Post Pop: East Meets West

Pop Art has descended and taken over the Saatchi Gallery as 110 artists from China, the former Soviet Union, Taiwan, UK and the US, with 250 pieces of artwork. From what I know of Pop Art are of Roy Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol as well as ideas and conventions exploring celebrity culture and idea of becoming engulfed in images of mass consumerism. With the exhibition, it shows a whole different spectrum that branches from the Pop Art movement as it makes its way across the borders of the UK and US into areas further afield into the east. Saatchi is made up of divisional themes that make up the exhibition as a whole: Habitat, Advertising and Consumerism, Ideology and Religion, Sex and Body, Art History and Mass Media.

 

Starting off in Habitat, this section focusses on “man-made environments” and the “mass-produced artefacts within it”. One of the works that struck me was Ai Wei Wei’s Sofa in White from the offset it looked like a white leather armchair, but upon closer inspection proved to be marble. There are definitely images of the art conveying ideas of moving to newer models and the modern such as Bill Woodrow’s Hoover Breakdown. There are also images of destruction of a habitat in order to achieve modernisation from within our own homes which can be seen in Richard Wood’s Nature Making.

 

Ai Wei Wei's Sofa in White

Richard Wood's Nature Making

Irina Karina's Chapel

Gary Hume's Four Coloured Doors I

Bill Woodrow's Hoover Breakdown

Peter Halley's Prison

Peter Halley's Prison with Yellow Background

Michael Craig-Martin's Prick

Julian Opie's Modern Tower

Next section was Advertising and Consumerism with Pop Art coming up in all different shapes and forms with entertaining prospects. As expected, the works comes a whole continuum of colours shining through which very much would expect from advertising. Wang Guangyi’s Great Criticism: Benetton and Great Criticism: Swatch + Great Criticism: Pop used bold and minimalistic colours with empowering imagery to bring together the stringent opposition of socialism and consumerism. Works by Jeff Koons in this section such as Encased – Three Rows takes a humorous approach to the obsession of sport culture, especially behind American Basketball.

He An's I am Curious Yellow I am Curious Blue



Fong Mengbo's Long March: Restart

Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism: Swatch + Great Criticism: Pop

Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism: Benetton

Alexander Kosolapov's Icon Cavier

Julie Opie's View of Matsuzaki Bay in the Rain, from Route136

Jeff Koon's Encased - Three Rows

Jeff Koon's THree Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Two Spalding Shaq Attaq, One Spalding NBA Tip-Off)

Alexander Kosolapov's Lenin and Coca-Cola

Tom Sachs's Nutty's MacDonald's

Inga Svala Thorsdottir & Wu Shanzhuan's Showing China From Its Best Sides, Thing's Right(s)

The next section to follow was Ideology and Religion which compares the East with the West approach to Pop Art in religion. Countries such as Russia and China were challenged by ideals in their country which they used to address by growing from the stems built from western Pop Art. Alexander Kosolapov’s Hero, Leader, God sees Mickey Mouse hand-in-hand with revolutionist Lenin and religious figure Jesus Christ which I found to be powerful. Another art piece I was drawn to was Sergey Shutov’s Abacus which employs machine automated figures crouched in front of Anatoly Osmolovsky’s Bread Series 1 and Bread Series 3.

Gu Wanda's United Nations - Man and Space

David March's Die Harder

Alexander Kosolapov's Hero, Leader, God

Anatoly Osmolovsky's Bread Series 1 and Bread Series 3. Sergey's Shutov's Abacus

Recycle Group's The Letter F

The section on Sex and Body explores the cerebral and carnality of sex and engaging with the senses within different mediums, especially a look the embodiment of pornography in the internet age. Some art pieces are extremely graphic has you head more and more into the gallery which like sex can take on many. Moreover this section explores the senses through sex and the body on a plane of audio and visuals.

David March's Undressed

Julie Opie's This is Shahnoza

Gary Hume's American Tan

“Art History” explores the transcendence of pop art of how it grows and transform from the foundations built in the 50’s and 60’s. The section reconnoitres the move about “art being art” and if art can solely exist within a vacuum. You can definitely see some influences in most of the works in this section such as Luis Chan’s untitled works drawing inspiration from Richard Hamilton.

Ai WeiWei's Coloured

Boris Orlov - From the series "Additional Element"

Luis Chan - Untitled

Luis Chan - Untitled

Pave Pepperstein's Black Square and Campbell

Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro's Andy Warhol

Vitally Kumar & Alexander Melaimid's Post Art No. 1 (Warhol) and Post Art No. 2 (Lichtenstein)

Michael Craig-Martin's Untitled (Soup Can)

Rostislav Lebedev's A Dream Come True

Mike Bidlo's Not Warhol (Sixteen Silver Marilyn)

(Left - Right) Mike Bidlo's Not Warhol (Kellogg's Corn Flakes Box)
Mike Bidlo's Not Warhol (Brillo Soap Pads Box Pasadena Type)
Mike Bidlo's Not Warhol (Yellow Brillo Box [3 ¢ off])

Mike Bidlo's Not Warhol (Campbell's Soup Can, Chicken Gumbo Soup)

Mass Media is the next section which explores celebrity and popular culture through multiple streams of media. It goes without saying that that a lot of figures, characters and locations that will be instantly recognisable from the get-go like Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

Gary Hume's Michael

George Pusenkoff's Double Elvis (After Warhol)

David Mach's M & M

Keith Haring - Untitled, 1982

Daniel Arsham's Ash Eroded Toy Phone

Sergey Shekhovtsov's Singer

George Pusenkoff's Artnews after Andy

Valery Koshlyakov's Aphrodite

Xu Zhen (MadeIn Company)'s Spread B-047

Perception comes is prominent in this exhibition exploring upon our influence of familiarity, which can be built on our firm preconceptions and expectations. There is a continued theme that comes into the idea of an image solidified in the back of our minds may not leave room for alternative perspectives as we grow accustomed to it.

The exhibition started last year on the 26th November and will be ending on the 23rd February 2015. The whole gallery given the exception on the basement level is wholly based on the exhibition which makes it one of my favourite galleries to visit.