Whaat is Whaam?
Whaam! is an art magazine that covers all things Pop Art. Pop Art an artistic movement that emerged in the 1950s in England, which reached its maturity in the 1960s in the USA. This movement emerged in the mid-twentieth century, in which artists incorporated common objects - comic books, cans of soup, newspapers and more - into their works. Pop Art sought to solidify the idea that art can be based on any source, and there is no hierarchy of culture to hinder that. It was established in two independent directions, first in London and then in the United States.
Pop Art in the UK: The Independent Group (IG), founded in London in 1952, is recognized as the precursor to the movement. The Independent Group analyzed, discussed, designed, built and assembled a rich material of highly significant works that explore contemporary culture. Using a variety of sources, including the pages of science fiction magazines, Jackson Pollock paintings, Hollywood films, the streets of London and modernist architecture, Grupo Independente created a radical approach to looking at and working with visual culture. The central themes of Britain's Pop Art were a reflection on consumption, the risks of power politics and nuclear policy, or the questioning of gender roles, themes that continue to concern us.
Pop Art in the US: A boom in the post-World War II economy led to higher wages and more leisure time, and mass production led to the creation of objects such as televisions, dishwashers and cars on an unprecedented scale. With the appearance of new technologies in print production, and the rise of the advertising industry, consumer goods were sold with the promise of satisfying their owners. With newfound wealth, mobility and free time, many Americans moved to the suburbs and television became the dominant media of the 1950s. Surrounded by the products of consumer culture, American Pop Art artists were inspired by what they saw and experienced living within that culture.
Pop Art is said to be the turning point from modernity to postmodernity in Western culture. One of the biggest differences between British and American pop art was that the British concentrated on a lighter tone and often tended to incorporate humor. American pop art, by contrast, was a product of incessant marketing that Americans tended to be subjected to. When talking about Pop Art, the first name that comes to mind is Andy Warhol! Warhol's influence was enormous, but there were many other American pop artists who led the way in Pop Art. It is at that moment that in addition to Warhol, pop artists names like Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist e Tom Wesselmann as the main representatives of Pop Art. Without a defined style, the works of these artists are fine-tuned for their simplified design, saturated colors, the use of common objects and everyday life. These artists make use of reproduction techniques that simulate mechanized work such as three-dimensional collages, serigraphy techniques to represent the impersonality of objects, thus producing mass art for consumption.
The influence of Pop Art in the World of Fashion
Since Pop Art emerged in the 1950s, it has gone hand in hand with the fashion industry. Rebellious against elitist values, Pop Art embraced mundane life experiences, introducing aspects of mass culture and bringing art closer to the new generation of Americans who were beginning to experience all the benefits of America's consumer paradise in post-war America. Yves Saint Laurent was the first designer to burst with the trend in her Fall / Winter collection when she launched the Mondrian dress in her collection entitled “Pop Art”, launched in 1966. Showing that fashion and art can unite, and that the result of this can be quite satisfactory.
Best Album Covers by Pop Artists
Pioneer Alex Steinweiss, New York, was an American graphic designer, considered the inventor of the record cover. When young artist Steinweiss joined Columbia Records and later served as artistic director in 1939, Alex changed the world of record covers forever! In the past, album covers were made of cardboard showing only the artist's name. In 1939, Steinweiss had the idea of coloring and designing the covers to make them more attractive. In his 30-year career, Steinweiss has designed more than 2,500 album covers. After Steinweiss, other artists came who ended up standing out: Jim Flora, David Stone Martin, S. Neil Fujita, and Reid Miles. Big Pop artists then started to get involved, which is when Warhol designed an Album cover for Aretha Franklin. Banksy once gave into commercial art, believe it or not, and created the album cover for Think Tank by Blur. Lichtenstein illustrated the cover of I Cry For You, by Bobby 'O'.
Sao Paulo is considered the Capital of Graffiti
Sao Paulo is the most influential Brazilian city in the global scenario, being considered the 14th most globalized city on the planet. Besides being the financial center of the South American continent, São Paulo is one of the most creative and culturally diverse cities in the world. Sao Paulo offers program options for all tastes. When the subject is art and culture then what is not lacking are places with the most diverse schedules. Today, the city is known as the Graffiti World Capital! Vila Madalena is known for its bohemian style, modernity, and also graphite, specifically Beco do Batman. But the Village, as locals like to call the neighborhood, also has street art in most streets protected from trees. Beco do Batman is covered in street art - The walls of the houses are composed of a mixture between the paint and the plants. In this alley, all graffiti is done after permission of the owner, entrance is at Harmonia Street and ends at Medeiros de Albuquerque Street. The story began in the 1980s, when a comic-book cartoon was found on the walls of the neighborhood. The event attracted students of arts, who began to make drawings of cubist and psychedelic influence in the walls of the Alley, forming the gallery of walls completely covered.
Abstract Art! Definition, Types, Characteristics and Objectives
Abstract Art is a non-objective art, which does not have an accurate representation of a visual reality, but uses Forms, Colors, Textures and Gesture Marks to achieve its effect. It was born at the beginning of the 20th century and was completely radical for its time. The modern abstract art that we know today can be attributed to impressionism, post-impressionism and cubism. All three helped to realize the idea that art might not be representative. The first artist to create abstract art as we know it was Wassily Kandinsky. He is often credited by historians as “The Father” of abstract art for creating paintings in floating, non-representational forms since 1912. His work brought abstraction to America during the Armory Show in 1913. The four types of abstract art include Sensitive or informal Abstractionism, Tachisme, Geometric Abstraction, and Action Painting.
Claes Oldenburg, Pop Artist Who Monumentalized the Everyday, Dies at 93
Claes Oldenburg, whose oversized sculptures of everyday objects made him one of the leading artists of the Pop art movement, died in his home on Monday at 93. He had been recovering from a fractured hip. Representatives for Paula Cooper Gallery and Pace Gallery, both of which represent Oldenburg, confirmed the news. Oldenburg, who often worked in collaboration with his late wife Coosje van Bruggen, made sculptures that raised objects as diverse as a nondescript light switch, a hamburger with a pickle on top, and a shuttlecock stood on its end to the status of high art. If spotted in the real word, none of these would be particularly big objects, but Oldenburg rendered them larger than life, literally, so that they loom over viewers heads.