When Pablo Picasso collaged pieces of newspaper into his 1914 work Pipe, Glass, Bottle of Rum, he brought the outside world into the frame, initiating a dialogue with popular culture that has extended for generations. Appropriation of popular imagery flourished in the 1960s and was deeply ingrained in contemporary art by the early 1980s, with artists actively mining both fine art and other sources for their subject matter. This exhibition will explore the links between the early modern incorporation of popular imagery into fine art and more recent, pre-digital strategies of copying, quotation, and replication as seen in the art of Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Sherrie Levine, and Albert Oehlen, among others.
Organized by Connie Butler, The Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings.