. People who bought Pop Art were investors, not collectors. They wanted to purchase art so they could resell it for a profit, and the person who bought Campbell’s Soup Cans sold the collection to the MoMA for $15 million which is equivalent to about $26 million in 2021. Fortunately, Warhol saw financial success during his lifetime, but it is just unfathomable that collectors earn more money from art than the actual artists. Therefore, if you want to invest in some art, purchase it from living artists. I have a few extra paintings you could buy, plus I’ll work on getting famous so you can resell the artwork for a ridiculous profit if you’d like.
In addition to making the original 32 paintings of soup cans, Warhol created prints of his work. He is best known for producing serigraphs, which is a fancy way of saying that he made silkscreen prints. His studio was called the Factory, and he was fascinated by mass reproductions. Serigraphy is my favorite type of printmaking to create, and I used this process to handprint the pattern on my Miss Art World South Dakota coronation gown. If you follow me on social media, you also might catch my occasional sales of handprinted fiber art. To create a serigraph, you begin with a black and white image printed on a clear transparency or you can rub oil on a piece of printed paper to make it translucent. Next, you take a mesh screen and coat it with emulsion, which is a substance that is light-sensitive. Then, you put the image on the screen and expose it to light. The light will make the clear areas stick the the screen, but the areas blocked by the black ink will wash away with a water rinse. After that, you can put the screen on top of paper or canvas and then use a squeegee to pull the ink over screen, which pushes the ink through the open fabric areas. Warhol made a breakthrough with printmaking in 1962 with a piece called Marilyn Diptych. A diptych is typically an altarpiece that is hinged at the center like a book, and Warhol’s artwork is composed of two large vertical canvases. Each canvas is just a few inches shy of 7 feet tall, and each surface features 25 portraits of Marilyn Monroe. These canvases are the Tate in London.
Andy Warhol created Marilyn Diptych shortly after Monroe died. After her tragic death, her photo was published everywhere; it was as though she was a consumer product. Warhol appropriated one of Marilyn Monroe’s headshots to create this work, and he often made work with pilfered images. In 2021, a judge ruled that a print Warhol made based off a photograph of Prince he swiped from Lynn Goldsmith was not transformative enough to be considered fair use. Some people are worried this ruling will be bad for artists, but honestly, if you’re an artist who wants to make something based off a photograph or image by another living artist, all you have to do is ask permission. The vast majority of the time, the person who made your inspiration will be flattered and say, “Yes,” as long as you credit them. Sometimes the original artist will ask for a fee if you sell the work. Very rarely, that person will say, “No,” but if they don’t want you use their work, why would you want to be inspired by it anyway?
To make Marilyn Diptych, Warhol printed Monroe’s face on the canvas with black ink using the silkscreen processes. He used this print as a guide for where to paint the gold background, the pink skin, the teal collar and eyeshadow, the red lips, and the yellow hair. Then, he printed the black outline on top of the painted areas. He completed the first canvas, but the second one only has the first ink layer. When his patrons visited his studio and saw the completed canvas next to the incomplete one, they asked him if they could display it as a diptych, and he agree that it was a good idea. Andy Warhol and his studio created more Marilyn Monroe silkscreens and lithographs, which is why this image is so abundant. I think it’s fun that Warhol was inspired by 1960s popular culture, which influenced his Pop Art, but his work was so popular that 50 years later his imagery is influencing current popular culture.
In 1966, Warhol created his Cow Wallpaper for an installation at the Leo Castelli Gallery. He silkscreened a big cow head onto wallpaper, and his exhibition was a success. However, do you recall the Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show by Yayoi Kusama two years earlier? Kusama claims that Warhol saw her boat wallpaper and copied her idea. She saw multiple men in New York create art that was heavily inspired by her, and it helped their careers, yet she did not receive attention until decades later.
I’ll share about an additional artist inspired by Kusama after the break.
[Break]
Another artist who was inspired by Kusama was Claes Oldenburg, and he was married to an artist named Patty Mucha at the time. Even though the traditional story of Pop Art focuses on men, I want to highlight the women because they were overlooked so often. Patty Mucha was born in Wisconsin, but when she was young she decided to travel to Paris because that’s where artists were supposed to go. She changed her mind and decided to go to New York instead. In an interview Mucha did for the Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project in 2015, she stated, “I got a job instantly because that’s what you could do in those days… Got a very small studio apartment for eleven dollars a week, if you can believe that. It was furnished [laughs]. Kitchen and everything. Eleven dollars a week. But those were those days.” $11 in 1957 is equivalent to almost $104 today, and I’m pleased to know that Mucha understands that housing used to be affordable in midcentury America, which is a different reality than it is today. The cheapest apartment I ever had was an unfurnished dump in rural South Dakota that had a dishwasher that constantly flooded the kitchen with rancid, stinky water. Adjusted for inflation, that apartment was over $650 a month. That’s a little bit more than $416 for a furnished apartment in New York, and my location certainly didn’t put me in a geographic location to network or advance my career. I have been advised that if I want to be a full-time artist I have to move to New York, Santa Fe, or Los Angeles. Honestly, I have never been able to move unless I had a job lined up beforehand. Since I spent over a decade teaching K-12 art, this means that I never even made enough to afford to live in the school districts where I worked. I cannot even remotely relate to the idea that I should move to New York without a steady income first. This is not a realistic expectation anymore. I wish I had a solution to circumnavigate this outdated requirement, but I don’t.
