Politics of Pop Art in Public

Pop Art as a response to the changing urban environment

1st case study: Claes OLDENBURGs exhibition Ray Gun (1960) Ray Gun and The Street as response to the abstraction of art and the city 2nd case study: the WATTS TOWERS in the 1950s and 1960s Re-imagining LA as capital of popular culture The double meanings of the Towers as American cultural heritage and as hallmark for a local community

Old New York

Mainly low rise development Active street life Congestion Diverse functions

Slums and poor living conditions Overcrowding Not a unique situation

What does it look like now?

Why this dramatic transformation of cityscape?

Old city deemed impractical Slum clearance Symbolic discprecancy

New York Renewal Scheme

Most violent during 50s and 60s Robert Moses Vision of a modern(ist) New York City Inspiration from Europe and Le Corbusier Sweden a good parallel

Stockholms City

Stockholm renewal scheme finalized 1949

Changed and moderated during 1960s Less focus on highways and traffic

Htorgshusen
1956-62

Monstrosities of 60s and 70s

Brunkebergstorg, Stockholm. 1969-1976

Malm Caroli 60s and 70s

This is Claes Oldenburgs New York This is the New York of Ray Gun (1960)
Construction/destruction of Lincoln Center 1955-65

Conceptually, what can we say about the modern(ist) city?

Rational Abstracted Legible

Total
Sculptural Ahistoric
Le Corbusier Plan Voisin, 1925

Alternative modernisms
Sdra ngby, Stockholm, 1933-40 Sege Park, Malm, 1936

GREENWHICH VILLAGE

Ray Gun, 1960

Judson Gallery at Judson Memorial Church Young local artists Oldenburgs installation The Street included Also series of happenings in relation to it. Snapshots From the City.

 A childish and dadaesque reaction against renewal scheme Critique often focused on picturesque and romantic elements of old city. E.g. Jane Jacobs Oldenburgs The Street is very different I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap

An appreciation and love for the irrationalities and filth of the city Rem Koolhaas Delirious New York. Congestion

 I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. An alternative vision of New York. An irrational, inconsistent, illogical and chaotic New York. Carnivalesque delight in disorder and nonsense Snapshots From the City A praise of life over abstraction

Rubens Gallery and rebirths

Reborn a few weeks after New space Crisper, cleaner, clearer Sense of narrative

Importance of space
What does this do to the work? Does this shift meaning and understanding?
How important is the broader spatial environment for a works meaning, production and audience reception?