1
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:11,920
In 1963, Andy Warhol, pop art's most
controversial figure, armed himself

2
00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:16,120
with his new Bolex camera
and set off on an epic road trip

3
00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:20,400
from New York to
a city 2,500 miles away...

4
00:00:22,080 --> 00:00:23,280
..LA.

5
00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:28,000
MUSIC: Walk Like A Man by
Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons

6
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:33,240
Warhol wrote about his journey
later and he said,

7
00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:37,200
"It was the most exciting thing
that had ever happened to me.

8
00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:40,920
"The further west we drove,
the more pop everything looked.

9
00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:44,880
"We were seeing the future
and we knew it for sure."

10
00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:52,760
Inspired by the billboards,

11
00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:57,000
signs and advertisements now
littering the American landscape,

12
00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,800
Warhol and his fellow pop artists

13
00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:04,320
created some of the most memorable
images of the 20th century.

14
00:01:04,320 --> 00:01:08,600
But in those early years, not
everybody found pop irresistible.

15
00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:16,040
Warhol embodied everything

16
00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:19,960
that the critics found
so repellent about pop art.

17
00:01:19,960 --> 00:01:22,520
It wasn't just his art,
it was his personality

18
00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:24,640
that appeared so trivial,
so shallow,

19
00:01:24,640 --> 00:01:27,040
naively obsessed
with these celebrities

20
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:30,040
and infatuated with
banal consumer goods.

21
00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:35,600
With its processed food,
platinum pin-ups

22
00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:37,920
and weeping comic book heroines,

23
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:42,720
pop appeared to do little more than
copy tawdry commercial sources.

24
00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:46,560
To critics,
it was an outright betrayal

25
00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:49,200
of the brainy tradition
of modern art.

26
00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:55,640
In short, pop seemed tacky
and lightweight - a vacuous fad.

27
00:01:56,920 --> 00:01:59,800
But, in fact,
for all its look-at-me glamour

28
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:04,640
and cartoonish surfaces, pop offered
modern art to the masses,

29
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:08,840
using the lessons of advertising
to sell a far more ambiguous,

30
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:12,680
often critical portrait
of the dawning consumer age.

31
00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:17,000
To discover how pop art
had the last laugh,

32
00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,320
I'm going to track down some of
the artists who blazed its trail

33
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:23,080
by using the imagery of advertising

34
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:26,720
to expose the dark side
of the American Dream.

35
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:30,640
Our whole economy is built
on selling war weapons.

36
00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:32,480
I think it's wrong.

37
00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:34,080
Creating an art form

38
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:37,960
that would provide a brilliant
parody of the consumer age.

39
00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:39,800
All of our environment
seems to be made up

40
00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:43,480
partially of the desire
to sell products.

41
00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:46,760
This is the landscape that
I'm interested in portraying.

42
00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:51,320
I'll explore pop's colourful
legacy around the globe.

43
00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:55,240
It is on wheels, you can
dance with it if you want.

44
00:02:56,520 --> 00:03:01,640
And discover how today, in our
globalised, mass consumerist age,

45
00:03:01,640 --> 00:03:06,120
pop's subversive wit is inspiring
generations afresh.

46
00:03:10,480 --> 00:03:12,120
Oh, it's empty? Yeah.

47
00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:14,440
How have you actually got
the Coke out?

48
00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:24,880
It's high time that we stopped
thinking about pop art

49
00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:28,360
as the brash, adolescent show-off
of modern art

50
00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:32,120
that had shouted itself hoarse
by the end of the '60s.

51
00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:35,040
In fact, pop just isn't as dumb
or as vacuous

52
00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:39,640
as sometimes it might appear and I
think, like the best art of any age,

53
00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:44,600
it holds up a mirror to the times
that reflects back the obsessions

54
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:49,600
of the modern world in all
their Technicolor, tarnished glory.

55
00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:52,520
And once pop's raucous spirit
had been unleashed,

56
00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:57,800
for more than 50 years, it couldn't
be contained so that even now,

57
00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:00,600
for artists working
in the 21st century,

58
00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:03,880
it remains as relevant as ever.

59
00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:21,400
Brash and full of swagger,

60
00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:26,000
pop art made its assault on New York
City at the outset of the '60s.

61
00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:31,520
Within a period of just 12 months,

62
00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:36,560
five young artists each mounted
their first major solo show -

63
00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:39,720
Claes Oldenburg,

64
00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:41,480
Tom Wesselmann,

65
00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:43,520
Roy Lichtenstein,

66
00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:45,200
James Rosenquist,

67
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:47,040
Andy Warhol.

68
00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:52,960
These artists would become
pop art's superstars.

69
00:04:54,280 --> 00:04:57,080
What's surprising is that
they didn't subscribe

70
00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:58,600
to any pop art manifesto.

71
00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:03,680
The artists worked
in total isolation,

72
00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:07,280
completely unaware that others
out there shared their vision.

73
00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:12,560
Henry Geldzahler,

74
00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,560
who was this really important
curator at the Metropolitan Museum

75
00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:17,320
and an early champion of pop art,

76
00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:21,880
he later told Andy Warhol, "It
was like a science fiction movie.

77
00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:26,080
"You pop artists in different parts
of the city, unknown to each other,

78
00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:28,200
"rising up out of the muck

79
00:05:28,200 --> 00:05:32,240
"and staggering forth with
your paintings in front of you."

80
00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:33,520
Does that seem odd to you,

81
00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:37,640
that you all began to
look at the world in the same way?

82
00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:41,760
Erm, I think
we just read a lot of comic books.

83
00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:46,080
But the pop artists had more in
common than a love of comic books -

84
00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:49,160
they were all obsessed
with the new media age.

85
00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:52,640
We stand today on the edge
of a new frontier -

86
00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:55,360
the frontier of the 1960s.

87
00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:58,160
# I was walking down the street

88
00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:01,240
# When this boy
started following me... #

89
00:06:01,240 --> 00:06:05,400
This was the era
when the Machiavellian executives

90
00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:10,480
on Madison Avenue persuaded the
American population that success,

91
00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:16,240
love, in fact every aspect of life,
was something they could buy.

92
00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:25,320
There's the car I told you about. Do
you like it? Yeah! It's sure smooth.

93
00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:29,960
Andy Warhol became New York's
highest-paid illustrator

94
00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:32,440
and, like him,
his fellow pop artists

95
00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,040
had one foot in the
commercial world.

96
00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:36,800
Dabbling in graphic design,

97
00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:39,520
commercial illustration
and sign painting,

98
00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:43,120
these artists knew the dark arts
of selling the American Dream.

99
00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:46,520
And in the beginning,

100
00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:49,640
critics took their commercial
origins as proof that,

101
00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:53,040
far from being an art
of social protest,

102
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:55,640
pop was an art of
capitulation.

103
00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:03,240
And one of the prime offenders
was pop pioneer James Rosenquist,

104
00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:07,360
who'd started out as
a sign painter aged 17.

105
00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:11,840
The huge billboards he created sold
anything from whisky to hair curlers

106
00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:16,840
and the proceeds put this farmboy
from the Midwest through art school.

107
00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:25,400
When Rosenquist arrived
in New York aged just 21 in 1955,

108
00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:30,840
he had less than $300 in his pocket
and, over the next few years,

109
00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:34,320
he carried on scratching out
a living painting billboards.

110
00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:39,440
He later said that these billboard
jobs were his painting laboratory.

111
00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:41,440
He didn't realise it at the time,

112
00:07:41,440 --> 00:07:44,680
but they taught him not only
how to become a painter,

113
00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:49,120
but also specifically how to become
an artist who painted pop.

114
00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:54,800
Packed with the imagery of plenty,

115
00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:57,800
Rosenquist's vast,
kaleidoscopic paintings

116
00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:02,120
were initially understood as
a blatant celebration of capitalism.

117
00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:06,200
In fact, their critics couldn't have
been further from the truth.

118
00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:07,480
Lily?

119
00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:11,000
Yes? Have you got the elevator?
Yes. That's good.

120
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,120
HE GROANS
Shall I get the door for you?

121
00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:14,280
If you want.

122
00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:19,200
You've had it revamped? Totally.

123
00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:22,520
Re-welded, new cables, new motor.

124
00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:25,440
I love this lever. Good.

125
00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:28,640
You can't have it,
it's got to stay here.

126
00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:31,680
As a young man in New York,

127
00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:35,400
Rosenquist yearned to become
a serious abstract artist.

128
00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:39,080
His day job as a sign painter
not only paid the bills,

129
00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:42,320
but also provided him
with leftover paint for free.

130
00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:46,800
So, what was life like
in those very early days?

131
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:53,880
Cheap. I mean, New York
was such a wild place.

132
00:08:55,080 --> 00:09:01,760
So capitalistic that
I would get laid off on Friday

133
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:04,160
cos they didn't have any more work.

134
00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:06,040
The next morning, they'd call me.

135
00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:08,720
"Jimmy! Come back to work!"

136
00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:11,200
They had another big job for me
to do.

137
00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:15,760
Cos it was just, like, cut-throat.

138
00:09:15,760 --> 00:09:17,720
Were people hurt doing this work?

139
00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:21,200
Yeah, they got killed. People you
knew? Oh, yeah.

140
00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:24,840
Fell off a wall. Splat!

141
00:09:24,840 --> 00:09:28,200
It was art school for me. Tough.

142
00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:30,680
Tough, tough art school.

143
00:09:33,960 --> 00:09:38,480
'By 1959, at the age of only 25,

144
00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:41,680
'Rosenquist was one of the most
successful sign painters in
New York City.'

145
00:09:43,080 --> 00:09:44,520
And how proud did you feel

146
00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:47,760
once you had completed one
of these giant billboards?

147
00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,840
I mean, someone once said you were
the biggest artist on Broadway.

148
00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:52,960
How proud did you feel
when you looked at them?

149
00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:54,800
I didn't feel proud at all.

150
00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:59,800
Here I am painting these huge,
blown-up, empty images

151
00:09:59,800 --> 00:10:01,760
that have no meaning.

152
00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:08,880
'Around 1960,
Rosenquist quit the commercial world

153
00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:11,360
'and rented a studio full-time.

154
00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:15,240
'It was here that he began to co-opt
the imagery of advertising

155
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:17,840
'for his own
very different intentions.'

156
00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:22,720
So, are these examples
of the original works,

157
00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:25,160
the planning stage of the paintings?
Yep, yep.

158
00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:28,400
This is clipped out from
a magazine advertisement. Yeah.

159
00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:30,800
I just wanted the stark imagery.

160
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:33,680
'The compositions may look random,

161
00:10:33,680 --> 00:10:36,400
'but they were
guided by specific ideas.'

162
00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:41,960
It looks here like
you're taking examples

163
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:46,080
of some of the promises that
capitalism is bombarding us with -

164
00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:52,200
you can have your Ford, you can have
fine clothes or the lure of women,

165
00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:55,600
whatever it is, and actually
sort of showing that that promise

166
00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:59,200
is a bit empty, a bit hollow,
a bit blank.

167
00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:02,000
Everything is, according to Zen.

168
00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:07,800
Everything, everything, not just
America, not capitalism.

169
00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:14,480
This sense of the spiritual runs
throughout Rosenquist's work.

170
00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:17,040
A search for truth
in a material age.

171
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:22,160
And in the 1960s,
the Vietnam war embodied

172
00:11:22,160 --> 00:11:25,640
the horror at the heart of America's
consumerist dream.

173
00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:29,800
It was this that inspired
Rosenquist's masterpiece.

174
00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:41,920
F-111 is made up of 23 sections and
is a staggering 86 feet in length.

175
00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:45,840
Taking its name from a notorious
fighter bomber,

176
00:11:45,840 --> 00:11:49,280
the painting yokes together
imagery of war

177
00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:53,160
with a vision of abundance back
home in boom-time America.