Let me focus again on Patty Mucha. After moving to New York, she met and married Claes Oldenburg. Even though she was an artist, like many other women during her time, her career took a backseat to her partner’s ambitions. Mucha stated, “It was really clear from the start that there was only room for one artist and he considered himself the artist. I very willingly accepted that because he was so powerful and wonderful as an artist.” In 1962, Oldenburg wanted to make soft sculptures, but Mucha was the person who physically assembled the work. She created Soft Calendar for the Month of August, which is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She made it out of canvas, which was filled with foam rubber. All the letters and numbers are squishy, white text, except the lefthand side because the Saturday are red numbers. When Yayoi Kusama reflected on Oldenburg’s work, she stated, “When he did a show that September, I was very surprised. If you looked around, it was all soft sculpture. There was a calendar, and they created numbers with soft sculpture. And then, his wife came over to me and said, ‘I’m sorry, Yaoi.’” The concept is quite different from Kusama’s work but the technique of filling sewn canvas, and then painting the shapes was very similar to the way Kusama created her soft sculptures.
When I first learned about Claes Oldenburg, I didn’t know that he didn’t actually make his sculptures. Like most viewers, I assumed the listed artist was the person who created the work. I saw an exhibition of his art at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis several years ago, and when I told friend about the show they asked me, “Don’t you know that his wife made all his work?” I did not, which is why I had to dig a little deeper to discover Mucha’s contributions. After Oldenburg and Mucha ended their relationship, Mucha moved to Vermont but said that they’re still friends.
Oldenburg’s next collaborator was Coosje van Bruggen, which reminds me that I need to apologize for any of the names I unintentionally mispronounce. The couple married in 1977, which was after Pop Art ended, but Oldenburg was a Pop Artist and his later work is still often categorized as such. In 1988, van Bruggen and Oldenburg revealed their colossal Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. This aluminum and steel sculpture is exactly was the title describes. It’s a huge silver spoon, 51 and a half feet long, with a massive red cherry perched on its end. I’m not sure if I’m sympathetic to Oldenburg because I am personally amused by his comical sculptures, or if I appreciate that Coosje van Bruggen is credited for their collaborations. I hope that Oldenburg experienced personal growth. Regardless, the sculptures van Bruggen and Oldenburg created impacted the way public art was made and perceived afterwards.
[Music]
I will confess that I didn’t appreciate Pop Art when I first encountered it, and it took some effort for me to see the value in it. This is why I empathize when others question why a select few Pop Artists received more fame and fortune than the artists they copied. Roy Lichtenstein became famous by creating large scale reproductions of comics. Pop Artists were interested in elevating the banal objects of everyday life, and reproducing comic panels on a large scale fit within this concept. Lichtenstein originally spent time making abstract art, but that didn’t impress his kids. One of his sons pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic, and challenged his father by asking, “I bet you can’t paint as good as that, eh, Dad?” Lichtenstein then created Look Mickey in 1961 only using primary colors, which are red, yellow, and blue. The painting is at the National Gallery of Art, and it provided a catalyst that launched his career. This painting is kind of okay for a junior high project, but he was one of the first people who came up with the idea of immortalizing a comic that was meant to be read and thrown away. I’m being critical because this painting has pretty sloppy craftsmanship, including visible pencil marks.
The aspect about Lichtenstein that I appreciate was that his paintings improved over time. It warms my cold, dead, teacher heart to see a person create better artwork as they learn. The most notable improvement with Lichtenstein’s work is his portrayal of Ben-Day dots. These are the tiny spots used in printmaking, which were invented by Benjamin Day in the 19th century. Ben-Day dots are use in CMYK printing. “C” is for cyan or blue. “M” is for magenta, which acts as red, and “Y” stands for yellow. “K” means “key,” which is the black ink. Ben-Day dots rely on the principal of optical mixing to create multiple colors. To create gray, for example, many minuscule black dots are printed on white paper. From a little bit of a distance, the black and white mixes in the viewer’s eyes and appears grey. When Roy Lichtenstein created the Ben-Day dots for Look Mickey, he dipped a dog grooming brush into the paint and stamped it to the canvas. The dots are way too small for the large canvas, but they imply the concept. By the time he made Drowning Girl in 1963, he increased the scale of the dots to be proportionate to the large canvas. Drowning Girl is about a 66 inch square. Lichtenstein copied an illustration from Secret Hearts, which was a sexist comic book targeted at girls to reinforce rigid gender roles. The image is of a woman’s head and left hand surrounded by churning light blue water. The subject thinks, “I don’t care! I’d rather sink - - than call Brad for Help!” Lichtenstein hired an assistant to create the Ben-Day dots for his compositions, and they used a metal stencil. The bigger dots make this painting more successful than his earlier work. The light blue areas are composed of tiny blue spots, and the small red dots painted on the white canvas make the protagonist’s skin appear pink. I used to think that the artist was criticizing the misogynistic sources he appropriated from because the panels he selected were so over the top and melodramatic. However, I must question my original interpretation because in 2017 Letty Eisenhauer, who was one of Lichtenstein’s former partners, stated “The crying girls are what he wanted women to be. He wanted to make you cry, and he did — he made me cry.” Lichtenstein frustrates me because I didn’t care for his work when I first encountered it, but I put forth a lot of effort to see the value in his paintings. Then, after all that work I find out that he wasn’t nice to the women in his life and his comic paintings were an extension of his mistreatment of women. I am completely fed up with giving famous artists a pass on basic human decency because the art world decided they were “special.”
While Pop Art was in its heyday, the artists who received the most attention and wealth were often men of European decent who lived in New York. They benefited from a long tradition stretching back hundreds of years that prioritized the work of men and limited opportunities for everyone else. Some of the most prominent artists included Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein. Even though there were women who created Pop Art in the 1950s-60s, such as Patty Mucha, they were often overlooked by galleries, curators, and historians. I specifically wanted to make sure that I included women artists to help correct this error from art history past, but I need to illuminate that this differs from many typical accounts of Pop Art. I can help improve the art history narrative, but I can’t make any big changes by myself. Together we can strive to be more aware of the lack of diversity in the art world and demand improvement from our local art institutions. At the very least, we can examine our personal art collections and attempt to buy artwork that speaks to us from a variety of artists we want to support. Yayoi Kusama exhibited her work in New York in the ‘60s, but she felt defeated when her peers who were men received the recognition she craved. Fortunately, she began to receive respect for her work in the 21st century. I wonder how many people who had the chance to purchase Kusama’s early work now have major regrets.
[Music]
Thank you so much for spending your time with me to learn about Pop Art. I hope you’ll join me next time for Postmodernism, which will be the last episode of this series. If you want to read this episode’s transcript, consult my resources, or support this podcast, please go to my website klairelockheart.com, spelled K-L-A-I-R-E-L-O-C-K-H-E-A-R-T dot com, and then go to the “Media” page. Find me on Instagram @klairelockheart to see my paintings and art studio, or you can follow me on Facebook by searching for Klaire A. Lockheart.
The History of Modern Art with Klaire was created by me, Klaire Lockheart. This podcast was recorded with equipment generously provided by Aaron C. Packard of Aaron C. Packard Productions. You can find his awesome artwork at aaronpackard.com, that’s A-A-R-O-N-P-A-C-K-A-R-D dot com. Furthermore, I truly appreciate those of you who have left positive reviews and shared this podcast with your friends. If you liked this episode, please follow or subscribe so you won’t miss the next topic. Thanks!
[Music]
Despite the ubiquity of Pop Art, many contemporary viewers have a difficult time identifying or defining it. If you have a notion of what it is, but can’t quite articulate Pop Art, you are not alone. I have encountered many people who believe that Pop Art is a contemporary genre of art and it encompasses anything made with fluorescent colors, spray paint, or is fan art. I have also heard people define Pop Art as any art with bright colors that pop out at the viewer. However, like other Modern Art movements, Pop Art is tied to a specific time and place. Pop Art originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the mid-1950s and lasted through the 1960s. The name “Pop” comes from “popular culture,” and the artists involved in this movement were influenced by adversing and consumerism. They were inspired by banal objects and ephemeral experiences. Many of these artists also actively appropriated the imagery around them, and this emerges out of the culture appropriation committed by the Cubists and the readymades created by the Dadaists.
I want to illuminate that this art movement hit its peak during the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s-60s; however, the most prominent Pop Artists were white men because that is who had the most privilege, money, and power. This is why the most famous and expensive American artwork made during the Civil Rights era, unfortunately, ignores this important cultural shift in United States history. The traditional narrative of Modern Art as told by textbook authors, art institutions, and auction houses focuses almost exclusively on the artwork made by a small handful of cis-het white men, who lived in Paris or New York, often came from wealth, and had many connections to promote their work. Modernism was an art movement that declared itself to be universal and that everyone on the planet could understand it, but the truth is that a small homogenous group of people couldn’t possibly understand and represent everyone.
Artists from across the globe, from a variety of backgrounds, made art, but most of them were ignored by the Keepers of Modern Art. Yayoi Kusama is an artist who played an important role in the development of Pop Art in New York, but she was not included in the art history courses I took as an undergrad, and she wasn’t on my radar when I was in graduate school either. I first learned about her through friends, who inspired me watch to watch the 2018 documentary Kusama: Infinity, which I highly recommend. Yayoi Kusama was born into a rich family in Japan, but I want to highlight the importance of grasping intersectionality. People can experience privilege and disadvantage simultaneously. Kusama’s family was wealthy, which was a common attribute of many successful Modernists; however, she grew up in an abusive household. She also experienced discrimination due to her gender, and she experienced racism when she moved to the United States. She also grappled with mental illness.
Kusama was expected to grow up to become a traditional, submissive, wife, but she had bigger plans for herself. With encouragement from Georgia O’Keeffe, Kusama left Japan and moved to New York in 1958, which was barely a decade after the United States government forcibly imprisoned Japanese Americans in internment camps. The art world in mid-century New York regularly excluded women too, especially during the prominence of Abstract Expressionism. Regardless of these challenges, Kusama set to work in New York. She spent years sewing little organic doodads out of canvas, painting them, and creating sculptures and installations with the 3D forms. Sculpture is typically made of stone or metal, but the Dadaists, such as Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, selected everyday objects, doused them with their artistic intent, and brought them into the galleries. The Surrealists continued this tradition, and they made sculptures with alternative materials. This helped pave the way for Kusama to create her soft sculptures. In 1962, Kusama completed her 3D work titled Accumulation No. 1. This transformed chair is at the Museum of Modern Art, and it is completely covered with an infestation of white, soft, languid, hand-sewn, organic, canvas protrusions. If you view this piece and think that it looks like it came from What the Hell Did I Just Read by Jason Pargin, you wouldn’t be alone. Kusama said these scores of tubular shapes are phalluses, and so I think this fluffy armchair, complete with white fringe running along the bottom, does look like it belongs in the John and Dave series of surreal sci-fi comedy novels.
