The story of Pop we have been told so far is that this was an art movement which emerged in the 50s in Britain and exploded few years later in the US. Its Anglo-Saxon spirit was canonised by the first attempts to define the movement, notoriously by Lucy Lippard’s publication on Pop Art. Recently, in both the Us and in England, institutions are revisiting the accepted notion of Pop as a mainly Anglo-Saxon phenomenon.
International Pop which just closed at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, openly questions the dominance of Pop activity in New York and London examining works from artists across the globe who were confronting the same radical developments and strategies of pop artists. Similarly, the World Goes Pop at Tate Modern London, aims to provide a corrective to the notion of Pop Art. Yet, the London exhibition seems to reaffirm the first critics’ ( Lucy Lippard’s included) divide between the true Anglo-Saxon Pop and the “other pops.” Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Richard Hamilton are definitely hovering in all the galleries of the show restating their hegemonic presence.
