On 26 November 2014, the Tsukanov Family Foundation and Saatchi Gallery will open Post Pop: East Meets West, the first comprehensive exhibition examining why Pop Art, of all the twentieth century's movements has had such a powerful influence over artists from world regions that had or still have very different and sometimes opposing ideologies.
The exhibition brings together 256 works by 112 renowned artists from America, China, the Former Soviet Union and the UK in the largest survey to date exploring Pop Art's enduring legacy. Post Pop: East Meets West will celebrate the art being produced in these four distinct regions since the heyday of Pop, and will present them in relation to each other through the framework of six themes: Habitat; Advertising and Consumerism; Celebrity and Mass Media; Art History; Religion and Ideology; Sex and the Body.
Widely regarded as the most significant art movement of the last century, Pop Art exploits identifiable imagery from mass media and everyday life to reflect on the nature of the world we live in. This exhibition examines the relationship between western Pop Art and its lesser-known eastern counterparts including "Sots Art" in the Soviet Union and "Political-Pop" or "Cynical Realism", which has flourished in China since the turn of the twenty-first century.
Using humour and a vernacular language, and borrowing freely from popular culture, Pop Art gave subsequent generations of artists the licence to exploit popular visual imagery and to connect with the public through the familiarity of the images being referenced. In the Former Soviet Union the abundance of imagery comparable to mass produced commodities and advertising in the West was propaganda images and text, and in China visual iconography of Socialist Realism.
Although from fundamentally different cultures and ideological backgrounds, the artists in this exhibition play with imagery from commercial advertising, propaganda posters, pictures of the famous as well as monetary and patriotic motifs in wry and provocative works that unmistakably reference the Pop Art movement which emerged in America and Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. In the Soviet Union region these works draw attention to state control, conformity, ceremony, pomp and the façade of unanimity amongst the people; in America and the UK they serve as a critique of commodity fetishism, the cult of celebrity and our mass-produced, status-driven man-made world; and in China as commentary on the social dislocation created by a new super power's fascination with wealth and luxury following a period of extreme austerity.
Post Pop: East Meets West is co-curated by pre-eminent authorities Andrey Erofeev, a leading art critic and writer, and former head of the contemporary art department of the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; Marco Livingstone, an independent curator who has worked on numerous publications, retrospectives and Pop Art exhibitions that have toured throughout Europe, Japan and Canada; and Tsong-Zung Chang, a curator and guest professor of China Art Academy who co-founded the Asia Art Archive and the well-established Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong.
Given the global energy being enjoyed by contemporary art, this exhibition aims to make audiences more aware of Pop Art as a major influence on current art practice.
Post Pop: East Meets West features work by:
UK: Glenn Brown, Tony Cragg, Michael Craig-Martin, Tim Head, Gary Hume, Linder, David Mach, Lisa Milroy, Paul Morrison, Julian Opie, Marc Quinn, Michael Sandle, Yinka Shonibare, Gavin Turk, Caroline Walker, Rachel Whiteread, Bill Woodrow and Richard Woods.
USA: Daniel Arsham, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ashley Bickerton, Mike Bidlo, Robert Gober, Peter Halley, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Mike Kelly, Clay Ketter, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, Paul McCarthy, Richard Prince, Tom Sachs, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Mickalene Thomas and Jonas Wood.
China: Ai Weiwei, Chang Tsung-Hsun, Chen Ching-Yuan, Chen Yi-Chieh, Fang Lijun, Feng Mengbo, Gu Wenda, He An, Hou Chun-Ming, Hung Tung-Lu, Inga Svala Thórsdóttir, Kwan Sheung Chi, Michael Lin, Liu Dahong, Liu Wei, Luis Chan, Mei Dean-E, Qiu Anxiong, Qiu Zhijie, Qiu Qijing, Sui Jianguo, Tseng Kin-Wah, Tseng Kwong-Chi, Wang Guangyi, Wang Xingwei, Wang Ziwei, Wong Wai-Yin, Wu Junyong, Wu Shanzhuan, Wu Tien-Chang, Xu Zhen (Made in Company), Yang Mao-Lin, Yao Jui Chung, Yeh Wei-Li, Yu Youhan, Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Peili, Zheng Guogu and Zhou Tiehai.
Former Soviet Union: AES +F, Blue Noses, Grisha Bruskin, Eric Bulatov, Vladimir Dubossarsky, Rimma Gerlovina, Valery Gerlovin, PG Group, Emilia Kabakov, Ilya Kabakov, Zhanna Kadyrova, Alexey Kallima, Vitaly Komar, Irina Korina, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexander Kosolapov, Vladimir Kozin, Oleg Kulik, Rotislav Lebedev, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Alexander Melamid, Irina Nakhova, Anton Olshvang, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Boris Orlov, Pavel Pepperstein, George Pusenkoff, Recycle Group, Oleg Tselkov, Dmitri Tsvetkov, Aidan Salakhova, Alexander Shekhovtsov, Sergey Shutov, Leonid Sokov and Alexander Vinogradov.
About the Tsukanov Family Foundation
The Tsukanov Family Foundation (“TFF”) is a UK charity supporting the education of talented children from the Former Soviet Union countries. It extends scholarships to a number of the leading schools in the UK, including Eton College, St Paul’s Girls’ School, the Royal College of Music, and the schools of Alpha Plus Group.
TFF has worked for years with leading Russian museums, including the Tretyakov Gallery (for which the Foundation has financed acquisitions on an annual basis), the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum and Moscow Museum of Modern Art. TFF owns one of the world’s largest collections of post-war Russian art.
The Foundation's other affiliations include the National Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) and the Royal Opera House.
About the Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery was founded in 1985 to provide a platform to bring contemporary art to as wide an audience as possible and make it accessible. Over the last five years the Saatchi Gallery has hosted 15 out of the 20 most visited exhibitions in London, according to The Art Newspaper’s survey of international museum attendance, and is also ranked amongst the world’s top five most liked museums on Facebook and Twitter by Museum Analytics. Entry to all exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery is free.
