Pop art collage
Display the following art: (link in show notes)
“Campbell’s Soup Cans” by Andy Warhol
Roy Lichtenstein’s comic strip art
“Three Flags” by Jasper Johns
Supplies:
pencil, eraser, plain paper, tracing paper, brand handout, gel pens, markers or colored pencils, magazines, stick glue, poster board
I spent more time on preparing how to teach POP ART than any other art subject. How do you explain to a kid why a giant comic strip should be in a museum? Or a stack of plywood with lumpy American flags painted on them? Or why rows of Campbell’s soup cans are worth millions of dollars?
Begin by defining the term, “Pop Art” to your students. Popular Culture. What is trendy or common right now? If the kids need help, ask them... One day when you are old, old, old, your grandkids may show you a tattered starbucks cup or a faded instagram sticker asking, “What’s This”? Kids think the suggestion that they will one day be grandparents is hilarious. Tell your students, the things YOU use and live with every day like a Nike logo, verbs like tweeting, and phrases such as “going viral” or “tik-tok challenge” might not mean anything to kids 50 years from now; but, they are part of your popular culture.
Many art movements begin with an artist’s need to express a meaningful idea or rebel against an event they see happening in their culture. So what was happening in 1950s and ‘60s America?
The Cold War, the space race, The Vietnam war and people protesting it, Women’s Lib and The Civil Rights Movement to name a few. Pop artists were also rebelling against fine art belonging to only the wealthy few, commercialism and the things people valued like fame and celebrity. Pop artists used common and familiar objects so ordinary that they begged the viewer to take a closer look at what was really happening in their everyday world.
Instead of painting fine art oil paintings of a landscape or a person, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol used crude ways to manufacture their art. Silk-screened soup cans and lumpy, painted newspaper strips on plywood represent the mass production of all kinds of new stuff that Americans were scrambling to be the first to buy. Like time-saving clothes washers and driers or a luxury automobile. Or a new convenience called a frozen TV dinner, TV trays to eat them on while being the first in the neighborhood to watch a color TV.
So, getting back to soup cans, American flags and comic strips... What were pop artists trying to say by using every day objects?
By rearranging the American flag, it might have a new meaning since Americans were changing in many new ways.
A comic strip blown up so big that you can see the dots they are printed with might mean the artist wants you to take a closer look at ordinary life and what people think is important.
And rows of soup cans that look almost exactly alike might mean the artist thinks the American people are shedding their individuality to become like everyone else. Tell your students to ask their grandparents about their thoughts on the ‘50s and ‘60s.
So, now the fun part. Hand out a sheet of brands from the link that are popular right now. Students will be very familiar with Instagram, Starbucks, and snapchat. Ask the kids to name other brands and write them on the board.
The Lesson: Have the kids choose a logo and change it in some way to make it unique. They may also take two or three brands and combine them. Ask what they want to communicate through their original brand.
Students may use pencil and tracing paper but they must change the brand in some way. When they are finished, offer markers, gel pens or colored pencil to complete the drawing.
This assignment is perfect for print-making. The designs are simple enough to easily carve out of a printing block. Also, several different colored prints in a row easily mimick the way Andy Warhol used repeated prints for his Pop Art.
The collage:
The last page to the link with famous pop art paintings is a collage by
James Rosenquist, made in 1964 called “F-11”.
The collage of images is enormous and fills all four walls of a room, floor to ceiling. The painting takes up a third of a football field. See how closely students were listening to what was happening in the 1960s. Ask them why the artist would create his art to take up an entire room? How would that make the viewer feel surrounded by the different images? The F-111 fighter plane, the newest, most advanced and most expensive weapon at the time, is flying through consumer goods, images from the media, and forms of advertising. Who is piloting the plane and why? Then, ask students to pick out different images and discuss why the artist might have used them in the painting. The title will give them a head start.
Are there similarities between popular culture from pop art and current events in their culture today?
This is a great project for young teenagers as they are beginning to question things around them and form their own opinions. Ask them to create a collage out of images from magazines to express an idea they feel strongly about. Cutting out letters to form words can create a powerful focal point to draw the viewer into the piece. I’ve had students who struggle thinking about something they feel strongly for or against. Almost like it’s a new concept for some. They can chat with their friends while looking through magazines and that usually helps them come up with an idea or message they want to convey. It’s good for kids to see the subjects other students use in their art and discuss them.