The World goes Futt...

A review of the World Goes Pop at the Tate. 

One of the most baffling things about this exhibition is that the Tate has some of the prime examples of Pop art, such as Warhol’s Marilyn Diptique and Lichtenstein’s Bamm! but neither of them made it into the exhibition. Why not?

The answer I suspect is that they would have overshadowed the work in there.  I have a problem with Pop art, and I have a problem with derivative exhibitions.  This exhibition then started several points down.

The main issue I have with Pop art is that it is vapid.  It makes an initial impact (sometimes) but then fails to follow up with anything deeper.  There is often an overt political agenda but the impression that one always gets is that of the artist desperately seeking attention for themselves.  This exhibition had this issue in spades such as for example Nuclear Bomb No.2 which was the model of a bomb covered in Leopard skin.  I forget the name of the artist but they are not as cleaver as they think they are. 

This was an issue through the exhibition.  I had a trope that a find particularly tiresome of naked (or semi naked) women with their heads removed/ obscured.  An irritating trend that continues to this day.  The zenith of this was room of headless female forms on a pillar with the genitals replaced with mirrors by Jana Zelisb.  I find this simply exploitive.  Likewise the placing of violent images in a domestic setting.  What a clever point you are making.  Maybe I am being unfair. Maybe these clichés were not clichés at the time.  Frankly though I don’t care.

The other problem is that after the initial impact, and absent any deep idea of intimate engagement few of the works have a technical quality worthy of inspection.  It was like a poor quality student graduation fair. There were parties of school children wandering round, laughing derisively at the work.  They were right to do so.

This is a little harsh, there were a few works I quite liked.  So honourable mention goes to Bernard Rucillis, and Isabel Olive (an example of her work is the picture left, above the robot).  The later has a particularly good picture of a terrifying toddler. Best thing in the whole show.  Parviz Tonawali would be excellent if he wasn’t so sex obsessed and Chryssl Varder’s light sculpture came, literally, as light relief.

I was relieved to leave though. Usually I spend ages in art exhibitions but this one occupied me for only 30 minutes.  I didn’t even buy the post cards (none of the honourable mentions are in there).

If you like Pop art then you might like it, but even if you do go and see the above mentioned Warhol and Liechtenstein in the free exhibition.  If you are in your Tate then in my view your time is much better spent going up a floor and seeing Nam Jun Paik’s exhibition.  It is free, and really quite good.  The Bakelite robot is very cool (left).