When Kusama debuted her phallic-covered furniture, some critics were horrified and shocked that a woman transformed domestic objects into art with masculine shapes. However, there were a handful of her peers who took notice of her work and drew inspiration from her art. Kusama states that many of these men saw her work, took her ideas, and this helped launch their careers. She was extremely upset to see these men gain fame and success for utilizing her innovations, while she did not receive the same amount of attention or financial gains. I’ll elaborate on these stories later, but I want to continue to focus on her work.
In 1964, Yayoi Kusama debuted Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show at the Gertrude Stein Gallery. This was an installation where she displayed a rowboat that was teeming with the phallic soft sculptures. Kusama made scores of the stuffed canvas lumps, which she attached to the outside of the boat, filled the inside with, and adhered to the oars. Additionally, she photographed the boat and covered the walls in the boat wallpaper. The next year, in 1965, she exhibited Infinity Mirror Room (Phalli’s Field). This installation was innovative because she created an immersive environment. The mirrors generated multiple reflections of the viewer, who became part of the artwork. Kusama made scores of soft thingamabobs to cover the floor. These phallic soft sculptures were white with red polkadots. Polkadots are a running theme in her work, and Kusama once said, “Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment. I become part of the eternal, and we obliterate ourselves in Love.”
Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to sell her Infinity Mirror Room, and she didn’t receive the attention she thought she deserved. Furthermore, another artist saw her room and created his own version, which made Kusama depressed. She noticed an upsetting pattern. She would create a work of art, but then a second artist would make something heavily inspired by Kusama’s idea. The second artist would then receive admiration and financial success while Kusama struggled. She said that after someone copied her mirror room, she experienced such severe depression that she tried to kill herself by jumping from a window. Fortunately, she landed on a bicycle and her suicide attempt was unsuccessful. Kusama later moved to Japan and decided to voluntarily live in a mental hospital, where she still lives now. While it is sad that she had to face so many obstacles, I am glad that she was able to prioritize her health and seek out the help she needed. If you are struggling with mental health, I hope that you can get the assistance you need too. The world is a better place because you’re here, and I want you to be healthy.
Despite the challenges Yayoi Kusama faced, she was finally able to receive the recognition she worked so hard to achieve. During the 21st century, her popularity has risen. Even though she had to struggle when she was younger, it’s nice to know that her artwork and dedication are finally paying off. There are many people who are willing to stand in line for over an hour just to experience one of her mirror rooms for only one minute. In 2016, she created All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins, which is a mirror room filled with glowing pumpkins covered in her trademark black polkadots. She had created many installations, paintings, and sculptures, which are displayed worldwide.
Stay tuned after the break, to learn about a few more popular Pop Artists - same Klaire-time, same Klaire-channel!
[Break]
The legend of Modern Art history promotes the narrative that all artists throughout time were striving to create the best, most innovative, truthful, transcendental art on the planet. The Keepers of Modernism will proclaim that a small, exclusive group of Abstract Expressionists in 1950s New York were geniuses, and their Action and Color Field Paintings were the pinnacle of human achievement! I’m not sure if my sarcasm is obvious enough, but I disagree with this narrative because the premise that Modernism included everyone and was self-evident is false. If these paintings were universal as the artists, art critics, and collectors claimed, then there would be no reason to take classes, attend lectures, or read books about Modern Art history. Furthermore, it would have been completely unnecessary for the United States government to pump millions of dollars through the Congress for Cultural Freedom in order to promote Abstract Expressionism during the Cold War.
I bring up Abstract Expressionism because Pop Art was a rebellion against it. Each generation of Modernists felt compelled to redefine art, rebel against the establishments, and try something new. The Abstract Expressionists and their cheerleaders were quite successful at convincing many people that their art was the best ever, to the point that I have seen people select small sections of loose brushstrokes in paintings by Rembrandt as evidence that even artists from the past were striving to develop complete abstraction. When Pop Art emerged, some of the heralds of Abstract Expressionism didn’t want to lose their power of authority. Critic Clement Greenberg wasn’t a fan of Pop Art and he didn’t think that it was new or innovative. Over a decade before Pop Art developed, Greenberg wrote “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” in order to praise abstraction and Picasso, and to demean anyone who made or liked representational art. I believe his point was that new art is vital because it can challenge audiences and develop culture, but the tone he took in this text is insulting to anyone who doesn’t agree with him or didn’t have the resources he had available. I also believe that not all artwork can be categorized as avant-garde or kitsch, and I find that dichotomy limiting.