178
00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:58,840
A girl sitting beneath
a bomb-shaped hairdryer,

179
00:11:58,840 --> 00:12:02,440
a beach umbrella
and atomic mushroom cloud,

180
00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:04,720
a diver gasping for air.

181
00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:08,360
The plane forms
the painting's spine.

182
00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:15,560
Its ingenious composition reveals
the collusion between the media,

183
00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:19,720
advertising
and the Vietnam death machine.

184
00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:22,400
What did inspire you to make F-111,
then?

185
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:26,080
The idea of paying income taxes
to make war weapons.

186
00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:32,320
Our whole economy is
built on selling war weapons.

187
00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:36,000
I think it's wrong.

188
00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:43,800
That's one of the really famous
images that you created with

189
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:45,800
Kennedy and some cake.

190
00:12:45,800 --> 00:12:48,720
What did he offer you as a candidate?

191
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:51,880
A Chevrolet and a piece of cake.

192
00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:05,920
People talk about pop, they talk
about your work in particular

193
00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:08,400
and often say it's a
piece of processed art in some way.

194
00:13:08,400 --> 00:13:10,280
I hope so.

195
00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:11,280
I like that.

196
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:15,160
I hope so.

197
00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:20,160
I'm getting tired. Sure.

198
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:34,680
At points I found talking to
Jim Rosenquist quite tough.

199
00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:38,640
He's got a certain carapace,
an exterior which is gruff

200
00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:42,960
and, for me, felt like a vestige
of perhaps a way that he had to

201
00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:46,800
learn to be when he was
a sign painter in the '50s.

202
00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:51,560
That toughness never left him
nor his art because he was

203
00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:55,600
unambiguous,
these were not paintings celebrating

204
00:13:55,600 --> 00:13:59,040
everything he saw around him in
the city and it was indicative

205
00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:02,440
of the motivating force of pop
even from the beginning,

206
00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:05,440
not just in his work but generally.
That it isn't

207
00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:10,920
this mode that uncritically,
slavishly champions everyday life,

208
00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:13,880
the consumer world,
American capitalism.

209
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:16,680
It's much more questioning,
it's probing

210
00:14:16,680 --> 00:14:21,720
and, at its best, like Rosenquist
in person, it's tough.

211
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:32,480
Pop art may have played dumb

212
00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:36,160
but its shiny surface often masks
a darker scepticism

213
00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:39,480
about the state
of America, its politics,

214
00:14:39,480 --> 00:14:44,160
its wars, its wider culture,
all ensnared by consumerism.

215
00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:50,280
The irony is,
the art form that

216
00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:52,280
ripped off
the mass media has

217
00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:54,000
today been
ripped off itself.

218
00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:56,960
Used to sell everything

219
00:14:56,960 --> 00:14:59,320
from fizzy drinks
to cosmetics.

220
00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:02,960
A case in point
is the comic-book style

221
00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:04,440
of Roy Lichtenstein,

222
00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:07,760
still so ubiquitous it can
seem bland.

223
00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:11,280
Yet when he and his fellow
pop artists emerged

224
00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:13,000
in the early '60s,

225
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:15,920
they were considered
despicable hoodlums

226
00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:17,920
responsible for
the most shocking

227
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:19,680
movement in
the history of art.

228
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:27,840
Only one man could really have made
this mural, Roy Lichtenstein.

229
00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:30,480
He epitomises the whole
pop generation.

230
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:32,760
In fact, he pioneered it
at the beginning of the '60s

231
00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:36,840
and this has got all of the
hallmarks of his mature pop style.

232
00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:40,240
Those heavy black outlines,
the bold primary colours

233
00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:42,280
of red and yellow and blue

234
00:15:42,280 --> 00:15:46,080
and also those dots imitating
cheap reproductive techniques that

235
00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:50,080
you find in advertisements
in newspapers and magazines.

236
00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:53,400
And now, everyone's passing by,
we all take it for granted,

237
00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:56,360
we accept it but, at the beginning
of the '60s, art like this was

238
00:15:56,360 --> 00:16:00,920
provocative, it was dangerous
and it was infuriating.

239
00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:03,960
Lichtenstein was part
of an important early show of Pop,

240
00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:05,800
at the Sidney Janis Gallery,

241
00:16:05,800 --> 00:16:09,640
and when Mark Rothko and some
of his generation saw the show,

242
00:16:09,640 --> 00:16:13,280
they found Lichtenstein's work
so difficult

243
00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:16,440
that they actually resigned
from the gallery in protest.

244
00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:20,800
For Rothko and his peers,

245
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:24,080
pop wasn't just
crass, vulgar nonsense -

246
00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:25,800
it was anti-art.

247
00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:30,560
Rothko, like Jackson Pollock
and Willem de Kooning,

248
00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:33,360
was part of an older generation
of artists,

249
00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:37,680
who, since the '40s,
had dominated New York's art scene.

250
00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:40,760
They took painting
very seriously indeed.

251
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,640
The Abstract Expressionists
were on a difficult journey inwards

252
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:50,040
to unleash volcanic energies
on canvas.

253
00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:53,100
Through painting,
they believed they could convey

254
00:16:53,100 --> 00:16:57,960
grand, essential truths
about the human condition -

255
00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:02,080
tragedy, ecstasy, doom.

256
00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:05,720
To the general public,

257
00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:09,120
Abstract Expressionism
was pretentious codswallop -

258
00:17:09,120 --> 00:17:13,080
its claims, downright ludicrous -

259
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:18,840
but for those immersed in its lofty
ideas, representation was dead.

260
00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:27,640
So, the work of Lichtenstein

261
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:33,720
and the so-called New Vulgarians
came like an acid shock -

262
00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:37,320
a slap in the face to philistines
and art buffs alike.

263
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:43,000
A rejection of the modern art
tradition in favour of idiocy

264
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:45,400
and tongue-in-cheek irony.

265
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:52,400
But Lichtenstein's intentions
had gone way over their heads.

266
00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:59,960
One of the biggest misconceptions
about Roy Lichtenstein

267
00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:02,800
is that he simply copied his sources
and then put them

268
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:07,600
in a gallery without any alteration.
It just isn't true.

269
00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:13,480
This, for instance, is his early pop
painting Girl With Ball, from 1961,

270
00:18:13,480 --> 00:18:15,960
and this was his source.

271
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:20,480
It's a black and white newspaper
advertisement for a holiday resort

272
00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:23,960
which had appeared in the New York
Times earlier the same year,

273
00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:28,120
and the funny thing is that, in a
way, it's the differences

274
00:18:28,120 --> 00:18:33,200
between these two images which are
more striking than the similarities.

275
00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:36,680
But perhaps the subtlest,
craftiest part of the painting

276
00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,680
is the woman's shiny hairdo,
because there,

277
00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:43,200
Lichtenstein is parodying those
swirling brushstrokes

278
00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:47,760
of the abstract expressionists,
which, by now, were such a cliche.

279
00:18:47,760 --> 00:18:51,400
There's nothing spontaneous
about the application of paint

280
00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:56,080
in this image. Everything is
meticulously done. It's mechanical.

281
00:18:56,080 --> 00:19:01,160
It's about Lichtenstein
suppressing his own painterly touch.

282
00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:07,040
So, this is a surprisingly complex
and sophisticated painting, which is

283
00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:11,680
in dialogue with other art as much
as it is with the real world.

284
00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:17,920
Lichtenstein's work represents
a radical shift in modern art.

285
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:21,360
Exploding the exalted,
inward-looking world of

286
00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:23,240
abstract expressionism,

287
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:26,640
pop brilliantly created art
from imagery that anyone

288
00:19:26,640 --> 00:19:30,800
walking down the street
could recognise in an instant.

289
00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:33,040
All of the mechanical things -
the dots,

290
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:37,320
the black lines around everything,
the more or less primary colours -

291
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:41,520
all of this was just something
ready-made to symbolise

292
00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:47,080
what we were really getting into,
a kind of a ready-made, plastic era.

293
00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:50,000
And it was pop's smart
playfulness that made it

294
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:52,240
so appealing to the public.

295
00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:57,160
Still, in January 1964,
Life Magazine published an article

296
00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:59,680
posing a rather
provocative question:

297
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:02,800
"Is he the worst artist in the US?"

298
00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:10,240
This well-known article is often
given as evidence of the brutal way

299
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:14,560
that pop art, at the time, was
dismissed as tedious and banal,

300
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:17,600
but what people don't realise
is that Lichtenstein actually

301
00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:20,080
gave his blessing
to its infamous headline

302
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:23,520
because he relished
the provocative irony of it.

303
00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:27,000
So, what I think is much more
interesting about this piece

304
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:31,960
is that it reveals,
at the start of 1964, Life Magazine,

305
00:20:31,960 --> 00:20:36,120
this enormously influential,
widely read American publication

306
00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:39,960
wanted a piece of
the whole pop art phenomenon.

307
00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:44,440
This was an all-American
publication, celebrating a new,

308
00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:48,840
irreverent, and crucially,
all-American, style of art.

309
00:20:51,360 --> 00:20:55,000
And if Lichtenstein is
the architect of New York pop art,

310
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:59,360
his rival Andy Warhol is,
of course, its superstar -

311
00:20:59,360 --> 00:21:01,080
and for good reason.

312
00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:06,360
The art that Warhol created foretold
so many aspects of our world today.

313
00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:11,080
His genius was to realise
that in an age of consumerism,

314
00:21:11,080 --> 00:21:15,280
anything could be
turned into a commodity -

315
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:19,520
even a painfully shy and awkward
personality, like his.

316
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:28,120
Well, what have you done? Have you
just sent up some other works? Yeah.

317
00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:30,880
And what were they? Erm...

318
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:32,960
Electric chair paintings.

319
00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:34,840
Electric chair paintings. Yeah.

320
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:37,160
Well, what is the description
of that?

321
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:39,680
I don't know. Do you know?
Well, it's...

322
00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:44,080
Warhol's cold, inane persona
was a conscious construction -

323
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:46,400
the embodiment of
the mechanical art style

324
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,280
he began to pioneer in 1962,

325
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,440
with the creation of
his Campbell's soup cans.

326
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:57,960
Seizing the photo
silkscreen process,

327
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:01,160
a commercial technique
used to churn out prints,

328
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:05,200
he turned the touch of the artist
into the imprint of a machine.

329
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:09,480
He christened his studio
The Factory, and fashioned

330
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:13,200
a mode perfectly suited
for the age of mass production.

331
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:17,280
Andy, do you think that pop art
has sort of reached the point

332
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:20,160
where it's becoming
repetitious now?

333
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:21,360
Ah, yes.

334
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:32,760
Warhol and his art may at first
seem cold and blank,

335
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:38,000
but actually, their cool surfaces
belie private obsessions.

336
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,680
His paintings are some of
the most unforgettable images

337
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:44,200
of the 20th century.

338
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,480
MAN: Do you believe in feelings
and emotions?

339
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:51,120
WARHOL: Well, no, I don't,
but I have them. I wish I didn't.

340
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,320
What, you would like to get rid of
them altogether, would you?

341
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,320
Would be a good idea, yeah.

342
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:03,320
When one of Warhol's idols,
Marilyn Monroe, died of an overdose

343
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:08,800
in 1962, he drew upon a single
publicity shot to create

344
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:12,920
a definitive statement
about two of his obsessions -

345
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,200
celebrity and death.

346
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:22,360
Warhol may have said,
"I want to be a machine,"

347
00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:26,320
but actually, looking
at his magnificent Marilyn diptych,

348
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:30,600
it seems much less mechanical
than it otherwise might appear.

349
00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:37,120
On the left, he repeats Marilyn's
overly made-up face in lurid colour,

350
00:23:37,120 --> 00:23:40,760
against this garish
orange background.

351
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,800
She looks exaggerated,
unnatural, artificial,

352
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,840
as if she is being viewed
on a television screen

353
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,520
with the colour
amped right up to maximum.

