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Madi Cooper
ARTHC 202
April 6th, 2016
American Art in the 1960s: Pop Art and Minimalism
During the 1960s, the youth of America began to recognize the great turmoil and
chaos imbedded in the country. Students of universities across the country were
rejecting the traditional ways of their parents and demanding a new America; an
America free of segregation, war, and limitations on women. Tensions between whites
and blacks were at an all-time high, with violence becoming more and more common
from both civil rights activists and white supremacists. The efforts of the government on
this matter had been minimal and ineffective, and even less had changed in the minds of
the older generation, who were set in the ways of the past. Protests against U.S.
involvement in The Vietnam War began only among a small number of peace activists,
but grew significantly in size when the U.S. began bombing North Vietnam in 1965.
Despite amendments made to the Equal Rights Act to ensure the elimination of sexbased wage discrimination, as well as the protection against discrimination against
women in the work-place by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women were still fighting for
equal rights in the work-place. The new generation of America was unhappy with the
way their predecessors were doing things, so they decided that it was time for change.
Art in America was heavily involved in this rejection of tradition. Artists became
weary of the strict classification of high art; they began to see Abstract Expressionism
as elitist and irrelevant. They watched as only experienced museum-goers and highbrow artists awed at pieces from Rothko and Pollock and how the every day, average
Joes had absolutely no interest in these monumental, emotional pieces. These new

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artists longed for something that wasnt difficult to understand and something that
rejected the tiresome ideals of the past. They wanted something that was able to stand
on its own and make a statement, rather than using the passions and ideas of the artist
to convey a message. They wanted to remove any trace of biography. So unlike anything
before, it was no longer about the artist, it was purely about the art. This idea was an
important characteristic of two major movements of art in the 60s: Pop Art and
Minimalism.
Beginning in the 50s, consumerism and advertising became a defining feature of
the American life. After the World War, Americans enjoyed more leisure time and a
greater disposable income than any previous generation. Combine this with a constant
development of technology, and advertisers had it easy. People were hungry to consume
and consume they did. The purchasing of goods and services began to equate with
success and happiness. This consumerism began to apply not only to material
possessions, but to celebrities as well. People began to obsess over figures such as Elvis
Presley and Marilyn Monroe. These celebrities became popular because they were
different, they were unlike the world had ever seen, and people loved it. Pop culture
could not get enough of them, they craved these celebrities like they craved the shiniest
new goods or services. America was all about the material.
Pop Art was built upon this idea. Drawing from the protests of idealistic young
people against the conformism and materialism of their parents generation, these
modern artists began a new movement. Artists turned to what they saw around them
nothing was off limits. They drew from Hollywood movies, music, product packaging,
advertising, and comic books. These artists not only emphasized problems with this
consumerist culture, they also began to draw parallels with the art culture. By equating

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commercialized images with fine art, they implied that art, at its base, was a commodity.
A perfect example of this would be Claes Oldenburgs installation, called The Store. In
1961, he rented a storefront in New York City and sold sculptures of perfectly ordinary
objects, ranging from a slice of blueberry pie to ladys lingerie. By selling these works of
art, which already represent mundane objects, at a nominal price, he is making a
statement that art is merely a commodity, waiting to be bought by the highest bidder.
Andy Warhol went a step beyond this. In his piece, Marilyn Diptych, he made a
powerful comment on the way America consumed its celebrities. By repeating the image
of Marilyn Monroe, Warhol emphasized the idea that Marilyn was no greater than the
stacks of Campbells soup cans on the shelves in the grocery stores. In contrast to the
black and white images on the right side of the piece, the bright and colorful depictions
of Marilyn on the left seem cartoon-like, unhuman. She is no longer a human being, but
a commodity that is being bought and sold throughout America. On the left, Warhol
displays the negative effect that this idea has on Marilyn the human, as the dark
columns seem to be almost blotting her out of the page, and she seems to be fading away
into oblivion on the far right end of the work. Warhol used the assembly-style technique
of silk-screening, which was used to create many advertising posters at the time. This
technique removed him emotionally from the piece and further equated his art with the
various popular marketing and advertisements of the time.
A very popular, yet somewhat controversial Pop Artist, Roy Lichtenstein
managed to distance himself the most from the ideals of Abstract Expressionism.
Lichtenstein was inspired by the art and popularity of comic books. Combining hand
drawing and mechanical reproduction, he appropriated popular comic panels, mainly
from DC comics, by cropping the images and creating entirely new and dramatic pieces.