Kitsch, at its core, isn’t bad. Kitsch is typically something that is easy to reproduce, cheap, and doesn’t require a lot of thought to enjoy. Tchotchkes, vapid prints, and unoriginal craft project are considered kitsch. Sometimes it’s fun to revel in all that is cheesy and tacky. Kitsch is kind of like junk food: it’s okay to indulge every now and then for fun, but it shouldn’t be the only thing we consume. There’s nothing wrong with buying a black velvet painting of a sad clown at a garage sale because it reminds you of an inside joke you have with your best friend, but that image isn’t going to challenge you or make you consider a new perspective. Art, as opposed to kitsch, isn’t simply decoration. Art, with a capital “A,” conveys a message, and often artists will strive to communicate with their viewers in order build empathy, make connections, or challenge society.
Some Pop Artists embraced kitsch, and they created art that addressed mass reproductions and consumer culture. Andy Warhol was an artist who began his career in design, but then transitioned into the art world. In 1962, he created 32 paintings of Campbell’s Soup Cans. Each 20x16 inch canvas depicts a different flavor of soup. The artist claimed that he chose to paint soup because he ate it for lunch every day, but many people saw his work as an extension of Dada because he brought a common image into the sanctity of the gallery space. When Warhol debuted these paintings, he only sold one. The gallery owner thought that the paintings would be better as a set, and he refunded the buyer’s money and cancelled all the pending sales so he could purchase the work for his own collection. He paid Warhol $1,000 for all the paintings, which is just a little under $9,000 when adjusted for inflation. People who bought Pop Art were investors, not collectors. They wanted to purchase art so they could resell it for a profit, and the person who bought Campbell’s Soup Cans sold the collection to the MoMA for $15 million which is equivalent to about $26 million in 2021. Fortunately, Warhol saw financial success during his lifetime, but it is just unfathomable that collectors earn more money from art than the actual artists. Therefore, if you want to invest in some art, purchase it from living artists. I have a few extra paintings you could buy, plus I’ll work on getting famous so you can resell the artwork for a ridiculous profit if you’d like.
In addition to making the original 32 paintings of soup cans, Warhol created prints of his work. He is best known for producing serigraphs, which is a fancy way of saying that he made silkscreen prints. His studio was called the Factory, and he was fascinated by mass reproductions. Serigraphy is my favorite type of printmaking to create, and I used this process to handprint the pattern on my Miss Art World South Dakota coronation gown. If you follow me on social media, you also might catch my occasional sales of handprinted fiber art. To create a serigraph, you begin with a black and white image printed on a clear transparency or you can rub oil on a piece of printed paper to make it translucent. Next, you take a mesh screen and coat it with emulsion, which is a substance that is light-sensitive. Then, you put the image on the screen and expose it to light. The light will make the clear areas stick the the screen, but the areas blocked by the black ink will wash away with a water rinse. After that, you can put the screen on top of paper or canvas and then use a squeegee to pull the ink over screen, which pushes the ink through the open fabric areas. Warhol made a breakthrough with printmaking in 1962 with a piece called Marilyn Diptych. A diptych is typically an altarpiece that is hinged at the center like a book, and Warhol’s artwork is composed of two large vertical canvases. Each canvas is just a few inches shy of 7 feet tall, and each surface features 25 portraits of Marilyn Monroe. These canvases are the Tate in London.
Andy Warhol created Marilyn Diptych shortly after Monroe died. After her tragic death, her photo was published everywhere; it was as though she was a consumer product. Warhol appropriated one of Marilyn Monroe’s headshots to create this work, and he often made work with pilfered images. In 2021, a judge ruled that a print Warhol made based off a photograph of Prince he swiped from Lynn Goldsmith was not transformative enough to be considered fair use. Some people are worried this ruling will be bad for artists, but honestly, if you’re an artist who wants to make something based off a photograph or image by another living artist, all you have to do is ask permission. The vast majority of the time, the person who made your inspiration will be flattered and say, “Yes,” as long as you credit them. Sometimes the original artist will ask for a fee if you sell the work. Very rarely, that person will say, “No,” but if they don’t want you use their work, why would you want to be inspired by it anyway?
To make Marilyn Diptych, Warhol printed Monroe’s face on the canvas with black ink using the silkscreen processes. He used this print as a guide for where to paint the gold background, the pink skin, the teal collar and eyeshadow, the red lips, and the yellow hair. Then, he printed the black outline on top of the painted areas. He completed the first canvas, but the second one only has the first ink layer. When his patrons visited his studio and saw the completed canvas next to the incomplete one, they asked him if they could display it as a diptych, and he agree that it was a good idea. Andy Warhol and his studio created more Marilyn Monroe silkscreens and lithographs, which is why this image is so abundant. I think it’s fun that Warhol was inspired by 1960s popular culture, which influenced his Pop Art, but his work was so popular that 50 years later his imagery is influencing current popular culture.
In 1966, Warhol created his Cow Wallpaper for an installation at the Leo Castelli Gallery. He silkscreened a big cow head onto wallpaper, and his exhibition was a success. However, do you recall the Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show by Yayoi Kusama two years earlier? Kusama claims that Warhol saw her boat wallpaper and copied her idea. She saw multiple men in New York create art that was heavily inspired by her, and it helped their careers, yet she did not receive attention until decades later.
I’ll share about an additional artist inspired by Kusama after the break.
[Break]
Another artist who was inspired by Kusama was Claes Oldenburg, and he was married to an artist named Patty Mucha at the time. Even though the traditional story of Pop Art focuses on men, I want to highlight the women because they were overlooked so often. Patty Mucha was born in Wisconsin, but when she was young she decided to travel to Paris because that’s where artists were supposed to go. She changed her mind and decided to go to New York instead. In an interview Mucha did for the Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project in 2015, she stated, “I got a job instantly because that’s what you could do in those days… Got a very small studio apartment for eleven dollars a week, if you can believe that. It was furnished [laughs]. Kitchen and everything. Eleven dollars a week. But those were those days.” $11 in 1957 is equivalent to almost $104 today, and I’m pleased to know that Mucha understands that housing used to be affordable in midcentury America, which is a different reality than it is today. The cheapest apartment I ever had was an unfurnished dump in rural South Dakota that had a dishwasher that constantly flooded the kitchen with rancid, stinky water. Adjusted for inflation, that apartment was over $650 a month. That’s a little bit more than $416 for a furnished apartment in New York, and my location certainly didn’t put me in a geographic location to network or advance my career. I have been advised that if I want to be a full-time artist I have to move to New York, Santa Fe, or Los Angeles. Honestly, I have never been able to move unless I had a job lined up beforehand. Since I spent over a decade teaching K-12 art, this means that I never even made enough to afford to live in the school districts where I worked. I cannot even remotely relate to the idea that I should move to New York without a steady income first. This is not a realistic expectation anymore. I wish I had a solution to circumnavigate this outdated requirement, but I don’t.
Let me focus again on Patty Mucha. After moving to New York, she met and married Claes Oldenburg. Even though she was an artist, like many other women during her time, her career took a backseat to her partner’s ambitions. Mucha stated, “It was really clear from the start that there was only room for one artist and he considered himself the artist. I very willingly accepted that because he was so powerful and wonderful as an artist.” In 1962, Oldenburg wanted to make soft sculptures, but Mucha was the person who physically assembled the work. She created Soft Calendar for the Month of August, which is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She made it out of canvas, which was filled with foam rubber. All the letters and numbers are squishy, white text, except the lefthand side because the Saturday are red numbers. When Yayoi Kusama reflected on Oldenburg’s work, she stated, “When he did a show that September, I was very surprised. If you looked around, it was all soft sculpture. There was a calendar, and they created numbers with soft sculpture. And then, his wife came over to me and said, ‘I’m sorry, Yaoi.’” The concept is quite different from Kusama’s work but the technique of filling sewn canvas, and then painting the shapes was very similar to the way Kusama created her soft sculptures.
When I first learned about Claes Oldenburg, I didn’t know that he didn’t actually make his sculptures. Like most viewers, I assumed the listed artist was the person who created the work. I saw an exhibition of his art at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis several years ago, and when I told friend about the show they asked me, “Don’t you know that his wife made all his work?” I did not, which is why I had to dig a little deeper to discover Mucha’s contributions. After Oldenburg and Mucha ended their relationship, Mucha moved to Vermont but said that they’re still friends.
Oldenburg’s next collaborator was Coosje van Bruggen, which reminds me that I need to apologize for any of the names I unintentionally mispronounce. The couple married in 1977, which was after Pop Art ended, but Oldenburg was a Pop Artist and his later work is still often categorized as such. In 1988, van Bruggen and Oldenburg revealed their colossal Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. This aluminum and steel sculpture is exactly was the title describes. It’s a huge silver spoon, 51 and a half feet long, with a massive red cherry perched on its end. I’m not sure if I’m sympathetic to Oldenburg because I am personally amused by his comical sculptures, or if I appreciate that Coosje van Bruggen is credited for their collaborations. I hope that Oldenburg experienced personal growth. Regardless, the sculptures van Bruggen and Oldenburg created impacted the way public art was made and perceived afterwards.
[Music]
I will confess that I didn’t appreciate Pop Art when I first encountered it, and it took some effort for me to see the value in it. This is why I empathize when others question why a select few Pop Artists received more fame and fortune than the artists they copied. Roy Lichtenstein became famous by creating large scale reproductions of comics. Pop Artists were interested in elevating the banal objects of everyday life, and reproducing comic panels on a large scale fit within this concept. Lichtenstein originally spent time making abstract art, but that didn’t impress his kids. One of his sons pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic, and challenged his father by asking, “I bet you can’t paint as good as that, eh, Dad?” Lichtenstein then created Look Mickey in 1961 only using primary colors, which are red, yellow, and blue. The painting is at the National Gallery of Art, and it provided a catalyst that launched his career. This painting is kind of okay for a junior high project, but he was one of the first people who came up with the idea of immortalizing a comic that was meant to be read and thrown away. I’m being critical because this painting has pretty sloppy craftsmanship, including visible pencil marks.
