R. Lucy Lippard

Whilst Pop Art may not be a movement characterised by manifestos and group demonstrations, it is at the very least a relatively cohesive trend, a set of practices that utilise images, objects and the languages of mass culture (advertising, comics, packaging, the star system, design) to showcase, celebrate, critique or play with them. This spirit was driven by a desire to experience the contemporary world with a positive rather than a negative attitude, in a climate of exuberant optimism.In this critical overview of Pop Art, written in real time before the movement was canonised, Lucy R. Lippard dissects the phenomenon – which first emerged in England and then independently in America – and its international legacy. She examines both its iconic figures – the spiritual fathers, the precursors and the five ‘diehards’ – and lesser-known names, as well as the artists who preceded them: the Abstract Expressionists.By capturing the energy, contradictions and social context without the retrospective lens of later textbooks, Lippard offers one of the first systematic analyses of how mass visual culture comes to constitute the very language of contemporary art.