The exhibition in Saatchi Gallery brings together 250 works by 110 artists from China, the Former Soviet Union, Taiwan, the UK and the USA in a comprehensive survey celebrating Pop Art’s legacy. “Post Pop: East Meets West” examines why of all the twentieth century’s art movements, Pop Art has had such a powerful influence over artists from world regions that have had very different and sometimes opposing ideologies.
The show celebrated the art being produced in these four distinct regions since the heyday of Pop, and presents them in relation to each other through the framework of six themes: Habitat; Advertising and Consumerism; Celebrity and Mass Media; Art History; Religion and Ideology; Sex and the Body.
Although from fundamentally different cultures and ideological backgrounds, the artists in this exhibition play with imagery from commercial advertising, propaganda posters, pictures of the famous as well as monetary and patriotic motifs in wry and provocative works that unmistakably reference the Pop Art movement which emerged in America and Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. In the Soviet Union region these works draw attention to state control, conformity, ceremony, pomp and the façade of unanimity amongst the people; in America and the UK they serve as a critique of commodity fetishism, the cult of celebrity and our mass-produced, status-driven man-made world; and in Greater China as commentary on the social dislocation created by a new super power’s fascination with wealth and luxury following a period of extreme austerity.
The exhibition features work by:
UK: Glenn Brown, Michael Craig-Martin, Tim Head, Gary Hume, Linder, David Mach, Lisa Milroy, Paul Morrison, Julian Opie, Marc Quinn, Michael Sandle, Yinka Shonibare, Gavin Turk, Rachel Whiteread, Bill Woodrow and Richard Woods.
US: Daniel Arsham, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ashley Bickerton, Mike Bidlo, Robert Gober, Peter Halley, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Clay Ketter, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, Paul McCarthy, Richard Prince, Tom Sachs, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Mickalene Thomas and Jonas Wood.
China: Ai Weiwei, Fang Lijun, Feng Mengbo, Gu Wenda, He An, Hung Tung-Lu, Inga Svala Thórsdóttir, Kwan Sheung Chi, Michael Lin, Liu Dahong, Liu Wei, Luis Chan, Made in Company (Xu Zhen), Qiu Anxiong, Qiu Zhijie, Qiu Qijing, Sui Jianguo, Tsang Kin-Wah, Tseng Kwong-Chi, Wang Guangyi, Wang Xingwei, Wang Ziwei, Wu Junyong, Wu Shanzhuan, Yu Youhan, Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Peili, Zheng Guogu and Zhou Tiehai.
Taiwan: Chang Tsung-Hsun, Chen Yi-Chieh (Agi Chen), Hou Chun-Ming, Mei Dean-E, Wu Tien-Chang, Yao Jui Chung and Yeh Wei-Li
Former Soviet Union: AES +F, Blue Noses Group, Grisha Bruskin, Eric Bulatov, Vladimir Dubossarsky, Rimma Gerlovin, Valery Gerlovin, PG Group, Emilia Kabakov, Ilya Kabakov, Zhanna Kadyrova, Alexey Kallima, Vitaly Komar, Irina Korina, Alexander Kosolapov, Vladimir Kozhin, Oleg Kulik, Rotislav Lebedev, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Alexander Melamid, Irina Nakhova, Anton Olshvang, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Boris Orlov, Pavel Pepperstein, George Pusenkoff, Recycle, Oleg Tselkov, Tsvetkov, Aidan Salakhova, Alexander Shekhovtsev, Sergey Shutov, Leonid Sokov and Alexander Vinogradov.03
Saatchi Gallery – Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road – London SW3 4RY