Over fifty years after it exploded onto the art scene,
Pop Art Design is the first comprehensive exhibition to explore the
exciting exchange of ideas between artists and designers in the Pop age.
Pop artists commented on the cult of celebrity,
commodity fetishism and the proliferation of media that permeated everyday life
in America and the United Kingdom after the Second World War. Radically
departing from all that had gone before, artists delighted in adopting the
design language of advertising, television and commerce to create work that was
playful but often also intentionally irreverent and provocative. In turn,
designers routinely looked to Pop Art as a constant source of inspiration. Pop
Art Design paints a new picture of Pop – one that recognises the central
role played by design.
Bringing together more than 200 works by over 70
artists and designers, the exhibition includes iconic and lesser known works by
such artists as Peter Blake, Pauline Boty, Judy Chicago,
Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Joe
Tilson and Andy Warhol, shown alongside objects by Achille
Castiglioni, Charles and Ray Eames, Peter Murdoch, George
Nelson, Gaetano Pesce and Ettore Sottsass. Pop Art Design
also presents a wealth of graphic material from posters and magazines to album
sleeves, as well as film, photography and documentation of Pop interiors and
architecture.