By Dominique Levy 'Everything is beautiful, Pop is everything'; Andy Warhol's dictum illuminates three works by his contemporaries from the height of Pop Art. As a challenge (sometimes an affront) to Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art emerged simultaneously from the studios of artists such as Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Warhol, Wesselmann, Dine, Oldenburg, Ruscha, Segal and Indiana. The label 'Pop' only established itself in 1962. Two of the many elements that struck me as most interesting in this evolutionary change are really that first and foremost the total notion of process was re-invented. Then the notion of scale was re-interpreted. For example, the large canvases of Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman which invited the viewer into a sublime space were then becoming billboard images by Tom Wesselmann or monuments to household objects by Claes Oldenburg. 'Pollock,' Allan Kaprow wrote presciently in 1957, 'left us at the point where we must become preoccupied with and even dazzled by the space and objects of our everyday life, either our bodies, clothes, rooms, or if need be, the vastness of 42nd Street… Objects of every sort are materials for the new art: paint, chairs, food, electric and neon lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other things which will be discovered by the present generation of artists…' With Pop, art returned to representation. Rejecting the abstraction and weighty seriousness of their elders, Pop artists plunged headlong into popular culture,its visual richness, its sense of play, irreverence and parody of 'high art'. Their work had an immediate appeal, perfectly capturing the mood of the times - brash, colourful and resolutely contemporary. These three particular works from a European collection are fantastic examples of Pop Art. They also represent an eclectic taste. Carefully chosen within the artists' œuvres, they were purchased between 1970 and 1974, when it took a knowledgeable eye to select important and meaningful art in a market still flush with available works, and at a time when the Pop cognoscenti had to keep an eye on developments in France, England and Germany as well as America. Ed Ruscha's Talk about Space, 1962. George Segal's Laundromat, 1966/67. Tom Wesselman's Great American Nude No 44, 1963. Can one see a common trend among these works? They all radiate the same sense of freedom and vitality they expressed in the early Sixties. They are all inspired by everyday America, the home, the street, the supermarket, the billboard. Ed Ruscha's Talk about Space is one of the artist's early paintings where the word is a found object. His conception of paintings as signs comes perhaps from his background in the commercial arts, but perhaps also from a trip to Europe in 1961 - he came back with many drawings based on words and images found in the streets. Paintings of words are his most important contribution to Pop Art. In 1960 Ed Ruscha was the first artist to include a hand-painted reproduction of a comic strip (Dublin, 1960) - before Andy Warhol's use of comics. On the blue colour field of Talk about Space a single word is paired with an object, a readymade. The painted crayon, as precise as a photograph, challenges the word and redefines the space in between. Does the word Space mean the void of the canvas, or the white page of a book, or even the wide open plains of Los Angeles, where one can sometimes feel lost? Ruscha's suggestive use of language makes us feel very small in front of this painting. The word is read but also instantly felt. Andy Warhol once said: 'the further west we drove, the more Pop everything looked on the highways. Suddenly we all felt like insiders because even though Pop was everywhere - that was the thing about it, most people still took it for granted whereas we were dazzled by it - to us, it was the new Art. Once you got Pop, you could never see a sign the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.' One of Ruscha's most important works to become available recently, Talk about Space embodies the dazzling spaciousness and vibrancy of the American cultural landscape, the wide-open space of the West, the eternally blue skies, the golden brilliance of its sunshine and deserts. Its bold lettering also suggests the exuberance of popular culture, of roadside billboards and comic-book caption. Tom Wesselmann's Great American Nude No 44 is full of the domestic references that characterize his work. He made his first American Nude in 1960. These paintings are also sculptures, and this is particularly true of this one, with its mix-media collages, bits of photographs, clothes, found objects (radiator, door, phone - the introduction of machine-made objects is Wesselmann's important contribution to Pop Art). In the sensuous representation of the female form, one can feel Wesselmann's interest in Matisse. But Wesselamnn's approach is sometimes shockingly honest. The female figure is facing us with no embarrassment. George Segal's The Laundromat, 1966/67, comes from a particularly fertile period when Segal refined his use of the plaster-cast figure and developed his installations of scenes from everyday life. He too makes use of readymade objects, extending the concept to include a life-size cast of a human figure. Cast in white plaster, and placed among the mass-produced washing machine, trash can and cheap plastic seats, his rather ordinary-looking woman reading a book is part of this vignette from modern life. Yet the anonymous whiteness of the plaster - and its fragility next to the hard-edged appliances - suggest an undercurrent of alienation and emotional isolation. As Irving Sandler observes, 'it is the mystery with which Segal endows his commonplace figures that separates his works from hardcore Pop Art'. Rather than revel in the exuberance of pop culture Segal explores the dark emotional subtext of everyday life. DOMINIQUE LEVY IS A SENIOR SPECIALIST IN THE 20TH CENTURY ART DEPARTMENT,CHRISTIE'S NEW YORK Back to top