Pop Art was a revolutionary art movement aroused in the mid-1950s in Britain, then followed by the

United States in the late 1950s. The term Pop originated from the quote, popular mass culture in
the essay by Lawrence Alloway the Britich art critic and curator. As a response to the wealthy Post
World War II society and the growth of materialism and consumerism, Pop art focused on materials
that can be easily found in peoples everyday living environment. As Lawrence Alloway stated, instead
of an aesthetic that isolated visual art from life and from the other arts, there emerged a new
willingness to treat our whole culture as if it were art . Along with a growth of such innovative ideas,
a number of designers in the 60s were increasingly influenced and inspired by the Pop movement. The
major markets subject to influence included fine arts, fashion design, and last but not least, the
furniture industry. The influence of Pop art on furniture design during the 1960s was so obvious that it
is surprising to find the term, Pop Furniture never mentioned before in history. In fact, it is quite
difficult to define Pop furniture not only because nobody has ever specified it in the past, but also
because even Pop art itself has so many different characteristics and purposes depending on each
artists portraying them. Cara Greenberg, in his book Op to Pop, introduces two major ways to
distinguish them: some by a specific pop-cultural reference, and others through simply bright
primary colors, basic geometries, or oversized scale, which are links to Pop impulse. To narrow these
two broad categories down a bit, I will focus on the three major attitudes that Pop furniture tends to
take: dealing with the most contemporary issues of the time, having strong but unrestricted point of
view and style, and lastly being short-lived but lifetime noteworthy. First, Pop furniture resembles its
origin with Pop art in the popular mass culture. Pop art, as an ironic and humorous way to comment
on the contemporary society, often used market products, celebrities, comic strips, and
advertisements as its raw material. A perfect example of a furniture piece inspired by a typical
medium for Pop culture is a Bocca sofa or Marilyn sofa produced by Studio 65 in 1972. This iconic
piece of modern sofa in an oversized shape of simple but bold red lips became famous world-wide
and sells for $8,595 today. The materials used were cold expanded polyurethane and elasticized fabric
cover. There were two major inspirational characters known for this Pop furniture design: Salvador
Dali and Marilyn Monroe. Studio 65s sofa reminds me of the most significant Pop artist Andy Warhol
and his massive production of silk screen prints with Marilyn Monroe icon. They both took the subject
from what is already out there, and reinterpreted into their own style and with their own perspective
on it. What makes the Marilyn sofa so special is that it looks too cartoonish as furniture, and too
realistic to be just a mock-up blob of lips; moreover, it functions perfectly as any other sofas do.
Amazingly, the natural characteristic of a lip-the soft and curvy outlines and an elegant folding
between the upper and lower lips make the sofa visually and physically attractive that not only offers
you a seat, but also a mouthful of chatter. Another beauty of this particular form is that it
dramatically differs from each angle, looking like a plain normal sofa from the side. The sofa is only
produced in red-the most iconic color of Pop art, and of course, the lips. The literal identity and role of
lips allow the sofa to speak for its own social standing and point of view. Second, Pop furniture pops
up with its bold color usage and minimalistic design, just like Pop art never forgot to give an accented
focal point to its viewers. Pop art, regardless to its simple and superficial characteristics, hardly allows
the viewers to get lost or bored when examining it. At first glance, it strikes you with its own stylistic
or color identity, but the rest of the interpretation remains solely yours, without any restrictions or
guidelines. The example of Pop furniture that especially cares about the consumers personal taste or
playfulness may be the Malitte lounge furniture by Roberto Sebastian, manufactured in 1965. The
materials involved in production were polyurethane foam and wool. An interesting fact was that the
five separate slices of the blobby looking furniture came together to a single, perfect cube. The chairs
light weight and free forms let the user arrange them however they want, and create a personalized
space. These ideas fit into the basic concept of Pop art, which highlights itself as well as its
surroundings through novelty and faddishness. When I saw this jigsaw puzzle of foam in the
Museum of Modern Arts in NY, my very first attention went to the yellow piece in the middle of the
cube. Honestly, I might have not noticed such a wonderful piece of work if that smallest yellow piece
did not catch my eye. It was not only the eye-catching color, but also the fact that this piece was
