International Pop
April 11–August 29, 2015
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403
The Walker Art Center presents International Pop, a groundbreaking historical survey featuring some 125 works from more than 13 countries on four continents that chronicles the global emergence and migration of Pop art from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. Organized by the Walker and on view April 11 through August 29, International Pop will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art through 2016.
Among the most broadly recognized phenomena of postwar art, Pop was strikingly nomadic, spreading not only through Britain and the United States but also Japan, Latin America, and both Eastern and Western Europe. From its inception, Pop migrated across borders, seizing the power of mass media and communication to reach a new class of viewers and adherents who would be drawn to its dynamic attributes. Yet, as this exhibition reveals, distinct iterations of Pop were developing worldwide that alternatively celebrated, cannibalized, rejected, or transformed some of the presumed qualities of Pop advanced in the United States and Britain. While Pop emerged in reaction to the rise of a new consumerist and media age, it also emerged in specific socio-economic contexts that inflected its development and reception: from postwar Europe to the politically turbulent United States to the military regimes of Latin America to the postwar climate of Japan with lingering United States occupation to the restricted pop cultural palette of countries in East Central Europe.
Curated by Darsie Alexander with Bartholomew Ryan
Curatorial consultants: Erica Battle, Hiroko Ikegami, Godfre Leung, Luigia Lonardelli, Ed Halter, and María José Herrera
International Pop Cinema
The exhibition includes an ambitious dedicated in-gallery cinema program curated by Ed Halter of Light Industry, Brooklyn.
Opening day talks, April 11
Livecast on the Walker Channel
Introduction
Speaker: Darsie Alexander (lead curator, International Pop)
The Internationality of Pop
Panelists: Erica Battle (associate curator, Philadelphia Museum of Art), Dávid Fehér (associate curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest), Hiroko Ikegami (associate professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies at Kobe University, Japan), and Christine Mehring (department chair and associate professor of art history, University of Chicago)
Moderator: Darsie Alexander
Argentine Pop and Its Dematerialization
Panelists: Delia Cancela (artist, Buenos Aires), Eduardo Costa (artist, Buenos Aires), and María José Herrera (director, Museum of Art, Tigre)
Moderator: Bartholomew Ryan
Tokyo Pop
Panelists: Hiroko Ikegami (associate professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, Japan), Ushio Shinohara (artist, New York), and Keiichi Tanaami (artist, Tokyo)
Exhibition catalogue
Anchored by an expansive 48-page visual chronology, this publication features in-depth essays by a range of scholars examining developments in Argentina, Brazil, Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, United Sates, and Western Europe. The hardbound 368-page book features over 300 images, including full color plates, and will be published by the Walker Design Studio.
Acknowledgements
International Pop is organized by the Walker Art Center. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Major support for the exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Prospect Creek Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Margaret and Angus Wurtele Family Foundation. Additional support is generously provided by Lewis Baskerville, Judy Dayton, Lyn De Logi, Martha and John Gabbert, the Robert Lehman Foundation, the Peyton Family Foundation, Donna and Jim Pohlad, Robert and Rebecca Pohlad, Judith and Stephen Shank, Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney, Marge and Irv Weiser, Annette and John Whaley, and Audrey and Zygi Wilf. Support for the exhibition catalogue is provided by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of Walker Art Center publications.
