Pop Art or Pseudo Art

Dear Andry Warhol,

I'm sorry, but you suck. Now who doesn't suck and does produce pop art that 'reflects modern life' are the Russian pop artists, whose works are being exhibited simultaneously with those of Warhol in the New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. I walked thru the large rooms of Warhol's exhibits and nothing had caught my eye. Large, colourful images, blurred, painted over; enormous pictures of cans of food, pistols and flowers. Everything there was annoyingly obnoxious and phony. I don't suppose people walking along with me found it exciting or enlightening either. They all looked bored, but polite nevertheless, polite enough to produce a sigh of amusement automatically, after every five metres of space they covered. We rushed thru the exhibition, confused and annoyed at the high price for the real rubbish.

But just as I thought I'd wasted my time and friends' good will to entertain me, we found another exhibition hall with a fine collection of art works by Russian pop artists. The second I walked into the room I gasped. It was amazing. Not Monet-amazing, but more creatively amazing. Everything was about the tiniest details of life; enlarged, as pop art dictates, but bearing much more meaning, full of humour and ironies and generally more creative than Warhol's canned food. There were bits that awfully resembled Warhol's, but others were great. There was a glass sculpture of a bull couple copulating; there was a wooden composition, representing a number of viewers sitting in a half empty auditorium and watching something, each with a different emotion written on their wooden faces; there were other fascinating things, like a big wooden well and other funny things from life.

Just because it's pop art doesn't mean it has to be rubbish. Thank god garbage hasn't become popular yet.

: 05 Oct 2005 14:00 |  Tags: Reviews |  Comments (3) |  Report a problem