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September Issue 2007
Joie Lassiter Gallery in Charlotte, NC, Offers Pop Art Exhibition
Joie Lassiter Gallery in Charlotte, NC, is pleased to announce Pop Goes Charlotte!, a celebration exhibition marking their 10th anniversary of presenting Charlotte with critically significant art, the exhibiting of regional and international artists and supporting our academic and museum communities in their commitment to the education and presentation of the fine arts. This exhibit will open on Sept. 7 and will be on view through Oct. 3, 2007.
One of the gallery's earliest exhibits, when first opened 10 years ago, was From Pop to Present. At that time relatively few people came to see the show. The idea of Pop art was not on the map of Charlotte. Ten years later the gallery is expecting record crowds, as the awareness of the significance of Pop art in our city has grown tremendously.
Although Andy Warhol's name is associated with the Pop art movement most frequently, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns are now considered to be the foundation and really the fathers of Pop Art. Pop Art's return to representation was made possible by their works in the 1950s. In paintings such as Flag, from 1955, Johns explored the narrow ground between the real and the depicted.
Rauschenberg's complex multimedia works, such as Bed of 1955, combined Abstract Expressionist brushwork with both real and depicted objects, pointing out the constructed nature of both. Significantly, Johns and Rauschenberg were partners both artistically and romantically in the late 1950s during this groundbreaking period.
Jim Dine emerged during the Pop Art period in the early 1960's, a time of serious social unrest, as an innovative creator of works that combined items from everyday life.
Claes Oldenburg's approach differs from that of pop artists like Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein; his idiosyncratic approach to his subjects stems in part from his affinities to the earlier movements of dada and surrealism. While Warhol would retain and even flaunt the manufactured identity of an object, Oldenburg transforms it through a process of visual free-association.
In the 1960s, following his early days as a billboard painter in the Midwest and New York City, James Rosenquist gained fame as one of the leaders of the American Pop art movement. Along with contemporaries Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol, Rosenquist drew on the iconography of advertising and mass media to conjure a sense of modern life.
Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Warhol moved to New York at the age of twenty-one to become a commercial artist. This occupation gave him experience in silkscreen printing, which became his medium of choice. Warhol began making paintings of familiar objects such as soup cans and brillo pads. After a brief period of hand-painting these works, Warhol began to use mechanical techniques to mass-produce his images. His interest in popular culture expanded as he began to depict celebrities and newspaper clippings in his prints.
In keeping with our gallery vision to support our best local and regional art, alongside internationally acclaimed masters, we are also featuring works by Phil Moody, Shaun Cassidy and George Long.
For further information check our NC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 704/373-1464 or visit (www.lassitergallery.com).
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