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A technique that became the hallmark of Lichtenstein was the use of Ben-Day dots,
which was the inexpensive printing process used by comic book makers to create color.
It was an optical allusion, employing the use of dots and the negative space between
them to create five or six different colors from only three or four. By blowing up
individual panels from comic strips, Lichtenstein employed the use of these dots and
emphasized the fact that the color seen on the pulp of the comic strips was not even real
color, it was a cheap replica. By doing this, he made a huge statement. He was equating
his art, which was hanging on the walls of fine art museums, to that of cheap, fifteen
cent comic books. By appropriating his subjects from these comic books, he suggested
that art did not need to be original, which went against everything that the art world had
ever believed. This idea also allowed Lichtenstein to be almost completely emotionally
removed from his work, leaving the pieces to speak entirely for themselves. Removing
the intention of the artist from the art was exactly opposite from what the Abstract
Expressionists wanted, therefore, Lichtenstein, among others, had achieved what the
Pop Artists wished to do.
Minimalists wished to attain this same goal. They wanted to produce art that was
able to stand on its own, that did not need to refer to anything other than itself. They
wanted to avoid the appearance of fine art and denied the expression that had been so
relevant just years before. They began to use simple, geometric forms, thus eradicating
any sign of authorship or personality. They did not attempt to make their art resemble
anything besides what it physically was. In this way, the artists relied heavily on the
reaction of the viewer. That was the point for them. The meaning of their work was
whatever the audience received from it. Sol LeWitt, a Minimalist and Conceptualist,
published a work that was considered by many to be the Minimalist movements

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manifesto, called Paragraphs on Conceptual Art. In it he wrote, What the work of art
looks like isn't too important. It has to look like something if it has physical form. No
matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea. It is the process of
conception and realization with which the artist is concerned.
Minimalism introduced a completely different way of looking at several different
art mediums. Sculpture now became about so much more than the work itself. Because
minimalist artists were concerned with the reaction to the piece just as much as the
piece itself, the space and the way that a work was presented became just as important.
Artists worked to place their pieces just so in an exhibit, so that the viewer could have
the best experience and so that they could view the work in the most effective way.
Painters began to create canvases that were almost objects in themselves because of
their bulkiness and odd shapes and sizes. Light also became an important element in the
movement. Artists contorted fluorescent tubes to create color spaces. These spaces
evoked a certain reaction from the viewers in a way that had never been done before. All
of these new strides meant that art as the world had known it was becoming more and
more irrelevant; art was now something that knew no bounds.
The chaos of life in the 1960s created a generation of politically aware and
socially active individuals, ready to see a new, changed America. These individuals were
tired of the ways of the past. They saw the disorder around them and knew that the
traditions of their parents and predecessors were no longer beneficial. The smartness of
Pop Art and the balance of Minimalism challenged these traditions. Artists saw an
opportunity for change and grasped onto it. They channeled their frustrations with the
world outside of them into work that they knew would have an effect and would ignite
change. Because these individuals were brave enough to stand up and stand out, art as

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we know it has been changed infinitely. Architecture and interior design was influenced
heavily by the ideals of the Minimalist movement and can be seen almost anywhere. The
ideals of Pop Art still stand with us. Nobody could forget the statements made by artists
like Warhol. Pop Art and Minimalism were huge gateways that allowed for the
challenging of classical traditions. It allowed other movements to grow and other ideals
to take form. These movements made and created history.