354
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:55,400
This is Marilyn's face as it's
endlessly recycled by the media.

355
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:02,640
But then, at the right,
with these black and white faces,

356
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:06,080
there's much greater
wonky variation.

357
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:10,400
All of these strange smudges
and streaks and squeegee marks,

358
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,680
left deliberately visible,
reminding us of the artist's hand.

359
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,160
That transition
from colour to black and white

360
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,600
is what makes this work
of art so powerful and also moving.

361
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:29,040
It's a very simple conceit, but one
that's effective and haunting,

362
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,600
because it feels like
a heartfelt expression,

363
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:35,200
not just about the fragility
of celebrity, but also

364
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:40,160
about something much more personal
and profound for Warhol himself -

365
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:43,880
his own visceral fear of dying.

366
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:51,920
MUSIC: Africastle
by Battles

367
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:54,440
Suicides, car crashes,

368
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:58,560
police brutality and executions.

369
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,960
Warhol's Death And Disaster
paintings present a punchy,

370
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,400
confrontational, polemical vision.

371
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,800
The sources were images
from grisly news reports,

372
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,960
repeated again and again,
and again, on canvas.

373
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,760
The paintings articulate
something of the mass media's

374
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:19,800
deadening effect.

375
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:25,960
Repetition engenders numbness,
or as Warhol put it, "boredom".

376
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,680
At odds with the gruesome
subject matter

377
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:32,080
is the brightly coloured background.

378
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:34,320
Warhol himself observed,

379
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,960
"It's surprising how many people
want to hang an electric chair

380
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:39,800
"on their living room wall,

381
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,600
"especially if the background colour
matches the drapes."

382
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:50,520
In other words,
pop art has two faces.

383
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:54,840
It can be as deep or as shallow
as the viewer wants it to be.

384
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:07,640
So often, it is easy to think
that pop art emerged

385
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:12,360
fully-formed from the head, say,
of Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein,

386
00:26:12,360 --> 00:26:17,040
but the story of its emergence
is much more complicated,

387
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,200
and as a result, I think,
much more exciting.

388
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,560
For all its commercial appeal,

389
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,960
pop art also belongs to
a more cerebral tradition,

390
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,640
pioneered by an artist who,
in the '50s,

391
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,680
had been all but forgotten.

392
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:43,280
In 1917, Marcel Duchamp submitted
a urinal to an annual exhibition,

393
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,920
and in the process,
he invented conceptual art.

394
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:48,280
His mass-produced,

395
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,560
ready-made sculptures
declared that art could be governed

396
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:57,360
not by painterly skill, but
exclusively by the idea behind it,

397
00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:02,720
and in the '50s, young, avant-garde
artists were discovering him afresh.

398
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:13,360
Throughout the city,
in dark corners, in draughty lofts,

399
00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:16,120
in basements and disused shops,

400
00:27:16,120 --> 00:27:19,200
they embraced
the chaos of modern urban life -

401
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,520
its junk, its refuse,
its noise and its symbols.

402
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:30,040
And one artist could be seen
skulking among the city's detritus -

403
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:32,240
Robert Rauschenberg.

404
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,840
I've always found it difficult
to talk about

405
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,280
Marcel Duchamp's work specifically.

406
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:42,160
His recognition of
the lack of art in art,

407
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:47,120
and the artfulness of everything...

408
00:27:47,120 --> 00:27:51,760
I think is probably
his most important contribution.

409
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,520
In 1953, Rauschenberg was so poor
that he was surviving on

410
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:02,080
a food budget of
just 15 cents a day.

411
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:05,040
He just couldn't afford
traditional materials,

412
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,680
but he was prodigiously inventive
and resourceful.

413
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,440
And so, he turned his poverty
to his advantage,

414
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:15,920
and started
scouring the streets for junk,

415
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:20,360
junk that he could transform into
these spellbinding works of art,

416
00:28:20,360 --> 00:28:24,840
that captured something of all
of these overlooked aspects

417
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,720
and throwaway textures of the city.

418
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,640
He felt sure that art should not
be divorced from reality.

419
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:36,920
"I don't want a picture to look
like something it isn't," he said.

420
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,760
"I want a picture to
look like something it is."

421
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,040
Inspired by Duchamp, Rauschenberg
incorporated everyday objects

422
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:54,600
into strange artworks
that he called combines.

423
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,600
He's celebrated for bringing
real life back into the lofty

424
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,320
orbit of fine art.

425
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,720
Together with his lover,
the artist Jasper Johns,

426
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,800
Rauschenberg is the
most prominent progenitor of pop,

427
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:11,240
but another figure, now forgotten,
who was making equally

428
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:15,680
pioneering work, would prove to be
the movement's missing link.

429
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,600
Around the same time that
Rauschenberg started working on his

430
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:28,520
combines, another young artist was
forging a reputation in the city.

431
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,680
He was gay, he was curiously
sociable, yet at the same time

432
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:37,960
detached, and he was obsessed
with celebrity and repetition.

433
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:42,320
And already, by the 1950s,
he was incorporating into his art

434
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:46,320
photographs of film stars,
as well as corporate logos.

435
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:51,080
Now, his name wasn't Andy Warhol
but Ray Johnson,

436
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,680
the greatest artist
you've never heard of.

437
00:29:56,360 --> 00:30:00,880
In the late '50s, Ray Johnson was
a leading avant-garde artist,

438
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,240
who was just as well known
as Rauschenberg and Johns.

439
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:10,640
Yet, when he died in 1995,

440
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:12,440
he was a virtual recluse -

441
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:16,960
his house,
filled with boxes of unseen work.

442
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,720
They were discovered by his friend
and dealer Frances Beatty...

443
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,360
..and they're now stored here,
at the Richard Feigen Gallery.

444
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:33,120
'They contain proof
that Johnson truly was

445
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,480
'one of pop art's pioneers.'

446
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:41,840
This is one of the most amazing
documents about early pop art

447
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:46,520
and Ray Johnson.
These are incredible collages.

448
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:48,920
Look at the amount of them.

449
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,320
Look at this. I mean,
here's Marlon Brando. Right.

450
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,600
There's William Shakespeare.
Right. There's...

451
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:55,080
This is a sort of... What's that?

452
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:57,880
Some sort of brand of Mexico
something or other. Right.

453
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,160
That looks like another,
kind of, brand name.

454
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:04,600
'For Johnson, art was
about the process, not the product.

455
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,840
'He considered his work
a kind of performance art,

456
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,280
'and destroyed almost
all of his pop collages.'

457
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,320
These are a group of iconic

458
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:19,280
early works from '55, '55-'56.

459
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:22,880
Here you have James Dean, right?

460
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:26,800
Iconic photograph of James Dean,
and what does he do with it?

461
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:33,640
He puts two Lucky Strikes
and they look like mouse ears, right?

462
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:37,800
It's a reference to the cigarette
as well as to Mickey Mouse,

463
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,600
so you have all of those things
going on at the same time.

464
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,680
These are really quite extraordinary
visual works of art,

465
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,360
in the sense of how early they are,
because dealing with logos,

466
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,000
brand names, dealing with
iconic film stars - these are all

467
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,520
the things that pop art would
famously do, but much later. Right.

468
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,360
And sure enough, a few years later,

469
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,640
another artist would produce
some icons of his own.

470
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:08,960
Andy Warhol was a close
friend of Ray Johnson.

471
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,480
When they met in 1956,

472
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:15,480
Warhol was one of New York's most
successful commercial illustrators,

473
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:21,040
but he was still yearning to be
taken seriously as a fine artist.

474
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,320
Their friendship would be
mutually beneficial.

475
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,240
Through Warhol,
Johnson won commercial commissions.

476
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:33,920
Through Johnson, Warhol met
important avant-garde contacts...

477
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,480
and he became increasingly familiar
with Johnson's work.

478
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,720
Picasso said, "Good artists borrow -
great artists steal."

479
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,160
But to follow through what
you're saying, it's that

480
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:50,520
Warhol was a genius, therefore
he stole Ray Johnson's work.

481
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:54,040
I think that if Ray were around,

482
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:59,440
he would not want to be
judged by what Warhol took from him,

483
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:01,520
but by what he did.

484
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,600
MUSIC: Sometimes I Feel Like
A Motherless Child
by Odetta

485
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:12,080
He may have created some
of America's earliest pop art,

486
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,120
but unlike Warhol,
who lusted after fame,

487
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,440
Johnson resisted the spotlight.

488
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:22,560
In 1968,
he was mugged at knife-point.

489
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:28,720
Traumatised, he fled to Long Island,
and became a recluse.

490
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:32,120
His most famous artwork
was his last.

491
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,760
On Friday the 13th of January 1995,

492
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,600
Johnson dived off
the Sag Harbour Bridge,

493
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,240
dressed head to toe in black.

494
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:47,600
Passers-by saw him
backstroking into the horizon.

495
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:54,800
His death really was
a death orchestrated like him.

496
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:59,840
So, do people really think that it
was almost like a final performance?

497
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:01,920
Yeah, I think so,

498
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:05,680
because Richard Feigen...

499
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:09,880
went to his studio afterwards,

500
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:11,160
and there was...

501
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:16,680
The only thing visible was
a photograph of Ray going...

502
00:34:24,720 --> 00:34:28,720
Johnson was a victim of
the city that inspired his work,

503
00:34:28,720 --> 00:34:31,960
and his experience points to
one of pop art's darkest

504
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,200
and most prescient themes -

505
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:37,520
how urban life,
for all its neon pleasures,

506
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:41,680
robs us not just of community
but also of our very soul.

507
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:46,040
The daily grind of the city
turns us all into grist.

508
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,640
MUSIC: Delia Gone
by Acker Bilk

509
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:51,680
But another of pop's
founding fathers decided

510
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:53,920
he wasn't going to take
that lying down.

511
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:58,400
Claes Oldenburg actively
engaged with the city,

512
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:01,160
and used pop art to change it.

513
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:03,880
So, just push up and we're going.

514
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:04,880
See?

515
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:07,360
Nothing to it.

516
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:12,720
'Oldenburg was born in Sweden,
but he grew up in Chicago.

517
00:35:12,720 --> 00:35:16,000
'At 86, he's the oldest
surviving member of

518
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,040
'the canonical
New York pop artists.'

519
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:20,680
OK, this is like...

520
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,600
Oh, no, that's a little early.
That's too soon, much too soon.

521
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:25,360
There it is.

522
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:28,680
'He arrived in the city in 1956,'

523
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,480
and quickly became
an influential figure

524
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,960
in the downtown avant-garde
performance art movement

525
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,240
known as the happenings.

526
00:35:37,240 --> 00:35:40,640
His theatrical installation
The Street was inspired

527
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:45,360
by the nightmarish experience
of living in a modern metropolis.

528
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,600
He played a person going mad
under the conditions.

529
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:51,440
But in the early '60s,

530
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:55,320
the tone of Oldenburg's work
changed dramatically.

531
00:35:55,320 --> 00:36:00,040
Modern life wasn't just scary -
it was absurd.

532
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:04,480
What's that? A steak, is it?
Ah, I think it's a slice of ham...

533
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:06,120
and that's mashed potatoes.

534
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:09,160
So, was there meant to be quite
a comical aspect to this,

535
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,760
when people...? Well, don't you
think that hamburgers are comical?

536
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:14,120
I mean, I didn't do that.

537
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,440
The guy who invented hamburgers
probably did that.

538
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,680
To put the two of them together,
that's pretty comical too.

539
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:27,320
Oldenburg began creating
enormous, floppy versions of

540
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,000
everyday objects.

541
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:34,280
His cartoonish, soft sculptures
are stripped of their function,

542
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:35,840
and surprisingly human.

543
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:39,440
Do you remember what you
found at the time

544
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:43,320
so exciting about these big,
striking forms? I don't know.