The aspect about Lichtenstein that I appreciate was that his paintings improved over time. It warms my cold, dead, teacher heart to see a person create better artwork as they learn. The most notable improvement with Lichtenstein’s work is his portrayal of Ben-Day dots. These are the tiny spots used in printmaking, which were invented by Benjamin Day in the 19th century. Ben-Day dots are use in CMYK printing. “C” is for cyan or blue. “M” is for magenta, which acts as red, and “Y” stands for yellow. “K” means “key,” which is the black ink. Ben-Day dots rely on the principal of optical mixing to create multiple colors. To create gray, for example, many minuscule black dots are printed on white paper. From a little bit of a distance, the black and white mixes in the viewer’s eyes and appears grey. When Roy Lichtenstein created the Ben-Day dots for Look Mickey, he dipped a dog grooming brush into the paint and stamped it to the canvas. The dots are way too small for the large canvas, but they imply the concept. By the time he made Drowning Girl in 1963, he increased the scale of the dots to be proportionate to the large canvas. Drowning Girl is about a 66 inch square. Lichtenstein copied an illustration from Secret Hearts, which was a sexist comic book targeted at girls to reinforce rigid gender roles. The image is of a woman’s head and left hand surrounded by churning light blue water. The subject thinks, “I don’t care! I’d rather sink - - than call Brad for Help!” Lichtenstein hired an assistant to create the Ben-Day dots for his compositions, and they used a metal stencil. The bigger dots make this painting more successful than his earlier work. The light blue areas are composed of tiny blue spots, and the small red dots painted on the white canvas make the protagonist’s skin appear pink. I used to think that the artist was criticizing the misogynistic sources he appropriated from because the panels he selected were so over the top and melodramatic. However, I must question my original interpretation because in 2017 Letty Eisenhauer, who was one of Lichtenstein’s former partners, stated “The crying girls are what he wanted women to be. He wanted to make you cry, and he did — he made me cry.” Lichtenstein frustrates me because I didn’t care for his work when I first encountered it, but I put forth a lot of effort to see the value in his paintings. Then, after all that work I find out that he wasn’t nice to the women in his life and his comic paintings were an extension of his mistreatment of women. I am completely fed up with giving famous artists a pass on basic human decency because the art world decided they were “special.”
While Pop Art was in its heyday, the artists who received the most attention and wealth were often men of European decent who lived in New York. They benefited from a long tradition stretching back hundreds of years that prioritized the work of men and limited opportunities for everyone else. Some of the most prominent artists included Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein. Even though there were women who created Pop Art in the 1950s-60s, such as Patty Mucha, they were often overlooked by galleries, curators, and historians. I specifically wanted to make sure that I included women artists to help correct this error from art history past, but I need to illuminate that this differs from many typical accounts of Pop Art. I can help improve the art history narrative, but I can’t make any big changes by myself. Together we can strive to be more aware of the lack of diversity in the art world and demand improvement from our local art institutions. At the very least, we can examine our personal art collections and attempt to buy artwork that speaks to us from a variety of artists we want to support. Yayoi Kusama exhibited her work in New York in the ‘60s, but she felt defeated when her peers who were men received the recognition she craved. Fortunately, she began to receive respect for her work in the 21st century. I wonder how many people who had the chance to purchase Kusama’s early work now have major regrets.
[Music]
Thank you so much for spending your time with me to learn about Pop Art. I hope you’ll join me next time for Postmodernism, which will be the last episode of this series. If you want to read this episode’s transcript, consult my resources, or support this podcast, please go to my website klairelockheart.com, spelled K-L-A-I-R-E-L-O-C-K-H-E-A-R-T dot com, and then go to the “Media” page. Find me on Instagram @klairelockheart to see my paintings and art studio, or you can follow me on Facebook by searching for Klaire A. Lockheart.
The History of Modern Art with Klaire was created by me, Klaire Lockheart. This podcast was recorded with equipment generously provided by Aaron C. Packard of Aaron C. Packard Productions. You can find his awesome artwork at aaronpackard.com, that’s A-A-R-O-N-P-A-C-K-A-R-D dot com. Furthermore, I truly appreciate those of you who have left positive reviews and shared this podcast with your friends. If you liked this episode, please follow or subscribe so you won’t miss the next topic. Thanks!
Resources
Loney Abrams, “Pop Art Ripoffs: The 3 Yayoi Kusama Artworks That Warhol, Oldenburg, and Samaras Copied in the ‘60s,” Artspace, September 15, 2018, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/close_look/pop-art-ripoffs-the-3-yayoi-kusama-artworks-that-warhol-oldenburg-and-samaras-copied-in-the-60s-55636
Torey Akers, “Anatomy of an Artwork ‘Marilyn Diptych, 1962’ by Andy Warhol,” Artspace, March 12, 2020, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/in_depth/anatomy-of-an-artwork-marilyn-diptych-1962-by-andy-warhol-56500
Greg Allen, “The Kusama Industrial Complex: How Yayoi Kusama Came to Captivate the World, Fueling Museums and the Market,” ARTnews, July 21, 2020, https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/yayoi-kusama-museum-favorite-art-market-rise-1202694918/
Avis Berman, “Biography,” Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, https://lichtensteinfoundation.org/biographyold/
David Brancaccio, Rose Conlon, and Daniel Shin, “What does Warhol “fair use” ruling mean for artists and copyrights?” Marketplace, April 09, 2021, https://www.marketplace.org/2021/04/09/what-does-warhol-fair-use-ruling-mean-artists-copyrights/
Abigail Cain, “An L.A. Gallerist Bought Out Warhol’s First Painting Show for $1,000—and Ended Up with $15 Million,” Artsy, June 27, 2017, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-la-gallerist-bought-warhols-first-painting-1-000-ended-15-million
Meghna Chakrabarti, “Women In Pop Art Subvert Stereotypes,” WBUR, March 28, 2011, https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2011/03/28/women-pop-art
“Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen,” Guggenheim, https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/claes-oldenburg-and-coosje-van-bruggen
Katelyn Davis, “Yayoi Kusama Artist Overview and Analysis,” Art Story, April 18, 2017, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kusama-yayoi/
Michael Findlay, The Value of Art. (New York: Prestel, 2014).
