Description

The World Goes Pop explores the contemporaneous engagements with a spirit of pop throughout the globe, concentrating not only on the relatively well-covered activity in the US, UK and France but also on developments throughout Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. From the late 1950s onwards, numerous artists and movements with a Pop aesthetic developed throughout these continents, including Nouveau realisme, Neo Dada, New Figuration, Equipo Cronica, and Cronica de la Realidad and Saqqakhaneh or Spiritual Pop, as well as such singular figures as Oyvind Fahlstrom, Keiichi Tanaami, and Erro. These artists and movements differed from one another due to their geographies as much as to their exposure to centralised or marginal cultural manifestations, and they were informed by their respective traditions, social and political movements. This unique book offers an opportunity to examine the origins and socio-political side of Pop, including pop and the political representation; pop and the new sexual politics; pop and the mass; seriality, distribution and the role of print production. Featuring six newly-commissioned essays from a wide range of international contributors, and produced in close collaboration with the artists involved, The World Goes Pop is the first book to rely on primary sources to re-evaluate Pop art throughout the globe.