545
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:47,680
I was just, maybe, I'm a child,
you know? I want to create beauty.

546
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:49,480
I want to create form, you know?

547
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:52,800
Under circumstances that are very
difficult, and... So is that...

548
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:54,760
Pop art was then a challenge
for the artist?

549
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:56,600
I think it's a challenge, yeah.

550
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,080
I always wanted to change things
and make it into my own.

551
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,560
In 1963,
exhausted by the chaos of New York,

552
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,240
Oldenburg headed west
to Los Angeles.

553
00:37:08,240 --> 00:37:11,480
His trip would prove transformative.

554
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:15,680
He began experimenting by taking
his sculptures outdoors.

555
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,880
And here's the ice cream cone.
It's on top of a Volkswagen.

556
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:24,680
I met Dennis Hopper out there
and we would take this ice cream cone

557
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,960
and we'd place it in
different spots in Los Angeles -

558
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,400
for example, on the runway
of the airport or things like that.

559
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,760
Returning from LA,
Oldenburg began to

560
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,160
observe the city
from different perspectives.

561
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:42,800
He started playing
with the idea of scale,

562
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:47,000
taking small objects
and making them colossal.

563
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,840
The city became a sort of studio -

564
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,160
a playroom, if you like -
that he could fill with toys.

565
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,760
A teddy bear in Central Park,

566
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,200
a melting ice lolly in Park Avenue.

567
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:07,320
Initially, these ideas were just
fantasy - completely unfeasible -

568
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:11,360
but in 1969, he was approached
by a committee of students

569
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,280
from Yale University
who wanted to commemorate

570
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,480
the institution's first intake
of female undergraduates.

571
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,640
Alluding to feminism as well as the
Vietnam War, Oldenburg designed

572
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:32,880
a moving lecture podium - a towering
lipstick aboard a military tank.

573
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:38,600
If someone wanted to give
a lecture or a speech,

574
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:40,840
they would step up here,
and there's...

575
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:45,320
There would be a device here that
you put pull and push,

576
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,800
and pull and push, and you would
gradually pump up this central part.

577
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:53,120
So, the second stage of this
would be up like this,

578
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:56,400
and then when you got to the final
stage, the thing would become erect.

579
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,040
You'd have an erect lipstick?

580
00:38:58,040 --> 00:38:59,920
Yes, you would have
an erect lipstick,

581
00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:03,120
and you were giving your speech
and you have to pay attention,

582
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:07,080
because if you don't push this thing
back and forth,

583
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:09,120
it's going to start going down again.

584
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:14,600
It's just quite lewd, this rampant,
flailing, tongue-like, erect,

585
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,840
phallic lipstick. Oh, my God, yes.
LAUGHTER

586
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:19,200
Is this...?

587
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:21,000
Are all lipsticks like that?

588
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,480
Well, not ones that
I've really seen before, but...

589
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:27,080
This isn't a very particularly
male-friendly piece, is it?

590
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:28,280
No, it isn't.

591
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:33,640
The guy has to work really hard
to get that lipstick up.

592
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,640
And even then, it's going to
quickly start wilting.

593
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:38,600
Yeah, and it starts wilting, yeah.

594
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:46,440
After the lipstick came a series
of 43 large-scale projects,

595
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:50,960
created by Oldenburg in partnership
with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen.

596
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:52,280
Full of mischief,

597
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:56,040
these sculptures distort the scale
of the surrounding landscape,

598
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,560
and remind us
of one of pop's greatest

599
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,880
but often overlooked legacies -
humour.

600
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,960
A far cry from some earlier,
po-faced modern art,

601
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:10,400
these utopian projects
are witty, joyous, fun.

602
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:15,080
Springing up in cities all over the
world, from Paris to Philadelphia,

603
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,640
Tokyo to Barcelona,

604
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:19,960
and of course, the city that proved

605
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,280
so inspirational
in the first place -

606
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:24,000
Los Angeles.

607
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,360
Arriving from the dark,
cramped confines

608
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:32,760
of New York's high-rise streets,

609
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,280
artists in the '60s found
Los Angeles

610
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:39,240
to be a place of freedom
and possibility.

611
00:40:39,240 --> 00:40:42,680
With its open roads
and fresh sea breeze,

612
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:46,840
it is a city of spaciousness
and adventure,

613
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:50,760
and it proved a Mecca
for the '60s pop generation.

614
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,240
MUSIC: Puff, The Magic Dragon
by Peter, Paul and Mary

615
00:40:57,240 --> 00:41:01,520
Famously, it inspired
David Hockney's pop art fantasies

616
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:03,920
of the LA paradise.

617
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:20,480
It is, frankly, hard to imagine
a city more in sync

618
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,880
with the spirit of pop art
than Los Angeles

619
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,680
and, in the '60s,
it was already expanding

620
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,080
into this sprawling, jumbled,
hedonistic megalopolis

621
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:32,120
that it is today.

622
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:36,400
100 suburbs in search of a city,
as someone once wittily put it,

623
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:39,920
basking beneath these palm trees
and eternal sunshine

624
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:43,440
and dreaming, all of them,
of the big time.

625
00:41:45,720 --> 00:41:47,480
If the artists of New York

626
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:50,680
were obsessed with billboards
and consumer life,

627
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:55,080
out West they painted hot chicks
and fast cars.

628
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,840
And the West Coast pop scene
was dismissed as too regional,

629
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:04,760
too parochial, too concerned with
local subcultures and fads.

630
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,040
In the case of these trite,
tasteless nudes by Mel Ramos,

631
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:10,920
maybe the critics had a point,

632
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:16,960
but one man inspired by LA's car
culture would become, after Warhol,

633
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:22,280
the most influential American artist
of the past half-century.

634
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,440
A vision of horizons
and vanishing points,

635
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,040
America as seen by Ed Ruscha

636
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,720
is viewed through the windscreen
of a car,

637
00:42:30,720 --> 00:42:33,640
imbued with the romance of Route 66

638
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,600
and the rolling freedom
of the open road.

639
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,640
And Ruscha dramatised one of pop's
most important themes -

640
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:45,400
America's mythic sense of itself.

641
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,960
In the early '60s, Ruscha was
the matinee idol of pop.

642
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:58,360
But, back in 1956,
he was still a small-town boy

643
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:00,280
from America's Bible Belt,

644
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,800
nurturing hopes of becoming
a commercial artist.

645
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:09,120
His native Oklahoma was stifling
and claustrophobic.

646
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,880
I knew I wanted to travel,

647
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:13,800
leave Oklahoma...

648
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:18,080
..and go to an art school out here.

649
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:19,760
Why, particularly?

650
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:21,520
LA sounded better to me.

651
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,040
It just had more flavour to it,

652
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:26,000
more swank or something to it

653
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,920
that I may have been missing
at the time.

654
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:36,360
So, aged 18, Ruscha set off
on Route 66 for art school.

655
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:39,720
It was one of many subsequent
road trips.

656
00:43:39,720 --> 00:43:43,680
I used to hitchhike back and forth
between California and Oklahoma,

657
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:47,520
where I grew up,
and, as I was going along,

658
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,120
I would photograph gas stations.

659
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:54,000
I like the idea of sort of
an on-the-road trip

660
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:58,880
documenting the whole thing
from the view of gas stations.

661
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,240
So this is one of the very first...

662
00:44:02,240 --> 00:44:05,280
Well, the first,
Ed Ruscha artist book. Yeah.

663
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:09,560
And this is called, as the cover
says, 26 Gasoline Stations. Right.

664
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:12,080
How much were you thinking
about Duchamp?

665
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:14,160
Was he important as an influence
at this point,

666
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:16,720
because you could see
each individual gas station

667
00:44:16,720 --> 00:44:19,920
as a sort of version
of one of his readymades?

668
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,280
I could, and, in a sense, you might
say, "Well, they are readymades."

669
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,840
I am glorifying
each one of these things,

670
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:30,400
calling attention to something
that most people might say

671
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:33,000
doesn't need calling attention to.

672
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,760
In a sense, Ruscha's books
are conceptual artworks

673
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:42,040
and the paintings they inspired
lead us into a surreal new realm.

674
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:49,160
Ordinary gas stations are
dramatically lit with spotlights.

675
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,880
The Hollywood sign appears
like a hero on the horizon.

676
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:01,560
Ruscha is visualising the dream
factory of modern America,

677
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:05,240
how America manufactures
not only its consumer products

678
00:45:05,240 --> 00:45:07,800
but also its very sense of self.

679
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:14,680
Yet Ruscha's attitude
to his homeland

680
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:17,360
is neither straightforwardly
celebratory,

681
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,400
nor downright critical,

682
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:22,480
and that's the crux which animates
all of his work.

683
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,160
At times, his paintings
seem satirical,

684
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:29,720
setting ablaze the values of
wealthy, corporate America

685
00:45:29,720 --> 00:45:32,320
in all its depressing
standardisation.

686
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:38,440
I did another painting of
a restaurant here in town

687
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:40,480
called Norm's.

688
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:45,360
A critic comes along and says,
"Oh, I see. Norms and standards, huh?

689
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:46,960
"Is that what he's after?"

690
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,000
Yeah, and it surprised me.

691
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,240
It can't have surprised you! Did it?

692
00:45:51,240 --> 00:45:55,160
It surprised me, yeah, because
that wasn't in my line of thinking.

693
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:57,360
You're kidding!

694
00:45:57,360 --> 00:45:59,640
So, when you hear that,
do you sort of think

695
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:02,320
it's nonsense to impose that sort of
idea onto the artwork?

696
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:04,160
No, no, no, not nonsense at all.

697
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:06,760
It's coming from somebody else.

698
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:08,520
That's what Duchamp said.

699
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,160
To begin with, I think
it was that, you know,

700
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,160
making the art is one thing,

701
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:17,920
and then interpreting it,
it takes a viewer to add to it.

702
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:21,280
I mean, that's called...
What? Backdoor influence.

703
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:24,560
Right.

704
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,200
Also, I felt like it takes almost
somebody from a foreign country

705
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:32,040
to come to America
to really see America.

706
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,960
How does that position you, then,
in terms of coming from Oklahoma?

707
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:36,920
It makes me an outsider,
doesn't it?

708
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:40,000
Or an insider or something.

709
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:43,240
But I felt like, you know,

710
00:46:43,240 --> 00:46:46,720
the glory of America is somehow

711
00:46:46,720 --> 00:46:50,560
hinted at in some of these works.

712
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:56,440
You know, I don't intentionally want
to insert my patriotism into anything

713
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,160
but sometimes it just happens.

714
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,480
I'm really surprised to hear you
talk about patriotism.

715
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:04,680
I don't think I've ever used
that word.

716
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:08,040
No! This is an exclusive. Yeah.

717
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:09,560
Ed Ruscha - patriot!

718
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:17,480
So these are works on paper
that I do with pastel and acrylic.

719
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:20,400
I could be accused of being

720
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:22,440
a linguistic kleptomaniac.

721
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:27,800
Ruscha's stark, severe images are
like epitaphs on a gravestone,

722
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:33,000
a final statement recording
the soul of the American century.

723
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,800
Like the best pop art, Ruscha's work
reflects the pride of a nation

724
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,080
on the march towards prosperity.

725
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,680
Often, it crackles with
the wisecracking, tough guy attitude

726
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:53,000
which was such an essential part
of America's self-image.

727
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:59,920
So it might seem surprising
that the original explorers

728
00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:02,040
on the frontier of popular culture

729
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:04,400
weren't American at all.

730
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:08,120
Ladies and gentlemen,

731
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,200
presenting her royal majesty.

732
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,440
# There she goes

733
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:20,960
# Her royal majesty

734
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,560
# She's the queen
that broke my heart... #

735
00:48:26,240 --> 00:48:30,240
I think that America would have been
much more comfortable

736
00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:32,920
if there hadn't been British pop art

737
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,440
and so it kind of just ignored it.