Anne Galloway, “Vermont Artist Recalls Life With Claes Oldenburg and Presents Her Own Work,” Seven Days, July 22, 2009, https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/vermont-artist-recalls-life-with-claes-oldenburg-and-presents-her-own-work/Content?oid=2137810
Salomé Gómez-Upegui, “Yayoi Kusama’s Fascination with Nature Is Crucial to Understanding Her Art,” Artsy, April 09, 2021, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-yayoi-kusamas-fascination-nature-crucial-understanding-art
Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 539-549.
Clement Greenberg, “Post Painterly Abstraction,” 1964.
Peter Kalb, ed., H. H. Arnason History of Modern Art, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, Inc, 2004).
Rosalind Krauss, “A View of Modernism,” in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 976-979.
Heather Lenz, Kusama: Infinity (2018; New York, Magnolia Pictures).
Kristy MacFarlane, “‘Machines of Suffering’: The Weeping Women of Art,” HASTA Magazine, October 18, 2017, http://www.hasta-standrews.com/features/2017/10/17/suffering-machines-the-weeping-women-of-art
Alessandra Nicifero, “The Reminiscences of Patty Mucha,” Columbia Center for Oral History Research Columbia University, 2015, http://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/sites/default/files/MUCHA_FINAL.pdf
Sam Phillips, …isms: Understanding Modern Art. (New York: Universe, 2013).
Cath Pound, “Yayoi Kusama’s extraordinary survival story,” BBC, September 26, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180925-yayoi-kusamas-extraordinary-survival-story
Alastair Sooke, “Was modern art a weapon of the CIA?” BBC, October 04, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia
Jessica Stewart, “6 Surprising Facts About Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein,” My Modern Met, November 17, 2019, https://mymodernmet.com/roy-lichtenstein/
Torey Akers, “Anatomy of an Artwork ‘Marilyn Diptych, 1962’ by Andy Warhol,” Artspace, March 12, 2020, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/in_depth/anatomy-of-an-artwork-marilyn-diptych-1962-by-andy-warhol-56500
Greg Allen, “The Kusama Industrial Complex: How Yayoi Kusama Came to Captivate the World, Fueling Museums and the Market,” ARTnews, July 21, 2020, https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/yayoi-kusama-museum-favorite-art-market-rise-1202694918/
Avis Berman, “Biography,” Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, https://lichtensteinfoundation.org/biographyold/
David Brancaccio, Rose Conlon, and Daniel Shin, “What does Warhol “fair use” ruling mean for artists and copyrights?” Marketplace, April 09, 2021, https://www.marketplace.org/2021/04/09/what-does-warhol-fair-use-ruling-mean-artists-copyrights/
Abigail Cain, “An L.A. Gallerist Bought Out Warhol’s First Painting Show for $1,000—and Ended Up with $15 Million,” Artsy, June 27, 2017, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-la-gallerist-bought-warhols-first-painting-1-000-ended-15-million
Meghna Chakrabarti, “Women In Pop Art Subvert Stereotypes,” WBUR, March 28, 2011, https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2011/03/28/women-pop-art
“Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen,” Guggenheim, https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/claes-oldenburg-and-coosje-van-bruggen
Katelyn Davis, “Yayoi Kusama Artist Overview and Analysis,” Art Story, April 18, 2017, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kusama-yayoi/
Michael Findlay, The Value of Art. (New York: Prestel, 2014).
Anne Galloway, “Vermont Artist Recalls Life With Claes Oldenburg and Presents Her Own Work,” Seven Days, July 22, 2009, https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/vermont-artist-recalls-life-with-claes-oldenburg-and-presents-her-own-work/Content?oid=2137810
Salomé Gómez-Upegui, “Yayoi Kusama’s Fascination with Nature Is Crucial to Understanding Her Art,” Artsy, April 09, 2021, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-yayoi-kusamas-fascination-nature-crucial-understanding-art
Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 539-549.
Clement Greenberg, “Post Painterly Abstraction,” 1964.
Peter Kalb, ed., H. H. Arnason History of Modern Art, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, Inc, 2004).
Rosalind Krauss, “A View of Modernism,” in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 976-979.
Heather Lenz, Kusama: Infinity (2018; New York, Magnolia Pictures).
Kristy MacFarlane, “‘Machines of Suffering’: The Weeping Women of Art,” HASTA Magazine, October 18, 2017, http://www.hasta-standrews.com/features/2017/10/17/suffering-machines-the-weeping-women-of-art
Alessandra Nicifero, “The Reminiscences of Patty Mucha,” Columbia Center for Oral History Research Columbia University, 2015, http://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/sites/default/files/MUCHA_FINAL.pdf
Sam Phillips, …isms: Understanding Modern Art. (New York: Universe, 2013).
Cath Pound, “Yayoi Kusama’s extraordinary survival story,” BBC, September 26, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180925-yayoi-kusamas-extraordinary-survival-story
Alastair Sooke, “Was modern art a weapon of the CIA?” BBC, October 04, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia
Jessica Stewart, “6 Surprising Facts About Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein,” My Modern Met, November 17, 2019, https://mymodernmet.com/roy-lichtenstein/