Robert Rauschenberg's Coca-Cola Plan/ International Pop

MIT 4.602, Modern Art and Mass Culture (HASS-DI Cl) Professor Caroline A. Jones History, Theory and Criticism Section, Department of Architecture 2012 Notes Lecture 16 MARKETING MASS CULTURE: Lecture 16: Robert Rauschenberg's Coca-Cola Plan -> International Pop Pop Art is: Popular (designedfor a mass audience), Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced, Young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big business .... -letter from Richard Hamilton to the architects Alison and Peter Smithson, 16 January 1957 I. The artist's body - an "index" of where we are A. Pollock-the index is pulverized and disassembled, distributed, sublimated into the Sublime B. Rauschenberg I Johns I Cage 1. the index is all, but what is the index? is the object an index or a symbol? (of artistic agency, of manufacturing, of the artist's body, of the artist as everyman! no-man?) 2. mass culture is embedded into the art: "flatbed" aesthetic (Leo Steinberg) C. Overall historical trajectory: from the primitive as a pulverized tabula rasa ('50s) to pop primitive as appropriation of mass culture or stock images ('60s) to postmodern appropriation of modernism as a kind of mass culture ('80s-90s) II. Coca-cola Plan unfolding, but not always as planned A. Japan: Pop as "kawaii" (cuteness) B. Europe vs. Cocacolasierung (globalization) C. Latin America: Conceptualism, Antropofagia and Globalist critique D. China: Pop and Castigation III. International Pop: beginning with Postwar Britain and a phantasmagorical "aesthetics of plenty" (anticipates Kruschev and Nixon in the "Kitchen Debate," 1959) A. Aesthetic relations to U.S. commodity culture B. The Independent Group - ambivalent consumers who put the "Pop" in art 1) architects, artists, curators, historians 2) exhibitions: Parallel of Life and Art ('53), Man, Machine & Motion ('55), This is Tomorrow ('56) C. Eduardo Paolozzi and the "Psychological Atlas" (1947-53) D. Richard Hamilton's Duchampian cool selected images on verso 1 Images (selected) for Lecture 16 A note on medium: Rauschenberg names his own medium around 1955: "combines" (combining oil painting, aspects of sculpture, collage, assemblage); after 1964 he works with silkscreened images rather than collaged photographs. Robert Rauschenberg (and Susan Weil). Female Figure, c.1949 (blueprint) Rauschenberg. White Painting with Numbers (The Lily White), 1949 John Cage preparing a piano. 1949 (photograph) Cage, 4'33" ("Silence"). 1952, published as sheet music 1960 Jasper Johns. Target with Plaster Casts 1955 (encaustic. canvas. casts) Rauschenberg, White Painting 1951 Rauschenberg. Erased de Kooning 1953 ("eraser on charcoaL pencil and ink on paper") Rauschenberg (with John Cage), Automobile Tire Print 1953 Rauschenberg, Odalisk, 1955-58 "Combines"Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg, Untitled (Man with White Shoes), 1955 Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955 Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1959 Rauschenberg, Rebus 1955 and Small Rebus 1956 Rauschenberg, Factum I and Factum II, 1957 (A.k.a. "combine painting") Rauschenberg, Coca-Cola Plan, 1958 Coca-cola plan unfolding: Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas WolfVostell, Coca Cola, 1961 Marisol [Escobar], Love, 1962, mixed media. Anthony Caro, Columbia Coca Cola, 1975, enamel on tin Ushio Shinohara, (title unknown), 1964, ceramic? Appropriation of Rauschenberg's Coca-Cola Plan Cildo Meireles. Insertion into ideological circuits, 1970, silkscreen on glass Coke bottles. commercial system Warhol on cover of High Times magazine with Coke bottle. 1977 Wang Guangyi, Great Castigation Series, 1993, oil on canvas International Pop: London (All = Independent Group) Nigel Henderson, East London, photographs 1949-52 Henderson, Screen 1949-52, photocollage on plywood panels Eduardo Paolozzi, Collage Mural, 1952 collage on panelboard John McHale, Why I took to the Washers in Luxury Flats 1954, photocollage book Paolozzi, Psychological Atlas, 1947-53 collage scrapbook Paolozzi, Automobile Head 1954 screen print McHale, Machine-Made America 1957 collage Paolozzi. I was a rich man's plaything, 1947 collage Paolozzi, It's a known fact that pleasure helps your disposition, 1948 collage Paolozzi. Donald Duck meets Mondrian ... 1967 screenprint on paper Richard Hamilton, Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes So Different. So Appealing? 1956 collage Hamilton, Hommage to Chrysler, Study 1957 lithograph Hamilton, She. 1958-61 oil and collage on panel Hamilton, Trademark 1972 ink Icard 2