738
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:39,520
# Her royal majesty. #

739
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:44,800
In fact, pop art was invented, not
in America at the start of the '60s,

740
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,600
but ten years earlier in Britain.

741
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:51,920
That drizzle-drenched kingdom of
politeness and understatement

742
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:53,960
which, in the wake of
the Second World War,

743
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:58,120
remained a bleak realm
of austerity and rationing.

744
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:00,760
MUSIC: Here In My Heart
by Al Martino

745
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:08,800
And, here, a group of young artists
and intellectuals

746
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:11,200
dreamt about a land of plenty

747
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:15,760
that they knew existed
on the other side of the Atlantic.

748
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:20,040
In 1952, they started
an unofficial think tank,

749
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:23,160
calling themselves
the Independent Group,

750
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:25,640
hungering after American culture

751
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:30,640
and feasting their eyes on ads for
luscious food and miracle appliances

752
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:33,400
which were incorporated
into these colleges

753
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:37,200
that Eduardo Paolozzi made
in his scrapbooks.

754
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:40,760
The Independent Group believed that
they could use imagery like this

755
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:42,600
to transform British culture

756
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:47,080
and build a new kind of society
where everyone was equal.

757
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:50,120
Oxford Street passers-by halt
to admire,

758
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,600
or maybe that's carrying it too far,
anyway, they halt.

759
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:54,800
Some are stunned,
others merely surprised,

760
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:57,880
by this modern-art conception
of a nude in concrete.

761
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:00,040
For young British artists
in the '50s,

762
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:03,640
the world of modern art
was po-faced and stuck up,

763
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:07,760
protected by self-appointed
guardians of high culture

764
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:12,160
who weren't interested in the masses
but only the privileged few.

765
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:16,000
Why shouldn't a pop singer
be as valid as a symphony

766
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,240
or a comic strip equal to a novel?

767
00:50:19,240 --> 00:50:21,200
These were some of
the burning questions

768
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:23,760
on the agenda of
the Independent Group.

769
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:26,080
Nigel Henderson - photographer.

770
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:28,520
Alison Smithson - architect.

771
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:32,080
Eduardo Paolozzi - artist.

772
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:35,000
And Peter Smithson - architect.

773
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,440
The sparkiest voices
of their generation,

774
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:41,680
and one of their number was
art historian Mary Banham.

775
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,320
At 94, she's almost
the last surviving member.

776
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:49,720
I mean, you know,
you and these peers

777
00:50:49,720 --> 00:50:51,720
are credited as the inventors
pop art.

778
00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:53,200
Yes.

779
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:57,600
Is that how you see yourself, then?
Pioneers. Yeah. Absolutely.

780
00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,600
Every inch of it.

781
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:04,280
We all had very different ideas, some
of which led to fist fights. No.

782
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:08,760
You might say. So it was unruly?
It could be? Oh, not half.

783
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:12,400
We were all young and determined
to put forward our ideas.

784
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:16,120
And, until the group disbanded
in 1955,

785
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:19,600
ideas alone formed the basis
of their activity.

786
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,560
The Independent Group didn't
actually make much art.

787
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:26,200
Instead, they were interested
in exchanging theories

788
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:28,800
about the nature of popular culture.

789
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:31,840
But, the following year,
several members took part

790
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:34,520
in a landmark collaborative
exhibition.

791
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:38,000
Incorporating film posters,
sci-fi and fast food,

792
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:41,640
their vision of popular culture
was presented to the public

793
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:43,000
for the first time.

794
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:49,520
Anyone who thinks abstract artists
are too abstract

795
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:51,920
should drop in
at the Whitechapel Art Gallery,

796
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,760
where there's an exhibition
devoted to collaboration

797
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:57,320
between architects,
painters and sculptors.

798
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:00,240
The various artists drew upon
all sorts of imagery

799
00:52:00,240 --> 00:52:03,040
to explore the world of the future.

800
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:06,080
But one installation
was distinctly pop,

801
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:07,880
that of Group 2,

802
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:12,000
which included the far-sighted
British pop artist Richard Hamilton.

803
00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:17,400
All right, we're looking.

804
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:21,440
All right, we're thinking.

805
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:25,080
And think is exactly what
Hamilton wanted everyone to do.

806
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:36,560
But, for years, his brainy take
on pop art was neglected.

807
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:41,880
For most of his life, Richard
Hamilton was relatively undervalued,

808
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:45,000
but I think he really deserves
to be as well-known

809
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,720
as some of the greats of
20th-century British art

810
00:52:47,720 --> 00:52:50,680
like Francis Bacon or Henry Moore.

811
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,680
Inside the Tate's vaults is proof
of Hamilton's importance.

812
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:02,880
Designed as a poster for
This Is Tomorrow, the collage

813
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:07,600
Just What Is It That Makes Today's
Homes So Different, So Appealing?

814
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:11,440
has become one of pop art's
most celebrated early works.

815
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,840
This later reproduction shows us
exactly why.

816
00:53:16,720 --> 00:53:19,520
The setting is a swish,
modern living room

817
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:21,320
which Hamilton turns into

818
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,440
a tongue-in-cheek
consumerist paradise,

819
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:28,760
lampooning the seductive visual
strategies of American advertising,

820
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,680
which provided its various sources.

821
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:36,080
The really astonishing thing
about this small picture

822
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:41,400
is that, even though the original
collage was created in 1956,

823
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,680
long before pop art even had a name,

824
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:47,800
it provides a kind of
prescient index

825
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,720
of the movement's chief subjects
and motifs,

826
00:53:50,720 --> 00:53:54,480
all of the things that other artists
like Roy Lichtenstein

827
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:56,640
would later pick up.

828
00:53:56,640 --> 00:54:00,560
And dominating everything is
this prominent bodybuilder

829
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:02,720
wearing white trunks.

830
00:54:02,720 --> 00:54:05,240
In his right hand,
in place of a dumbbell,

831
00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:08,120
he's holding a very suggestive,
phallic,

832
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:13,560
red, cellophane-wrapped lollipop
bearing the brand name Tootsie Pop

833
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:15,480
and, because of that detail,

834
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:20,560
this work is often considered the
first genuinely pop work of pop art,

835
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:23,520
perhaps even the movement's
manifesto.

836
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:27,600
So this small, perhaps, at first,
underwhelming image,

837
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:32,280
has to be, actually, one of the most
inventive and prophetic pictures

838
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,040
in the history of
20th-century British art.

839
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,200
Like his hero Marcel Duchamp,

840
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:43,440
Hamilton made work that was
both playful and brainy.

841
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:47,280
He presents elements of popular
culture like pieces of a puzzle

842
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:49,520
for the viewer to solve.

843
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:53,280
And that's exactly why
Hamilton has been overlooked.

844
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:58,200
He and the Independent Group were
simply too clever by half.

845
00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:01,040
The early British pop artists
never produced anything

846
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:04,960
as immediately satisfying
as the bold visual statements

847
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:07,520
of Warhol or Lichtenstein.

848
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:10,520
Ultimately, they were intellectuals

849
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:16,080
viewing consumer culture from
a position of critical detachment.

850
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:18,720
But the next generation
of British artists,

851
00:55:18,720 --> 00:55:21,680
they had a very different attitude
towards popular culture,

852
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:24,880
one that was much more
straightforward and unconflicted,

853
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:26,360
celebratory.

854
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:29,160
In short, they were fans.

855
00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:32,080
MUSIC: Goodbye Cruel World
by James Darren

856
00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:33,400
# Goodbye cruel world

857
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:37,480
# Goodbye cruel world

858
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:40,160
# Oh, goodbye cruel world

859
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,000
# I'm off to join the circus... #

860
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:47,160
The art of Peter Blake is a riot
of working-class entertainment.

861
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:53,320
The pleasures of rock music,
the fairground, the circus.

862
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:56,040
# Turned my whole world
upside down... #

863
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:02,600
Visiting Blake's studio is like
stepping into a bygone age.

864
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:07,960
A nostalgic soul, he's immersed
in yesteryear's popular culture.

865
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:11,600
It's all folk art,
so it's fairground...

866
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:15,640
Like this sort of thing.
Carousel horses. Carousels. Yeah.

867
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:19,560
And tattoo. I was just looking
at these slabs of wooden meat

868
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:21,240
and wondering what they were.

869
00:56:21,240 --> 00:56:25,280
They're props. They're pantomime
props. They're brilliant, yeah.

870
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:27,400
# Well, the joke's on me

871
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:30,040
# I'm off to join the circus

872
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:34,080
# Oh, Mr Barnum, save a place for me

873
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:36,560
# Shoot me out of a cannon

874
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:38,760
# I don't care... #

875
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:42,200
Blake channelled the populist,
egalitarian spirit

876
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:43,840
of English folk art

877
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,200
and repurposed it
for the modern age.

878
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:50,960
In doing so, he paved the way
for other young artists

879
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:56,720
to break down the division
between high and low culture

880
00:56:56,720 --> 00:57:02,160
by foregrounding his own personal
hobbies, interests and experiences.

881
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:07,080
In his painting
Self-portrait With Badges,

882
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:10,280
Blake presents himself
as an American teenager

883
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:14,160
wearing home-made jeans
fashioned from overalls.

884
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:18,400
In 1961, this seemed
wilfully eccentric.

885
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:23,280
The idea of an adult covered with
a lot of badges didn't exist.

886
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:24,920
It seemed quite childlike, really.

887
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:27,480
It was a childlike thing to have
lots of badges. Absolutely.

888
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:30,840
I was becoming a child again.
Yeah. Yeah.

889
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:35,640
Through popular culture, Blake found
a way of making sense of his past,

890
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:39,280
the loss of his childish innocence
in the Second World War

891
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:43,280
when, at the age of just seven,
he was evacuated to the countryside

892
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:47,720
to the austere household
of a woman called Mrs Lofts.

893
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:51,120
Every Sunday, we went
to the morning service,

894
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:53,800
Sunday school and the evening service

895
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:55,800
and then, in the evening,

896
00:57:55,800 --> 00:58:01,680
I suppose after the service, she'd
send my sister and I out for a walk

897
00:58:01,680 --> 00:58:03,120
just to get rid of us,

898
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:07,840
and, one day, I thought, "This is
awful, I'm committing suicide."

899
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:10,280
And I tried to strangle myself

900
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:14,800
and, as a seven-year-old kid,
you can't,

901
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:18,160
so, yeah, it was pretty rough.
That's dreadful.

902
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:22,600
You were quite damaged by this?
Yeah. I realised I was.

903
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:24,920
In his wistful
autobiographical works

904
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:27,040
from the early part of his career,

905
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:30,960
Blake uses popular culture
to evoke his stolen childhood.

906
00:58:30,960 --> 00:58:32,920
MUSIC: Mr Sandman
by The Chordettes

907
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:34,920
# I'm so alone
Bum-bum-bum-bum

908
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:40,320
# Don't have nobody to call my own
Bum-bum-bum-bum... #

909
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:43,960
The figures, full of yearning, are
based on members of his own family.

910
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:46,640
# And tell him that his
lonesome nights are over... #

911
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:50,360
These paintings simply reveal
Blake's own childhood hobbies

912
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:53,840
and, most important of all,
his passion for music.

913
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:58,840
So is this your sort of principle
working space, then? Yeah.

914
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:02,200
But this is still part of your
collections of various things?

915
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:06,760
Well, when LPs went out of favour,
I kept mine.

916
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:09,320
Can we have a leaf through
and have a look? Yeah, I mean...

917
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:10,760
Charlie Parker.

918
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:15,640
These just happen to be what's on the
top, so Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck.

919
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:21,840
To Blake, pop music is more
than just a theme of his work.

920
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:26,800
Back in the '50s, it helped him
define his entire artistic approach.

921
00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:32,200
Lawrence Alloway,
who was an English critic,

922
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:34,160
was having a dinner party one night

923
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:37,640
and we were talking about
what I was trying to do and I said,

924
00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:43,280
"I'm trying to make an art that works
on the same level as music,

925
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:47,320
"so that, if somebody listens
to an Elvis Presley record,

926
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:51,920
"they could look at a picture by me
of Elvis on the same level,"

927
00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:55,680
and he said,
"What? A kind of pop art?"

928
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:57,400
What? So you were there
at the birth of...

929
00:59:57,400 --> 00:59:59,720
Not only were there, you inspired
the birth of the term.

930
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:02,160
Well, I claim I do.

931
01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:05,720
During a career spanning
more than 50 years,

932
01:00:05,720 --> 01:00:10,720
Blake defined how we see many
of our greatest musical heroes.

933
01:00:10,720 --> 01:00:15,080
His most famous pop creation,
made with the artist Jann Haworth,

934
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:18,560
transformed The Beatles
from boy band to legend.

935
01:00:19,680 --> 01:00:22,480
But it's a painting he began in 1960

936
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,200
that first encapsulates
his pop ethos.

937
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:27,160
MUSIC: Got a Girl
by The Four Preps

938
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:29,640
# Oh, well, I've got a girl
What a girl

939
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:31,280
# I don't know what to do... #

940
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:34,880
Got A Girl is based on a song
by The Four Preps

941
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:37,640
and it contains an actual record.

942
01:00:37,640 --> 01:00:42,360
The imagery of the painting acts out
the lyrics of the song.

943
01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:44,640
# Yeah, there was Fabian

944
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:45,960
# Avalon

945
01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:48,560
# Ricky Nelson too, yeah, yeah, yeah

946
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:51,120
# Bobby Rydell and I know darn well

947
01:00:51,120 --> 01:00:54,960
# Presley's in there too... #

948
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:58,000
We could even think of
the entire composition

949
01:00:58,000 --> 01:01:01,800
as a rudimentary precursor
to the music video.

950
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:06,920
Blake's classic pop pictures
broadcast a liberating message

951
01:01:06,920 --> 01:01:09,240
to younger British painters -

952
01:01:09,240 --> 01:01:11,760
no subject on earth was off-limits.

953
01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:19,040
And, as he approached 30, Blake, the
so-called godfather of British pop,

954
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:22,440
found himself at the forefront
of a dynamic new scene.

955
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:25,040
# I guess I might have known... #

956
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:27,240
Six years after he'd enrolled there,

957
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:28,880
the Royal College of Art

958
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:33,160
welcomed a blazingly talented
intake of students.

959
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:35,120
# Presley's in there too... #

960
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:37,840
'59 was that extraordinary year,

961
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:39,840
that was Hockney, Allen Jones,

962
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:42,800
Boshier, Pete Phillips,

963
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:44,640
Pauline Boty.

964
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:47,880
Ken Russell's documentary film
Pop Goes the Easel

965
01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:51,440
was broadcast on the BBC in 1962,

966
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:55,600
launching the exciting new pop art
movement to the nation.

967
01:01:57,840 --> 01:01:59,360
Street-smart and hip,

968
01:01:59,360 --> 01:02:03,040
these young artists grew up
with rock music and fashion

969
01:02:03,040 --> 01:02:07,360
and they depicted celebrity, the
space race and consumer products

970
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:10,760
with the same ease as their
American counterparts,

971
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:14,600
but the British approach was
more painterly, less aggressive

972
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:17,600
and sometimes more complicated.

973
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:20,480
Still, one thing they did share
with the Americans

974
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:23,200
was a knack for provocation.

975
01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:27,040
The initial reaction they elicited
was one of horror.

976
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:30,440
The artist Allen Jones proved
particularly shocking.

977
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:35,680
His tutors at the Royal College
expelled him as an example.

978
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:38,680
Russell Spears said, "Oh, you're
going to be a decorator.

979
01:02:38,680 --> 01:02:42,240
That's quite a low blow, really,
isn't it, for any aspiring painter?

980
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:45,280
You don't really want to be
a decorator. Yeah, I was amused.

981
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:48,120
I was staggered
that he should say that, actually,

982
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:50,080
but, on the other hand,
here we are

983
01:02:50,080 --> 01:02:52,200
50-something years later

984
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:54,080
and I've remembered it.

985
01:02:55,120 --> 01:02:59,680
In 1961, the year he should have
graduated from the Royal College,

986
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:03,120
Jones helped his friend,
the artist Peter Phillips,

987
01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:07,920
to organise the prestigious student
exhibition Young Contemporaries.

988
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:17,240
When the committee went home,
Peter and I had to lock up and so on

989
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:20,000
and we wandered around
looking at the show,

990
01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:22,480
and we looked at each other
and just said,

991
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:25,280
"This just looks like a sketch club,"

992
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:28,560
and so we just took down everything
off the walls

993
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:33,640
and put all the work that we liked
on one wall, basically,

994
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:36,880
and so the Hockneys and the Boshiers
and my work and so on

995
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:40,920
were somehow hung as a cohesive group

996
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:45,320
and it's seen as the first
manifestation of pop art,

997
01:03:45,320 --> 01:03:47,400
as it subsequently was called.

998
01:03:51,120 --> 01:03:54,880
Whatever the origins of pop art,
one thing's for sure -

999
01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:56,560
by the end of the '60s,

1000
01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:00,160
the movement would extend far beyond
the realm of the art gallery

1001
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:02,240
and into society at large.

1002
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:05,720
Allen Jones even received
a phone call

1003
01:04:05,720 --> 01:04:07,680
from the director Stanley Kubrick,

1004
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:11,840
who wanted to borrow his sculptures
for his latest film

1005
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:14,240
for free.

1006
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:16,760
He did point out to me
how famous he was,

1007
01:04:16,760 --> 01:04:19,120
that I would get a lot of coverage,

1008
01:04:19,120 --> 01:04:23,000
and I said, "Yes, but I'm not
a set designer."

1009
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:27,040
I said, "If you can get me a show
in the Louvre, I'll do it."

1010
01:04:29,680 --> 01:04:32,720
Jones never did get
that show at the Louvre,

1011
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:35,520
but he did give Kubrick his blessing
to copy his work

1012
01:04:35,520 --> 01:04:37,600
for A Clockwork Orange,

1013
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:41,080
so Kubrick animated one of
the most controversial films

1014
01:04:41,080 --> 01:04:43,680
of the 20th century

1015
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:47,280
by plundering the look
of Jones's kinky sculptures.

1016
01:04:53,360 --> 01:04:57,800
The movement that had raided popular
culture was now its fodder.

1017
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:01,880
Pop art had become a look.

1018
01:05:04,000 --> 01:05:07,600
Straddling the worlds of fashion,
design and music,

1019
01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:10,480
and capable of crossing continents.

1020
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:19,680
It isn't just this single story,
this Anglo-American narrative.

1021
01:05:19,680 --> 01:05:22,440
There were different things
happening in Germany,

1022
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:26,080
in France, across Europe,
elsewhere in the world,

1023
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:29,560
and, even if they can't be
narrowly defined as pop,

1024
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:31,800
the kind of pop
that Warhol, Lichtenstein

1025
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:33,680
and his contemporaries created,

1026
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:36,200
they're part of a wider spirit

1027
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:39,880
that I think it's perfectly
legitimate to think of

1028
01:05:39,880 --> 01:05:41,280
as a part of pop art.

1029
01:05:44,560 --> 01:05:48,400
The old stories about pop art
are too one-sided.

1030
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:50,320
Lichtenstein may have parodied

1031
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:53,920
the media's infatuation
with blonde bombshells

1032
01:05:53,920 --> 01:05:57,400
but other pop artists seem
to reflect sexist stereotypes

1033
01:05:57,400 --> 01:05:59,840
without much thought.

1034
01:05:59,840 --> 01:06:03,560
But there were female pop artists

1035
01:06:03,560 --> 01:06:07,280
who attacked the chauvinism
of popular culture

1036
01:06:07,280 --> 01:06:10,640
and were then sidelined for years.

1037
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:14,840
One of them has lived here
at the Chelsea Hotel since the '60s

1038
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:20,360
and it's only recently that Nicola L
has been embraced as a pop artist.

1039
01:06:20,360 --> 01:06:21,880
KNOCK ON DOOR

1040
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:28,680
Oh! Hello. Nicola, hello. Alastair.
Yes. Good to meet you.

1041
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:31,240
If it's all right...
The zip's down here. Yes.

1042
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:33,960
Oh, you know already. That's great.

1043
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:36,240
What's happening here?

1044
01:06:36,240 --> 01:06:39,240
It's a kind of
construction-destruction.

1045
01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:41,280
Ah, you know... It's like a warzone.

1046
01:06:42,400 --> 01:06:45,920
Is this sculpture or furniture?

1047
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:48,600
Is it pop or surrealism?

1048
01:06:48,600 --> 01:06:54,600
In a playful fashion, Nicola L
objectifies women, literally.

1049
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:57,040
The women on offer here
are very different

1050
01:06:57,040 --> 01:07:00,040
from the pin-ups of classic pop

1051
01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:03,240
but they still fizz
with all its ironic wit.

1052
01:07:03,240 --> 01:07:05,880
This is the ironing table

1053
01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:07,640
and it is a woman.

1054
01:07:07,640 --> 01:07:10,400
A woman. Like quite a lot of
your furniture, it's a woman.

1055
01:07:10,400 --> 01:07:12,920
Is this a woman's giant green foot?

1056
01:07:12,920 --> 01:07:15,000
Can I sit on it? Yes, please.

1057
01:07:15,000 --> 01:07:18,040
I'd love to see you on it.
So, this is...

1058
01:07:18,040 --> 01:07:19,520
Right. I mean, this is...

1059
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:22,560
It's a work of art as well as
a piece of furniture. Yes.

1060
01:07:22,560 --> 01:07:24,960
Well, it is very comfortable. Yes.

1061
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:27,560
I've got to ask you about this.
Do you actually use this for real?

1062
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:31,160
Oh, yes. This is for my cheques.

1063
01:07:31,160 --> 01:07:33,960
You keep things in the drawers? Yes.
Look at the mouth!

1064
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:37,040
This is my credit card.
This is whatever.

1065
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:40,400
You know, it is on wheels.
You can dance with it if you want.

1066
01:07:40,400 --> 01:07:42,160
Yeah? That's amazing.

1067
01:07:43,880 --> 01:07:49,480
Nicola L made this furniture when
she arrived in New York in 1967.

1068
01:07:49,480 --> 01:07:53,800
It was a radical departure
from her early work in Paris.

1069
01:07:53,800 --> 01:07:56,120
There, she had studied as a painter

1070
01:07:56,120 --> 01:07:59,480
and struggled for visibility
in the macho art scene.

1071
01:08:00,760 --> 01:08:05,600
My name was Nicola without S,
at the school of Beaux-Arts in Paris,

1072
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:10,320
so I put an S on my name, Nicolas,
so it seemed a guy, you know?

1073
01:08:10,320 --> 01:08:12,880
And it worked? It works.

1074
01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:17,560
So the guy, he came and looked and
said, "You are a girl," you know,

1075
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:19,240
completely furious.

1076
01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:22,400
I could see he was
really disappointed.

1077
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:25,440
Like most art students
at the start of the '60s,

1078
01:08:25,440 --> 01:08:29,240
Nicola first made
abstract paintings.

1079
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:33,520
I had the feeling that nobody
was really looking at my work

1080
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:36,640
and, one day, I made four...

1081
01:08:36,640 --> 01:08:39,520
One, two, three, four, five robes.

1082
01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:44,480
Oh, I see. For the head
and the limbs. And I went inside.

1083
01:08:44,480 --> 01:08:47,200
Right. Great. Yeah.

1084
01:08:47,200 --> 01:08:50,440
So you actually put your
whole legs and feet...

1085
01:08:50,440 --> 01:08:52,880
I try to do it.

1086
01:08:52,880 --> 01:08:54,560
We have to be...

1087
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:04,200
So, suddenly, I was asking them to be
inside the painting. Yeah, right!

1088
01:09:04,200 --> 01:09:05,480
You know?

1089
01:09:05,480 --> 01:09:07,320
And, well...

1090
01:09:07,320 --> 01:09:10,320
MUSIC: Mellow Yellow
by Donovan

1091
01:09:10,320 --> 01:09:13,840
Nicola's eccentric paintings
became a series of work,

1092
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:15,880
called The Penetrables.

1093
01:09:18,520 --> 01:09:22,600
The most striking example is
Same Skin For Everyone,

1094
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:24,760
a red coat for 11 people

1095
01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:28,600
which Nicola has carried
around the world in a suitcase.

1096
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:33,720
In every new city, she invites
passers-by to join her

1097
01:09:33,720 --> 01:09:35,400
in putting on the coat.

1098
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:38,400
Helping each other inside,

1099
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:41,960
the strangers become joined
by a common skin

1100
01:09:41,960 --> 01:09:43,640
and walk together.

1101
01:09:45,200 --> 01:09:47,880
It's often seen as a plea
for tolerance

1102
01:09:47,880 --> 01:09:51,320
and a protest against racism.

1103
01:09:51,320 --> 01:09:54,480
They're saying that you're
a pop artist. Yeah, yeah.

1104
01:09:54,480 --> 01:09:56,760
Whereas, in most of
the histories of pop,

1105
01:09:56,760 --> 01:09:59,160
you're not explicitly there.

1106
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:02,320
Suddenly, you know...
First, you have to have a long life

1107
01:10:02,320 --> 01:10:03,960
if you are a woman, you know?

1108
01:10:03,960 --> 01:10:07,120
It's easier to be a man in...
for my generation, you know.

1109
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:12,120
Nicola wasn't alone.

1110
01:10:12,120 --> 01:10:16,120
Pop art included several important
female artists who,

1111
01:10:16,120 --> 01:10:18,840
like her, were subsequently ignored.

1112
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:24,560
Artists like Rosalyn Drexler,
Pauline Boty,

1113
01:10:24,560 --> 01:10:27,760
Marisol, and Evelyn Axell.

1114
01:10:27,760 --> 01:10:30,280
Their work had a more explicit,

1115
01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:35,160
passionately-political quality
than the ironic, cool carapace

1116
01:10:35,160 --> 01:10:39,360
of classic pop, and the artists
were in good company.

1117
01:10:39,360 --> 01:10:43,520
In the '60s and '70s, new strands
of pop art emerged, harnessing

1118
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:48,480
pop's knack for stylishly recycling
the strategies of advertising.

1119
01:10:48,480 --> 01:10:52,400
Younger artists began to use
pop's powers of persuasion

1120
01:10:52,400 --> 01:10:56,480
to sell a very different kind
of product - radical change.

1121
01:10:56,480 --> 01:10:59,080
SIREN BLARES

1122
01:11:00,840 --> 01:11:05,400
In 1968, a sexual, social
and political revolution

1123
01:11:05,400 --> 01:11:07,160
convulsed France.

1124
01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:08,520
SHOUTING

1125
01:11:10,960 --> 01:11:15,040
What started out as an isolated
student protest

1126
01:11:15,040 --> 01:11:17,440
quickly turned into all-out war...

1127
01:11:20,800 --> 01:11:23,440
..with 10 million people on strike,

1128
01:11:23,440 --> 01:11:27,160
raging against working conditions,
unemployment

1129
01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:30,520
and France's stifling
conservative society.

1130
01:11:33,120 --> 01:11:35,440
Within days of the protests,

1131
01:11:35,440 --> 01:11:39,320
mysterious posters started
emerging all over Paris...

1132
01:11:40,800 --> 01:11:44,760
..their inciendary slogans
wittily incited revolution.

1133
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:51,880
Every morning, new designs
appeared in their hundreds.

1134
01:11:54,240 --> 01:11:57,800
The posters were
the work of Atelier Populaire,

1135
01:11:57,800 --> 01:12:01,640
or the people's studio,
a collective of anonymous artists,

1136
01:12:01,640 --> 01:12:04,880
and together they worked
with the protesters to create

1137
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:09,440
thousands of posters in their very
own propaganda production line

1138
01:12:09,440 --> 01:12:12,680
and everything about the posters -
the method of the production,

1139
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:18,600
their spirit, the visual language -
it all borrowed heavily from pop.

1140
01:12:20,160 --> 01:12:23,000
French pop art
wasn't especially new.

1141
01:12:24,240 --> 01:12:27,760
By the end of the '50s,
artists were already making work

1142
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:31,080
that drew heavily upon
popular culture.

1143
01:12:36,440 --> 01:12:41,600
But it wasn't until 1968
that pop art finally connected

1144
01:12:41,600 --> 01:12:43,920
with workers on the street.

1145
01:12:46,160 --> 01:12:51,200
In May '68, French artists returning
to Paris to support the students

1146
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:54,000
came here
to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,

1147
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:56,880
where the Atelier Populaire
had occupied

1148
01:12:56,880 --> 01:12:59,080
the lithographic department.

1149
01:13:06,400 --> 01:13:08,680
When was the last time
that you were here?

1150
01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:14,560
45 years ago. Really?

1151
01:13:16,160 --> 01:13:21,320
'In 1968, Gerard Fromanger was
a member of Atelier Populaire,

1152
01:13:21,320 --> 01:13:24,600
'and an anonymous spokesman
for the group.'

1153
01:13:24,600 --> 01:13:28,680
Even the power tried to get us.

1154
01:13:50,080 --> 01:13:53,320
In the beginning, Fromanger
and his friends planned

1155
01:13:53,320 --> 01:13:56,320
to design prints to raise money
for the students.

1156
01:13:57,440 --> 01:14:02,520
This is the first one we did here...
on this machine. Really?

1157
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:06,520
This one, usines...
factory, university, union.

1158
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:09,800
Because all the day long before...

1159
01:14:11,400 --> 01:14:15,440
..the cry in the street,
"Usines, universite, union!

1160
01:14:15,440 --> 01:14:18,080
"Usines, universite, union!"
So we did!

1161
01:14:18,080 --> 01:14:19,960
LA MARSEILLAISE PLAYS

1162
01:14:23,360 --> 01:14:25,480
As soon as the posters
were produced,

1163
01:14:25,480 --> 01:14:27,280
they were pasted on the walls...

1164
01:14:29,640 --> 01:14:32,360
..transformed from prints
into weapons

1165
01:14:32,360 --> 01:14:34,600
in the service of the struggle.

1166
01:14:34,600 --> 01:14:36,000
The only problem was

1167
01:14:36,000 --> 01:14:39,880
lithographic printing was
labour-intensive and slow.

1168
01:14:42,320 --> 01:14:49,920
Everything with hand, so 30 in one
night. That's hard. Oh, very hard.

1169
01:14:49,920 --> 01:14:53,880
But one of the artists had just
returned from New York where

1170
01:14:53,880 --> 01:14:59,360
he'd become well acquainted with
Warhol and his silkscreen process.

1171
01:14:59,360 --> 01:15:03,000
This commercial technique would
allow the Atelier to produce

1172
01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:05,480
hundreds of posters every night

1173
01:15:05,480 --> 01:15:08,920
and react immediately
to unfolding events.

1174
01:15:12,360 --> 01:15:16,600
This was a de Gaulle quote. He said
this thing. It was a response.

1175
01:15:16,600 --> 01:15:18,600
Quickly. Quickly. Yes.

1176
01:15:25,360 --> 01:15:29,240
How fast are we talking?
After 10 hours...

1177
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:33,080
..it was ready and on the walls.

1178
01:15:33,080 --> 01:15:36,480
Although the Atelier Populaire
was active

1179
01:15:36,480 --> 01:15:39,040
for just the few weeks of the riots,

1180
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:44,040
its impact reveals the far-reaching
power of pop art as a mode,

1181
01:15:44,040 --> 01:15:47,880
its ability to revolutionise
people on the streets

1182
01:15:47,880 --> 01:15:50,360
as much as visitors
to the art gallery.

1183
01:15:50,360 --> 01:15:55,600
No other modern art movement
has been so widely accessible.

1184
01:15:58,280 --> 01:16:02,320
And in other parts of the world,
from South America to Iran,

1185
01:16:02,320 --> 01:16:06,800
artists used the language of pop art
for politically subversive ends.

1186
01:16:06,800 --> 01:16:10,880
Neglected for years, the work
of international pop artists

1187
01:16:10,880 --> 01:16:12,960
has recently been gaining acclaim

1188
01:16:12,960 --> 01:16:16,520
and will now be celebrated
in Tate Modern's upcoming

1189
01:16:16,520 --> 01:16:20,280
exhibition of global pop art -
The World Goes Pop.

1190
01:16:22,200 --> 01:16:26,080
Yet this extraordinary explosion
happened at the very moment

1191
01:16:26,080 --> 01:16:29,520
when many were proclaiming
pop art's demise.

1192
01:16:36,040 --> 01:16:39,920
In New York City, on 3rd June 1968,

1193
01:16:39,920 --> 01:16:44,320
Warhol's factory received
an uninvited guest -

1194
01:16:44,320 --> 01:16:46,600
Valerie Solanas,

1195
01:16:46,600 --> 01:16:49,880
actress and founding member of SCUM,

1196
01:16:49,880 --> 01:16:52,760
the Society for Cutting Up Men.

1197
01:16:52,760 --> 01:16:58,080
She had a grudge against Warhol
and was out for revenge.

1198
01:16:59,840 --> 01:17:02,440
Warhol didn't stand a chance.

1199
01:17:02,440 --> 01:17:05,760
Solanis pulled out a gun
and fired.

1200
01:17:10,200 --> 01:17:14,000
Miraculously, after six hours
on the operating table,

1201
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:16,720
he did pull through,
but the survival

1202
01:17:16,720 --> 01:17:20,360
of the movement that he'd helped
to create was in the balance.

1203
01:17:21,600 --> 01:17:26,800
That year, the New York Times
announced that pop art was dead,

1204
01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:30,280
but even though Warhol's shooting
is often used to mark

1205
01:17:30,280 --> 01:17:36,800
the end of classic pop, in fact,
like Warhol, pop art would live on.

1206
01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:41,960
After the shooting,
Warhol remained as prolific as ever.

1207
01:17:41,960 --> 01:17:44,760
In total, he produced
10,000 paintings,

1208
01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:47,360
one for every day of his life.

1209
01:17:47,360 --> 01:17:53,480
I'm a commercial person. Why? Well,
I've got a lot of mouths to feed.

1210
01:17:54,480 --> 01:17:56,200
Got to bring home the bacon.

1211
01:17:56,200 --> 01:18:00,920
By the '70s,
he was making $2 million a year,

1212
01:18:00,920 --> 01:18:03,960
purely from the sale
of commissioned portraits.

1213
01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:06,640
I paint anybody -
anybody that asks me.

1214
01:18:07,680 --> 01:18:11,120
How do you choose to paint somebody,
just because they ask?

1215
01:18:11,120 --> 01:18:13,840
Er, yeah, that's the only way.

1216
01:18:15,120 --> 01:18:19,280
For $40,000, anyone
could have a Warhol of their own,

1217
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:21,600
based on a quick Polaroid snap.

1218
01:18:23,520 --> 01:18:28,400
In 1975, Warhol declared himself
a business artist,

1219
01:18:28,400 --> 01:18:30,600
dedicated to
the art of making money.

1220
01:18:32,240 --> 01:18:37,600
Pop might have lived on, but
to its many critics it had sold out.