placed in the middle. It made me speculate about the piece, making me want to look for connections
between each piece more carefully. It was obvious that the insightful speculations and thorough
planning have gone through the building process of this simple, yet eye-catching piece of Pop
furniture. Third, the continuous discovery of new materials and the effort to define the fundamental
purpose of art influenced Pop art as well as the Pop furniture to become a temporary statement
without a demand for sustainability or permanency. The materials discovered and used during the
1960s as a rebellion against an accepted style included plastics, metallic fibers, and even paper. If
the most popular design among the youth group in the disposable fashion market was the temporary
mini paper dress, there was the air-inflatable furniture in the home business. Blow-up furniture was
a direct outgrow of the utopian pneumatic architecture movement. Despite the possibility of air leak
while in use and low durability of the material, this revolutionary idea with which they could travel
anywhere desired was appealing enough for the youth group. By producing visually appealing designs
out of cheap material, New York sculptor Philip Orenstein criticized the money-oriented American
Post WWII society. Although this boom was short-lived due to the physically, economically, and
environmentally unhealthy elements of the thin plastic shells, it was technologically advanced enough
to fill the entire apartment with air supported furniture; including sofa, bed, pillows, etc. The question
of whether art or design has to be preserved permanently in its original form is still one of the biggest
issues often brought up by the artists, designers, and viewers. The inflatable furniture of the 60s was
one of the most influential examples in placing such debate, and still remains a big part of our leisure
necessities. The Pop furniture, furniture designs in 1960s directly or indirectly influenced by Pop art
movement, was a direct translation of Pop arts focus on everyday living into an object. Due to a very
intimate relationship between furniture and our life-style, it is not an overstatement to say that
furniture from the 60s was the most practical version of living Pop-art. As a reaction to the mass
culture of Post World War II era, Pop furniture constantly made a clear statement and led disoriented
hearts along the path of restoration through use of bold, symbolic colors and various kinds of
materials to fit the needs of industry as well as the consumers. In conclusion, Pop furniture was a
retranslation of popular mass culture through its own minimalistic but bold style, in a faddish
attitude that resembled the consumers materialistic minds in the 1960s.

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the
United States.[1] Pop art presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from
popular culture such as advertising, news, etc. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed
from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material.[1][2] The concept of pop
art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.[2]
Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural
objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as
well as an expansion upon them.[3] And due to its utilization of found objects and images it is similar
to Dada. Pop art is aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing
the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony.[2] It is also
associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques.
Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are
some of the earliest examples of Post-modern Art themselves.[4]
Pop art often takes as its imagery that which is currently in use in advertising.[5] Product labeling and
logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, like in the Campbell's Soup Cans labels,
by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the shipping box containing retail items has been used as
subject matter in pop art, for example in Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box 1964, (pictured
below), or his Brillo Soap Box sculptures.
The origins of pop art in North America and Great Britain developed differently.[2] In the United
States, it marked a return to hard-edged composition and representational art as a response by artists
using impersonal, mundane reality, irony and parody to defuse the personal symbolism and "painterly
looseness" of Abstract expressionism.[3][6] By contrast, the origin in post-War Britain, while
employing irony and parody, was more academic with a focus on the dynamic and paradoxical
imagery of American popular culture as powerful, manipulative symbolic devices that were affecting
whole patterns of life, while improving prosperity of a society.[6] Early pop art in Britain was a matter
of ideas fueled by American popular culture viewed from afar, while the American artists were
inspired by the experience of living within that culture.[3] Similarly, pop art was both an extension
