Book Description

Pop Art and Beyond foregrounds the roles of gender, race, and class in encounters with Pop during the Long Sixties. Exploring the work of over 20 artists from 5 continents, it offers new perspectives on Pop's heterogeneity. Featuring an array of rigorous chapters written by both acclaimed experts and emerging scholars, this anthology transcends the borders of individual and national contexts, and suspends hierarchies creating a space for the work of artists like Andy Warhol and the women of the Black Arts Movement to converse. It casts an inclusive look at the intersectional complexities of difference in Pop at a moment that gave rise to a plethora of radical social movements and identity politics. While this book introduces revelatory non-canonical artists into the Pop context or amplifies the careers of others, it is not limited to the confines of fine art. Chapters explore the intersecting variables of oppression and liberation in rituals of youth subcultures as well as practices across media with Pop sources and parallels ranging from Native American objects, Harlem advertisements, and Cordel literature, to stand-up comedy, music, fashion, and design. Pop Art and Beyond thus widens the conversation about what Pop was and what it can be for current art in its struggle for social justice and critiques of power.