1221
01:18:42,440 --> 01:18:46,240
And the long shadow of
Warhol's influence continued

1222
01:18:46,240 --> 01:18:47,960
most obviously in the work

1223
01:18:47,960 --> 01:18:51,560
of the world's most expensive
living artist, Jeff Koons,

1224
01:18:51,560 --> 01:18:55,240
whose kitsch sculptures furthered
pop's use of bad taste

1225
01:18:55,240 --> 01:18:57,040
to shock the art world.

1226
01:18:59,120 --> 01:19:01,360
But artists did continue using

1227
01:19:01,360 --> 01:19:04,040
the sharp, satirical edge
of pop art...

1228
01:19:06,960 --> 01:19:11,040
..and in the last place you'd
expect - behind the Iron Curtain,

1229
01:19:11,040 --> 01:19:13,080
where from the beginning
of the '70s

1230
01:19:13,080 --> 01:19:15,640
pop became a means
of political subversion.

1231
01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:24,360
Inspired by Western pop art, artists
began to explore the parallels

1232
01:19:24,360 --> 01:19:29,040
between the imagery of advertising
and the imagery of propaganda.

1233
01:19:32,160 --> 01:19:35,080
Just as advertising was trying
to sell a product,

1234
01:19:35,080 --> 01:19:38,800
propaganda was trying
to sell a political system.

1235
01:19:40,720 --> 01:19:43,320
The phenomenon
arose in the Soviet Union,

1236
01:19:43,320 --> 01:19:48,240
in a movement known as Sots Art,
but it had much greater impact

1237
01:19:48,240 --> 01:19:52,520
in China where pop still underpins
contemporary art.

1238
01:19:55,920 --> 01:20:00,600
A movement known as Political Pop
emerged in 1989

1239
01:20:00,600 --> 01:20:06,080
as China embraced economic reform
and opened its doors to the West.

1240
01:20:08,800 --> 01:20:13,080
It coincided with the tragic events
of Tiananmen Square.

1241
01:20:13,080 --> 01:20:17,560
That suddenly changed
the entire mood of the nation.

1242
01:20:17,560 --> 01:20:20,360
Basically,
the cultural world was very quiet.

1243
01:20:20,360 --> 01:20:24,600
Everything went underground
and Political Pop,

1244
01:20:24,600 --> 01:20:28,040
as a new form of art,
emerged during this era.

1245
01:20:28,040 --> 01:20:32,200
It was very much an art form
that captured the shift

1246
01:20:32,200 --> 01:20:35,880
from one end of the Cold War
to the other side.

1247
01:20:40,960 --> 01:20:45,280
Young, politically disaffected
artists lampooned the awkward

1248
01:20:45,280 --> 01:20:48,280
relationship between the ideals
of communism

1249
01:20:48,280 --> 01:20:50,960
and the introduction
of consumer goods.

1250
01:20:52,160 --> 01:20:57,000
Risking censorship and arrest,
artists like Wang Guangyi

1251
01:20:57,000 --> 01:21:00,800
and Yu Youhan relied
on pastiche, irony

1252
01:21:00,800 --> 01:21:04,800
and playfulness to communicate
the state of a nation

1253
01:21:04,800 --> 01:21:08,400
on the brink of enormous
political and economic change.

1254
01:21:10,080 --> 01:21:12,840
Parodying Western brands
and slogans,

1255
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:17,960
these artists imagined the kind of
future that capitalism could bring,

1256
01:21:17,960 --> 01:21:22,320
and that future has come to pass
in a nation that has become

1257
01:21:22,320 --> 01:21:25,920
the world's largest
and fastest-growing economy.

1258
01:21:29,000 --> 01:21:30,800
It may sound a little strange,

1259
01:21:30,800 --> 01:21:34,480
but coming to China today reveals
quite a lot, I think,

1260
01:21:34,480 --> 01:21:39,280
about the mind-set that produced
pop art in mid-century America.

1261
01:21:39,280 --> 01:21:41,920
Just as America
in the '40s and '50s

1262
01:21:41,920 --> 01:21:46,840
was rampantly expanding as a nation,
so China over the past two decades

1263
01:21:46,840 --> 01:21:50,680
has transformed itself
with astonishing speed.

1264
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:52,760
Look at that skyline.

1265
01:21:52,760 --> 01:21:56,760
This is a glittering
and self-confident

1266
01:21:56,760 --> 01:21:59,040
freshly-manufactured world,

1267
01:21:59,040 --> 01:22:02,280
and Chinese artists
who wanted to come to terms

1268
01:22:02,280 --> 01:22:06,320
with this profound shift
in their society, they became

1269
01:22:06,320 --> 01:22:10,680
obsessed with a particular product
of the West - pop art.

1270
01:22:10,680 --> 01:22:13,160
Several decades after its creation,

1271
01:22:13,160 --> 01:22:17,760
pop had become the go-to style
for a nation on the up.

1272
01:22:22,000 --> 01:22:26,160
If you think of China in the last
25 years, the whole material world

1273
01:22:26,160 --> 01:22:29,840
of China, the whole visual world,
is totally transformed.

1274
01:22:29,840 --> 01:22:33,040
Everything is new and just made,

1275
01:22:33,040 --> 01:22:36,400
so dealing with this
newly manufactured world

1276
01:22:36,400 --> 01:22:39,760
is certainly something
that everybody has to deal with,

1277
01:22:39,760 --> 01:22:44,320
so, in this sense, I think
pop sensibility is

1278
01:22:44,320 --> 01:22:48,840
embedded in the Chinese consciousness
and one has to come to deal with it.

1279
01:22:53,920 --> 01:23:00,200
For the generation of artists who
grew up during China's miracle boom,

1280
01:23:00,200 --> 01:23:05,040
21st-century mass media culture
is a turbo-charged mix

1281
01:23:05,040 --> 01:23:09,000
of commercial imagery
and consumer desire...

1282
01:23:10,520 --> 01:23:16,280
..video games and the furious buzz
of a 24-hour online society.

1283
01:23:17,680 --> 01:23:22,520
And it's the internet that inspires
superstar Chinese artist Xu Zhen...

1284
01:23:25,560 --> 01:23:28,600
..one of the leading
and most controversial artists

1285
01:23:28,600 --> 01:23:29,800
of his generation...

1286
01:23:30,960 --> 01:23:33,400
..China's answer to Andy Warhol

1287
01:23:33,400 --> 01:23:36,920
and a man who's reinventing pop
for the 21st century.

1288
01:23:41,600 --> 01:23:47,480
Xu Zhen even took Warhol's idea
that good business is the best art

1289
01:23:47,480 --> 01:23:49,720
to its logical extreme.

1290
01:23:49,720 --> 01:23:55,960
In 2009, he founded a firm dedicated
to the production of creativity

1291
01:23:55,960 --> 01:23:59,040
and he became its CEO.

1292
01:23:59,040 --> 01:24:02,200
Xu Zhen was no longer
a singular artist,

1293
01:24:02,200 --> 01:24:04,560
he was now a corporate brand.

1294
01:24:07,880 --> 01:24:10,680
Xu Zhen's studio has
none of the decadence

1295
01:24:10,680 --> 01:24:14,080
but all of the industry
of Warhol's original factory.

1296
01:24:23,600 --> 01:24:27,000
Xu Zhen employs 50 staff to design

1297
01:24:27,000 --> 01:24:31,120
and produce 10 different series
of works, or product lines.

1298
01:24:31,120 --> 01:24:34,760
All he has to do is
communicate an idea.

1299
01:24:36,640 --> 01:24:39,480
He even has a line of T-shirts
and bags.

1300
01:24:41,800 --> 01:24:45,200
He's often compared to Damien Hirst
or Jeff Koons -

1301
01:24:45,200 --> 01:24:49,520
artists who've turned making money
into an art form.

1302
01:24:53,480 --> 01:24:56,560
Are you a fan of capitalism,
is that what your work is about,

1303
01:24:56,560 --> 01:24:59,200
or are you more critical of it
as a system?

1304
01:25:23,280 --> 01:25:27,960
In 2007, ShanghART Supermarket
became one of the most talked about

1305
01:25:27,960 --> 01:25:30,560
works of Chinese contemporary art.

1306
01:25:30,560 --> 01:25:35,760
Xu Zhen replicated an entire
supermarket, complete with cashiers.

1307
01:25:37,120 --> 01:25:39,760
But this was no ordinary store.

1308
01:25:42,120 --> 01:25:44,600
Oh, it's empty. Yeah. It's empty.

1309
01:25:44,600 --> 01:25:46,680
Are they all empty? Yeah.

1310
01:25:47,800 --> 01:25:48,960
It's still sealed.

1311
01:25:50,160 --> 01:25:53,240
What have you done with
all of the contents of these boxes?

1312
01:25:54,840 --> 01:25:58,280
'Of course, this isn't the first
time supermarket products

1313
01:25:58,280 --> 01:25:59,680
'have inspired art.'

1314
01:25:59,680 --> 01:26:01,920
Product of Germany, this one.

1315
01:26:01,920 --> 01:26:03,960
'In 1964, Warhol exhibited

1316
01:26:03,960 --> 01:26:06,600
sculptures of shop-bought packaging

1317
01:26:06,600 --> 01:26:09,680
'in an exhibition called
The American Supermarket.'

1318
01:26:09,680 --> 01:26:12,720
Were you thinking much
about Andy Warhol

1319
01:26:12,720 --> 01:26:14,600
when you made this supermarket?

1320
01:26:31,800 --> 01:26:35,360
At the ShanghART Supermarket,
hundreds of visitors bought

1321
01:26:35,360 --> 01:26:38,400
empty packaging
for the price of ordinary products.

1322
01:26:39,760 --> 01:26:44,840
And so Xu Zhen's installation mimics
the supermarket model more closely

1323
01:26:44,840 --> 01:26:46,400
than even Andy Warhol.

1324
01:26:48,120 --> 01:26:50,560
On the surface, it seems playful

1325
01:26:50,560 --> 01:26:53,320
but, underneath,
it packs a political punch.

1326
01:27:03,760 --> 01:27:07,840
Do you feel that this is...
It's a work of pop art, this?

1327
01:27:28,120 --> 01:27:32,040
Now, more than half a century
after it was invented,

1328
01:27:32,040 --> 01:27:36,280
we're living in the kind of future
imagined by pop-art's pioneers.

1329
01:27:37,560 --> 01:27:39,920
Their obsession with celebrity

1330
01:27:39,920 --> 01:27:45,560
and the mass media has defined
the way that we now see the world.

1331
01:27:45,560 --> 01:27:48,640
And as capitalism has
spread around the planet,

1332
01:27:48,640 --> 01:27:52,680
so has pop art,
documenting the seductive appeal

1333
01:27:52,680 --> 01:27:56,080
and empty promises
of mass consumerism

1334
01:27:56,080 --> 01:28:00,400
and proving itself one of the most
powerful expressions of life

1335
01:28:00,400 --> 01:28:03,720
in our chaotic 24/7 internet age.

1336
01:28:07,160 --> 01:28:08,920
Fundamentally, though, pop survives

1337
01:28:08,920 --> 01:28:13,000
because its spirit is so inclusive
and democratic.

1338
01:28:13,000 --> 01:28:16,120
It's witty and playful,
it's irreverent,

1339
01:28:16,120 --> 01:28:21,240
and, as a result, it ensures that
those sacred, high-minded principles

1340
01:28:21,240 --> 01:28:25,160
of modern art can be enjoyed
by the many and not just the few.

1341
01:28:26,800 --> 01:28:30,640
The great lesson of pop
is that there are no longer

1342
01:28:30,640 --> 01:28:33,920
any barriers between
high and low culture.

1343
01:28:33,920 --> 01:28:37,560
As Andy Warhol put it -
"Once you get pop,

1344
01:28:37,560 --> 01:28:40,960
"you'll never see reality
in the same way again."