and a repudiation of Dadaism.[3] While pop art and Dadaism explored some of the same subjects, pop
art replaced the destructive, satirical, and anarchic impulses of the Dada movement with detached
affirmation of the artifacts of mass culture.[3] Among those artists seen by some as producing work
leading up to Pop art are Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, and Man Ray. Some of the
work of Alex Katz anticipated Pop art.[7]
The Independent Group (IG), founded in London in 1952, is regarded as the precursor to the pop art
movement.[1][8] They were a gathering of young painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics
who were challenging prevailing modernist approaches to culture as well as traditional views of Fine
Art. The group discussions centered on popular culture implications from such elements as mass
advertising, movies, product design, comic strips, science fiction and technology. At the first
Independent Group meeting in 1952, co-founding member, artist and sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi
presented a lecture using a series of collages titled Bunk! that he had assembled during his time in
Paris between 19471949.[1][8] This material of "found objects" such as, advertising, comic book
characters, magazine covers and various mass-produced graphics that mostly represented American
popular culture. One of the images in that presentation was Paolozzi's 1947 collage, I was a Rich
Man's Plaything, which includes the first use of the word "pop, appearing in a cloud of smoke
emerging from a revolver.[1][9] Following Paolozzi's seminal presentation in 1952, the IG focused
primarily on the imagery of American popular culture, particularly mass advertising.[6]
Subsequent coinage of the complete term "pop art" was made by John McHale for the ensuing
movement in 1954. "Pop art" as a moniker was then used in discussions by IG members in the Second
Session of the IG in 1955, and the specific term "pop art" first appeared in published print in an article
by IG members Alison and Peter Smithson in Arc, 1956.[10] However, the term is often credited to
British art critic/curator, Lawrence Alloway in a 1958 essay titled The Arts and the Mass Media,
although the term he uses is "popular mass culture".[11] Nevertheless, Alloway was one of the
leading criAlthough Pop Art began in the late 1950s, Pop Art in America was given its greatest impetus
during the 1960s. The term "Pop Art" was officially introduced in December 1962; the Occasion was a
"Symposium on Pop Art" organized by the Museum of Modern Art.[12] By this time, American
advertising had adopted many elements and inflections of modern art and functioned at a very
sophisticated level. Consequently, American artists had to search deeper for dramatic styles that
would distance art from the well-designed and clever commercial materials.[6] As the British viewed
American popular culture imagery from a somewhat removed perspective, their views were often
instilled with romantic, sentimental and humorous overtones. By contrast, American artists being
bombarded daily with the diversity of mass-produced imagery, produced work that was generally
more bold and aggressive.[8]
tics to defend the inclusion of the imagery found in mass culture in fine arts.
Two important painters in the establishment of America's pop art vocabulary were Jasper Johns and
Robert Rauschenberg.[8] While the paintings of Rauschenberg have relationships to the earlier work
of Kurt Schwitters and other Dadaists, his concern was with social issues of the moment. His approach
was to create art out of ephemeral materials and using topical events in the life of everyday America
gave his work a unique quality.[8][13] Johns' and Rauschenberg's work of the 1950s is classified as
Neo-Dada, and is visually distinct from the classic American Pop Art which began in the early
1960s.[14][15]
Of equal importance to American pop art is Roy Lichtenstein. His work probably defines the basic
premise of pop art better than any other through parody.[8] Selecting the old-fashioned comic strip as
subject matter, Lichtenstein produces a hard-edged, precise composition that documents while it
parodies in a soft manner. Lichtenstein used oil and Magna paint in his best known works, such as
Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics' Secret Hearts #83.
(Drowning Girl now is in the collection of Museum of Modern Art, New York.[16]) Also featuring thick
outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots to represent certain colors, as if created by photographic
reproduction. Lichtenstein would say of his own work: Abstract Expressionists "put things down on
the canvas and responded to what they had done, to the color positions and sizes. My style looks
completely different, but the nature of putting down lines pretty much is the same; mine just don't
come out looking calligraphic, like Pollock's or Kline's."[17] Pop art merges popular and mass culture
with fine art, while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery and content into the mix.
