Event detail
"Good business is the best art" Andy Warhol once provocatively claimed. Tate Modern's hit autumn exhibition Pop Life examines how artists since the 1980s have cultivated their public persona as a product, and conjured a dazzling mix of media, commerce and glamour to build their own 'brands'. Beginning with the grandfather of Pop, Andy Warhol, the show includes Jeff Koons' infamous Made in Heaven series and his stainless steel Rabbit sculpture, an iconic array of golden spot and butterfly paintings from Damien Hirst's recordbreaking 2008 auction, and a reconstruction of Keith Haring's Pop Shop in New York. Also included will be works by Richard Prince, Martin Kippenberger, and the notorious YBAs, and a special new commission by Takashi Murakami.
User opinions
5 Opinions where posted
4
looking forward to going,
by Pandemonia 07.11.09 17:32
I have high expectations about this event
Report this opinion as offensive5
Poor mixture of YBAs, Plastic Manga and Sex Overload
by frolickingsowa 17.11.09 12:09
Firstly I was totally excited about seeing this exhibition, as if features a wide range of 'outrageous' artists, including our beloved YBAs: Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Gavin Turk, as well as pieces by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons.
However, it feels that Tate tried to hard, to present works of all these artists in quite a constrained space. Therefore we've got Hirst's spot paintings on one wall, facing Emin's blankets, which are next to Turk's figure, on which left hand side there is more Hirst's stuff. It is just far to cramped, and the story does not flow but gives only the soundbites of the movement.
Additionally, putting Warhol, YBAs and Keith Herring works in one room, under one common name does not feel right. Warhol is an artist in his own right, and his life and work tells a completely different story from the YBas - although as a result they are both after cash incentives, the motivations and socio-economical situations were far to different for these artists.
Creating separate exhibitions for all of these artists and providing a deep insight into their ouvre would be a fabulous experience.
Otherwise, Tate just gathered as many pieces of art as it could probably afford, which had even just a bit of POP notion, trying to tell a story of the movement/phenomenon which never really existed.
