Fresh Pop Commentary

The Drawers - FRESH POP NYC Commentary written by Julie Oakes

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Pop Art. The rehashing of popular culture through the use of media, advertising and consumer based imagery.

'Pop' is also an outburst that causes an explosion and Pop Art saw the literal use referenced in such pieces as Eduardo Paolozzi's 1947 collage in which the word 'pop' is coming from a revolver and then again in 1957 when Richard Hamilton (Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes so Different, so Appealing?) depicted a body builder holding a giant lollipop on which he placed the word ‘pop’.

There is an aspect to pop art that did blow fine arts off of the elevated peaks where it had reigned in high and barely-touchable castles of elevated subject matter or medium based concepts, such as in the work of the abstract expressionists. The subject matter of the pop art of the fifties and sixties derived matter, not from the aesthetically sacrosanct realms, but from the supermarket, common-man-or-woman's wall paper, Polaroid photographs, multiples, kitsch and mechanical renditions of pap that had been previously deemed devoid of gesture. The pop artists were as cool as a cucumber.

But pop can loose its fizz if left open too long and turn into a sugary listless mixture of ingredients - unpalatable. How to freshen the pop? Come up with a new recipe for translating the insights that result from our cultural dilemma and va-va-va-voom! Fresh Pop!

We have chosen three artists from NYC whose work, although each from authentic and personal orientation, associates with Pop Art.

Billy Copley has been working with popular imagery from California to New York City (where he was a friend of Warhol). His snappy cartoon-ish style combines with a painterly, processed maturity to yield a fresh take on pop.

Jesse McCloskey is the young renegade. He's plied a New England narrative to a pop consciousness and freely emoted. The result - fresh pop, though a little hot.

Ed Giordano Jr., with humanitarian angst, shows the plight of the common man in his most disadvantaged insecurity. With a sculptural technique that relates to the work of George Segal, he presents the popular dilemma with the freshness of a well placed slap.