The paintings of Lichtenstein, like those of Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann and others, share a direct
attachment to the commonplace image of American popular culture, but also treat the subject in an
impersonal manner clearly illustrating the idealization of mass production.[8] Andy Warhol is
probably the most famous figure in Pop Art, in fact, art critic Arthur Danto once called Warhol "the
nearest thing to a philosophical genius the history of art has produced".[12] Warhol attempted to
take Pop beyond an artistic style to a life style, and his work often displays a lack of human affectation
that dispenses with the irony and parody of many of his peers.[18][19]
Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and Tom Wesselmann had their first shows in the Judson Gallery in
1959/60. In 1960 Martha Jackson showed installations and assemblages, New Media - New Forms
featured Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine
and May Wilson. In 1961, Oldenburg created a store for Martha Jackson's spring show Environments,
Situations, Spaces. In December he showed The Store at his studio.[20][21] Andy Warhol held his first
solo exhibition in Los Angeles in early July 1962 at Irving Blum's Ferus Gallery where he showed 32
paintings of Campell's soup cans, one for every flavor. Warhol sold the set of paintings to Blum for
$1,000; in 1996, when the Museum of Modern Art acquired it, the group was valued at $15
million.[12]
In the 1960s Oldenburg who became associated with the Pop Art movement; created many so-called
happenings, which were performance art related productions of that time. The name he gave to his
own productions was "Ray Gun Theater". The cast of colleagues who appeared in his performances of
included artists Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselman, Carolee Schneemann, Oyvind Fahlstrom and Richard
Artschwager, dealer Annina Nosei, art critic Barbara Rose, and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer.[22] His
first wife (19601970) Patty Mucha, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant
performer in his happenings. This brash, often humorous, approach to art was at great odds with the
prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or ideas. In December
1961, he rented a store on Manhattan's Lower East Side to house "The Store," a month-long
installation he had first presented at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, stocked with sculptures
roughly in the form of consumer goods. [22]
In London, the annual RBA exhibition of young talent in 1960 first showed American Pop influences. In
January 1961, the most famous RBA-Young Contemporaries of all put David Hockney, the American R
B Kitaj, New Zealander Billy Apple, Allen Jones, Derek Boshier, Joe Tilson, Patrick Caulfield, Peter
Phillips and Peter Blake on the map - Apple designed the posters and invitations for both the 1961 and
1962 Young Contemporaries exhibitions.[23] Hockney, Kitaj and Blake went on to win prizes at the
John-Moores-Exhibition in Liverpool in the same year. Apple and Hockney travelled together to New
York during the Royal College's 1961 summer break, which is when Apple first made contact with
Andy Warhol - both later moved to the United States and Apple became involved with the New York
pop scene.[23]
Opening October 31, 1962, Willem de Kooning's New York art dealer, the Sidney Janis Gallery,
organized the groundbreaking International Exhibition of the New Realists, a survey of new to the
scene American Pop, French, Swiss, Italian New Realism, and British Pop art. The fifty-four artists
shown included notably Richard Lindner, Wayne Thiebaud, Roy Lichtenstein (including his painting
Blam), Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Tom Wesselmann,
George Segal, Peter Phillips, Peter Blake (The Love Wall from 1961), Yves Klein, Arman, Daniel Spoerri,
Christo and Mimmo Rotella. The show was seen by Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint-Phalle and Jean
Tinguely, then in New York, who were stunned by the size and the look of the American work. Also
shown were Marisol, Mario Schifano, Enrico Baj and yvind Fahlstrm. Janis lost some of his abstract
expressionist artists, as Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb and Philip Guston quit the
gallery but gained Dine, Oldenburg, Segal and Wesselmann.[24] Later that evening, October 31, 1962,
at an opening-night soiree thrown by the wealthy collector Burton Tremaine, Warhol, Lichtenstein,
Wesselmann, Rosenquist, and Indiana were all being served drinks by uniformed maids when de
Kooning appeared in the doorway and was swiftly turned away by Tremaine, who ironically owned a
number of de Koonings works. Rosenquist recalled that "at that moment I thought, something in the
art world has definitely changed".[12] Turning away Willem de Kooning, a respected abstract artist,
proved that as early as 1962, the pop art movement began to dominate art culture in New York.
