Erwin Wurm Gallery 303. Echoes of Pop Art

In the 1960s, a new generation of artists in the US challenged the conventions of Abstract Expressionism, such as spontaneity and the emotion behind the creative gesture. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp and his concept of the readymade (the “found object”), Pop artists rejected the notion of originality in art and appropriated elements and images from consumer society —from commercial packaging to celebrity portraits and comic-strip scenes— transforming them into works of art. Among them were Andy Warhol, who blurred the artist’s personal touch by using mechanical reproduction processes such as silkscreen printing, and James Rosenquist, who applied the graphic strategies of billboards to his canvases, fragmenting and combining images to create monumental compositions.