Pop art certainly lives up to its name at the current Tate exhibition, attracting a large and varied crowd of people with its display of art, media, entertainment and sex. The exhibition brings together the best in ‘pop’ art from its 1960s beginnings with Andy Warhol through to the 21st century with artists such as Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami. The show succeeds in seamlessly bridging genre gaps and removing issues of categorisation, moving rapidly from video, music, paintings, sculpture, pornography, news clippings, collectable action figures, a room resembling an 80s disco and a fully functional shop… with a bit of art thrown in too. The appeal of this exhibition for the less seasoned gallery goer is its raw entertainment value. The show opens itself up to the same criticism as many of its lead artists – sensationalism and blatant capitalism, with displays such as Colley Fanny Tutti’s series of pornographic photographs of herself playing the role of prostitute and porno star, or Ashley Bickerton’s piece, which has a gage valuing its current worth built in on the side. However, this is not at odds with the show as a serious curatorial endeavour. That this art is presented in rooms that resemble 80s discos more than the white cube walls of the rest of the Tate, allows it to be experienced in the way that it was created rather than through the lens of academia.
Pop Life presents an opportunity for the Tate Modern to live up to its objectives of making art accessible to a more general public, and create a platform for contemporary artists now. Rather than trying to make art accessible by having a nice restaurant, a boat to take you to the gallery and a great building, this is accessible art. In this regard, it feels like Tate has compromised somewhat. Whilst the material on display feels like a fresh take on the pop art events of the recent past, situating Damien Hirst’s spot paintings next to a reconstruction of his performance piece from the 1992 ‘Unfair’ Art Fair, two identical spot paintings with two identical twins sitting directly beneath them, rotating with different pairs of twins in hourly slots. The reference to Warhol’s multiple prints of the same celebrity and 1980s theories of the simulacra adorn the wall. This bringing to life of installation art and explanation referring the past has a valid and useful place.
However, In contrast to this relevant history lesson, some of the other rooms can seem dated in their approach to a comparative history of art. In the room dedicated to the history of Andy Warhol and the cult of the celebrity, the same material that has dominated all accounts and exhibitions of pop art since the 60s is repeated. The relevance of Warhol’s celebrity cult remains and can be seen throughout the rest of the show, it does not in my opinion need to be spelled out in the way that it is. Warhol’s relevance puts the traditional art historical perspective back into what is otherwise an exhibition of renegade works. It casts the history book frame back over an exciting and interactive exhibition space in the manner of many recent Tate exhibitions, where curatorial concepts have seemed to dominate the bringing together of great works of art. This was the case with both the futurism and the constructivism exhibitions of early 2009.
The last room of the exhibition displays a Takashi Murakami music video. Kirstin Dunst in a blue wig and harijuku platforms blares out of a plasma television set ‘I think I’m going Japanese, I think I’m going Japanese, I really think so’. Next to it, I overheard a woman discussing the piece with her friends – “I didn’t realise that this was art, or that Takashi had anything to do with it, I had read somewhere that Kirstin was dressed as a Harijuku for a music video.’ Pop Life allows people to experience that art can be a shop or a video and that it is the word ‘art’ rather than the idea of a music video that is problematic. These paradoxical concepts have always overshadowed the commentary on Pop Art. Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin’s work regularly appeared in the British tabloids throughout the 90s, with angry journalists asking the same old, tired question ‘is it art’. Pop Life doesn’t pander to these questions. Instead, it arguably shows where the value in contemporary art lies – in relevance, entertainment and experience – and lets the viewer see it for themselves.
My lasting criticism of the show is its dependence on its curatorial past, which seems at odds with the intentions of the individual pieces in the show. For the viewer, this doesn’t need to detract from the overall experience. The exhibition sells itself to you from the initial encounter with a human-size moulded manga girl, with mr. whippy like plastic milk streaming out of either breast to Keith Haring’s Pop Shop where you can buy a piece of the action in the form of children’s pin badges, t-shirts or inflatables. When you leave the exhibition and cross Tate’s café area to the actual Tate exhibition shop, you are invited to buy postcards, posters, more Keith haring work, as well as Tate commissioned Pop Life paraphernalia – such as an address book with the Title ‘All business is good art’ on the front. If you do proceed to the till with any such items, a glass cabinet to the left of it may catch your eye as it contains a giant ball constructed from felt flowers selling for £3,000, which of course is by Takashi Murakami himself – it doesn’t say how many of these are for sale at the official Tate shop, nor whether they offer home delivery. But the price tag firmly answers any question over whether it is art or not.
