An Alternative View of Pop Art

A product of its own reputation, the genre of pop art has come to be represented by just a few iconic images; Warhol’s Campell’s Soup Cans, for example, which are now emblematic of 1960s New York, or Roy Lichtenstein’s poignant half-tone flecked kiss, reproduced so many times as to feel like a simulacrum. Beyond the coffee table publications and the copycats, however, these pieces sit within a rich and diverse cultural context – one which spreads far beyond the perceived pop…