EVONNE FUSELIER
Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow
JAMI POWELL
Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art
In the decades following World War II, the economy saw incredible growth and a consumer culture defined by more leisure time and expendable income for many Americans. This prosperity—paired with technological innovations, mass production, and a media landscape more heavily influenced by advertisements than ever before—created the conditions for a major move away from postwar Abstract Expressionism and toward Pop Art. Reaching its peak in the 1960s, Pop Art is characterized by its use of popular imagery, bold colors and contrast, and reproduction through methods like silkscreen printing. This straightforward approach and idiosyncratic plundering of advertising methods, both in form and in production, was a significant shift that downplayed the importance of the artist's hand and centered the everyday in the work. Utilizing the hypervisibility of common symbols and figures, Pop artists prompt us to look differently and perhaps even critically at the things we find familiar.
American Pop considers the many ways that artists in the United States have appropriated, critiqued, and satirized popular imagery from the 1960s to now. This exhibition pairs mid-20thcentury Pop artists like Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol alongside contemporary artists like Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Tony Abeyta. The themes these artists reflect upon span consumer culture, settler colonialism, and environmental extraction, yet they all use familiar imagery as an entry point to begin thinking through these issues.
A defining artwork of the Pop Art movement, Ed Ruscha's Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas (1963) provides a centerpiece for the exhibition. This dynamic representation of an otherwise mundane gas station was inspired by Ruscha's road trips on the iconic Route 66 highway between Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, where he recognized the ubiquity of roadside gas stations as a growing aspect of the American landscape. His distinct perspective, featuring sharp lines and angles and bold contrasting colors, has been increasingly embraced by manyas a celebration of car culture. Yet, the stark, white-lettered "standard" also offers a reminder of the normalization of resource extraction and consumption in the United States.
The exhibition also includes two artworks by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Trade Canoe: Forty Days and Forty Nights (2015) pairs the Salish creation story with the tale of Noah's Ark. Coyote, the central figure, stands on a boat amid Keith Haring-esque figures, Tonto from The Lone Ranger, and other pop cultural references. The lightning and rainstorms in the background connect Salish and Christian creation stories to present-day climate disasters. In The Rancher (2002), a central depiction of a Crow man—based on George Catlin's painting of Ee-he-a-duck-chee-a (He Who Ties His Hair Before)—is recontextualized alongside appropriated images of Krispy Kreme and Purina logos. Smith's work asserts that familiar imagery does not lose its meaning with repetition but rather reinforces its social and political significance each time it appears.
American Pop also features artworks that reference other artists and art historical movements. A new acquisition, Dark Carnival (2017–24) by Diné artist Tony Abeyta, features a Yayoi Kusama polka dot pumpkin and a basketball designed by Tlingit artist Crystal Worl with formline design amongst a myriad of cultural call-outs. Blooming flowers, grenades, candy, fidget spinners, and fireworks logos create a fraught and frenzied environment as the artist grapples with our current moment and the cultural and environmental issues we face. Painted over the span of eight years, Abeyta's work highlights the cacophony of culture and politics that creates a given moment in time. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to take a closer look at the painting by scanning a QR code on the label to access a digital resource developed in collaboration with Abeyta.
Pop Art encourages us to look differently at the images that surround us, and we hope this exhibition inspires visitors to do just that.