A bit earlier, on the West-coast, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine and Andy Warhol from NYC, Phillip
Hefferton and Robert Dowd from Detroit; Edward Ruscha and Joe Goode from Oklahoma City, and
Wayne Thiebaud from California were included in the New Painting of Common Objects show. This
first Pop Art museum exhibition in America was curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art
Museum [1]. Pop Art now was a success and was going to change the art world forever. New York
followed Pasadena in 1963 when the Guggenheim Museum exhibited Six Painters and the Object,
curated by Lawrence Alloway. The artists were Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert
Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol.[25] Another pivotal early exhibition was The
American Supermarket organised by the Bianchini Gallery in 1964. The show was presented as a
typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it the produce, canned goods,
meat, posters on the wall, etc., was created by prominent pop artists of the time, including Apple,
Warhol, Lichtenstein, Wesselmann, Oldenburg, and Johns - this project was recreated as part of the
Tate Gallery'sBy 1962, the Pop artists began to exhibit in commercial galleries in New York and Los
Angeles, for some it was their first commercial one-man show. The Ferus Gallery presented Andy
Warhol in Los Angeles and Ed Ruscha in 1963. In New York, the Green Gallery showed Rosenquist,
Segal, Oldenburg, and Wesselmann, the Stable Gallery R. Indiana and Warhol (his first New York
show), the Leo Castelli Gallery presented Rauschenberg, Johns, and Lichtenstein, Martha Jackson
showed Jim Dine, and Allen Stone showed Wayne Thiebaud. By 19651966 after the Green Gallery
and the Ferus Gallery closed the Leo Castelli Gallery represented Rosenquist, Warhol, Rauschenberg,
Johns, Lichtenstein and Ruscha, The Sidney Janis Gallery represented Oldenburg, Segal, Wesselmann
and Marisol, while Allen Stone continued to represent Thiebaud, and Martha Jackson continued
representing Robert Indiana.[27]
Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture in 2002.[26]
In 1968, the "Sao Paulo 9 Exhibition - Environment U.S.A.: 1957 - 1967" featured the "Who's Who" of
the Pop Art Icons. It could be considered as a summation of the classical phase of the American Pop
Art period.The exhibit was curated by William Seitz. The artists were Edward Hopper, James Gill,
Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol
and Tom Wesselmann.[28]
It should also be noted that while the British pop art movement predated the American pop art
movement, there were some earlier American proto-Pop origins which utilized "as found" cultural
objects.[3] During the 1920s American artists Gerald Murphy, Charles Demuth and Stuart Davis
created paintings prefiguring the pop art movement that contained pop culture imagery such as
mundane objects culled from American commercial products and advertising design.[29][30]
In Spain, the study of pop art is associated with the "new figurative", which arose from the roots of
the crisis of informalism. Eduardo Arroyo could be said to fit within the pop art trend, on account of
his interest in the environment, his critique of our media culture which incorporates icons of both
mass media communication and the history of painting, and his scorn for nearly all established artistic
styles. However, the Spaniard who could be considered the most authentically "pop" artist is Alfredo
Alcan, because of the use he makes of popular images and empty spaces in his compositions.
Also in the category of Spanish pop art is the "Chronicle Team" (El Equipo Crnica), which existed in
Valencia between 1964 and 1981, formed by the artists Manolo Valds and Rafael Solbes. Their
movement can be characterized as Pop because of its use of comics and publicity images and its
simplification of images and photographic compositions. Filmmaker Pedro Almodvar emerged from
Madrid's "La Movida" subculture (1970s) making low budget super 8 pop art movies and was
subsequently called the Andy Warhol of Spain by the media at the time. In the book "Almodovar on
Almodovar" he is quoted saying that the 1950s film "Funny Face" is a central inspiration for his work.
One Pop trademark in Almodovar's films is that he always produces a fake commercial to be inserted
into a scene.
In Japan, Pop Art would evolve from the nations prominent avant-garde scene. The work of Yayoi
Kusama contributed to the development of pop art itself and influenced many other artists, including
Andy Warhol.[31][32] In the mid-1960s graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo would become one of the
most successful pop artists and an international symbol for Japanese pop art. He is well known for his
advertisements and creating artwork for pop culture itself, such as commissions from The Beatles,
Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor amongst many others.[33] Another leading pop artist at the time
was Keiichi Tanaami. Iconic characters from Japanese manga and anime have also become symbols for
pop art such as Speed Racer and Astro Boy. Japanese manga and anime would also influence future
pop artists such as Takashi Murakami and his superflat movement.
In Italy, Pop Art was known from 1964, and took place in different forms, such as the "Scuola di Piazza
del Popolo" in Rome, with artists such as Mario Schifano, Franco Angeli, Giosetta Fioroni, Tano Festa
and also some artworks by Piero Manzoni, Lucio Del Pezzo and Mimmo Rotella.
Italian Pop Art originated in 1950s culture, to be precise in the works of two artists: Enrico Baj and
Mimmo Rotella, who have every right to be considered the forerunners of this scene. In fact, it was
around 1958-59 that Baj and Rotella abandoned their previous careers which might be generically
defined as a non-representational genre despite being run through with post-Dadaism to catapult
themselves into a new world of images and the reflections on them which was springing up all around
them. Mimmo Rotella's torn posters gained an ever more figurative taste, often explicitly and
deliberately referring to the great icons of the times. Enrico Baj's compositions were steeped in
contemporary kitsch, which was to turn out to be a gold mine of images and stimuli for an entire
generation of artists.
The novelty lies in the new visual panorama, both inside the four domestic walls and out: cars, road
signs, television, all the "new world." Everything can belong to the world of art, which itself is new. In
this respect, Italian Pop Art takes the same ideological path as that of the International scene; the
only thing that changes is the iconography and, in some cases, the presence of a more critical attitude
to it. Even in this case, the prototypes can be traced back to the works of Rotella and Baj, both far
from neutral in their relationship with society. Yet this is not an exclusive element; there is a long line
of artists, from Gianni Ruffi to Roberto Barni, from Silvio Pasotti to Umberto Bignardi and Claudio
Cintoli who take on reality as a toy, as a great pool of imagery from which to draw material with
disenchantment and frivolity, questioning the traditional linguistic role models with a renewed spirit
of "let me have fun" la Aldo Palazzeschi.[34]
In Belgium, Pop Art was represented by Paul Van Hoeydonck, whose sculpture Fallen Astronaut was
left on the moon during one of the moon missions. Internationally recognized artists such as Marcel
Broodthaers ( 'vous tes doll? ") and Panamarenko are indebted to the Pop Art movement. For Marcel
Broodthaers the great example was George Segal. Another well-known Roger Raveel mounted a
birdcage with a real live pigeon in one of his paintings. At the end of the sixties and early seventies
Pop Art references disappear from the work of these artists as they adopt a more critical attitude
towards America because of the Vietnam War's increasingly gruesome character. Panamarenko,
however, has to this day retained the irony inherent in the Pop Art movement.
While in the Netherlands there was no formal Pop Art movement, there was a group of artists who
spent time in New York during the early years of Pop Art and drew inspiration from the international
Pop Art movement. Key representatives of Dutch Pop Art are Gustave Asselbergs, Woody van Amen,
Daan van Golden, Rik Bentley, Jan Cremer, Wim T. Schippers and Jacques Frenken. They had in
common that they opposed the Dutch petit bourgeois mentality by creating humorous works with a
serious undertone. Examples include Sex O'Clock by Woody van Amen and Crucifix / Target by Jacques
Frenken.[35]
Russia was a little slow on the Pop Art Revolution, and some of the art work that resembles the pop
movement only surfaced around the early 1970s. Russia was then a Communist country and bold
artistic statements were closely monitored. Russia's own version of pop art was Soviet-themed and
was referred to as Sots Art. After 1991, the Communist Party lost its rule and the Russian revolution
had begun, and with it came a freedom to express. That is where pop art took on another form,
epitomised by Dmitri Vrubel with his painting titled My God, help me to survive this deadly love in
1990. One may argue that the Soviet posters made in the 1950s promoting the wealth of the nation
were in itself a form of pop art.[36]

BACKGROUND nucleation of pop art and the emergence of pop design in America. Prominent
representatives of the pop art movement. Key features in color and in shaping pop design. Period of
abstract expressionism. Main Currents of anti-design focus.

In the 60 years the theory of functionalism has been criticized. Held universal admiration from mass
production and rationalism in the forming. Designers do not like to see themselves as "a continuation
of the hands of the industry." There are the first theory, is at the center cultural, psychological and
semantic aspects, thus peredvoskhitivshie postmodernism. At the same time there were radical
changes in all areas of people's lives, including a change of values and objectives. Besides mass
protests against the Vietnam War in the late 60s, the Prague Spring of '68 and student unrest in major
European cities was left untouched and design. Design problem in society early 70s have already
submitted a new "question of the functions of the object in the purely technical aspect, turned into a
symbolic and social." The theory of functionalism could not provide answers to the changes taking
place in the society. Aesthetic samples already searched in their own areas of design. Initiatives
mainly came from youth cultures. In the USA, there were the first theory, which was placed in the
center of the cultural and psychological aspects.
A survey of sixties design, analyzing the international design trends of a decade increasingly
recognized as one of the most visually exciting.