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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A photorealistic painting o a family standing in front of a car.

Robert Bechtle’s ’61 Pontiac depicts a familiar scene in postwar America: a family (the artist’s own, in this case) in front of its car. Bechtle was consistently attracted to such ubiquitous, workaday subjects, often set in suburban locales. The “challenge,” he claimed, was “making art from such ordinary fare.” Bechtle’s style is intentionally evenhanded; he rendered the particular features of the car with the same hyperrealistic treatment that he applied to each family member’s facial features and clothing. Bechtle habitually used photographs as source material, and at nearly five feet tall, ’61 Pontiacmakes a monument out of an amateur snapshot. Yet where a photograph can be made, seen, and forgotten in an instant, the artist’s painstaking attention to detail in this painting allowed him—and, by extension, the viewer—to more thoroughly engage with a single moment.

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America Is Hard to See

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ROBERT BECHTLE (B. 1961), ’61 PONTIAC, 1968-69

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America Is Hard to See

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ROBERT BECHTLE (B. 1961), ’61 PONTIAC, 1968-69

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection