America Is Hard to See

May 1–Sept 27, 2015

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In the early 1960s, Pop art challenged the gestures of Abstract Expressionism with an unflinching embrace of America’s exploding commercial and media culture. The sources of this new art were generally neither the artist’s imagination nor direct observation of the world, but rather images themselves—whether product packaging, print advertisements, newspaper photography, or comic books. Early in their careers, many of Pop’s protagonists worked as commercial artists; Andy Warhol was an illustrator and James Rosenquist a Billboard painter, while Ed Ruscha trained in graphic design. These commercial backgrounds yielded flat, boldly graphic, mechanical-looking, and impersonal surfaces that were sometimes marked by photographic and printing processes.

The works on view in this chapter present a range of attitudes toward consumer culture. Some feel upbeat and celebratory, such as Tom Wesselmann’s enormous sandwich or Wayne Thiebaud’s luscious cakes. Other works, however, seem to distort or critique the American dream by hinting at overindulgent materialism or the social turmoil of the 1960s. Marisol’s fractured figures present themselves as mutant mannequins, and in Warhol’s hands, plastic surgery and an endless display of Coca-Cola bottles offer a false promise of beauty and sustenance, a vision of branding and self-improvement run amok. Despite its bright colors and visual wallop, Pop art’s tone was often deadpan and chilly, closer to its banal sources than to traditional fine art. Fittingly, it incited a media sensation and charges of vulgarity, but the aftershocks of its revolutionary take on American culture can still be felt today.

Below is a selection of works from this chapter.

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Marisol, Women and Dog, 1964

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Narrator: The four figures in this group of lifesize sculptures by Marisol are self-portraits of the artist. Attached to the wooden head of the woman with the green skirt and pink blouse is a black and white photograph of the artist. The two women with revolving faces are plaster casts of the artist’s face.

Marisol: They’re a casting of my face. It’s plaster. They always come out different. But this is myself as a child, the small one.

Narrator: In addition to the wood, plaster, and the black and white photograph, Marisol used found objects—such as the little girl’s pink bow or the handbag of the woman on the far left. And, of course, it’s hard to miss the taxidermed dog’s head. She particularly enjoys working with wood and continues to create sculpture made out of pieces she buys or finds on the street.

Marisol: There’s no end to gluing and cutting and sanding. [Laughs]

Equal parts painting, collage, carving, and assemblage, Women and Dog was inspired by sources as diverse as its constituent materials. Marisol worked in New York during the emergence of Pop Art in the early 1960s and was one of few women associated with the movement. This sculpture reflects the fascination with everyday life that was fundamental to Pop, and yet its larger-than-life, totemic forms and the multi-faced profiles of the figures belie influences from Pre-Colombian and Native American folk art to analytic Cubism. The trio of females strolling with a child and a dog seem to suggest Marisol’s interest in social norms and conventions relating to women in society, but the composition is ambiguous. Elements of the women’s clothing are colorfully whimsical, yet they are literally “boxed in” by their garments, and their faces are marked by a deadpan impenetrability. The women, and perhaps the child too, are self-portraits—indeed, a photograph of the artist is applied directly onto the face of one of the figures—suggesting a fluid inhabitation of different female roles and identities.

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MARISOL (B. 1930), WOMEN AND DOG, 1963-64

Marisol, Women and Dog, 1964

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America Is Hard to See

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MARISOL (B. 1930), WOMEN AND DOG, 1963-64

Marisol, Women and Dog, 1964

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection